Grace Stafford

Grace Stafford, born Grace Boyle on November 7, 1903, was an American actress who worked across Broadway, Hollywood film, and voice acting over the course of several decades. She is perhaps best remembered as the voice of Woody Woodpecker, a role she held from 1950 to 1972 and reprised on select occasions thereafter. She was also the wife of animation producer Walter Lantz. Stafford died on March 17, 1992, from spinal cancer, at the age of 88.

Stafford's stage career included a Broadway appearance in 1925 in the play The Rat. Her work in Hollywood began in 1935 through a joint production involving Harold Lloyd's Beverly Hills Little Theatre for Professionals and the Vine Street Theatre. That same year she appeared in the feature film Dr. Socrates, and her live-action film work continued through 1975's Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. Among her more prominent film roles were parts in Anthony Adverse and Blossoms in the Dust.

Her transition into voice acting came about through a notable set of circumstances. Ben Hardaway had been providing Woody Woodpecker's speaking voice since the 1944 short The Barber of Seville, while a separate legal dispute involving Mel Blanc, who had originally supplied Woody's voice and laugh, prompted Walter Lantz to seek a new voice actor entirely. Though Lantz prevailed in court when the judge ruled that Blanc had not copyrighted his voice or contributions, Lantz nonetheless reached an out-of-court settlement with Blanc following an appeal. Motivated by a desire to avoid similar disputes in the future, Lantz organized anonymous auditions in 1950 to find a replacement.

Stafford expressed interest in voicing Woody, but Lantz initially rejected her on the grounds that Woody was a male character. Undeterred, she submitted an anonymous audition tape to Walter Lantz Productions without identifying herself. Lantz selected her voice without knowing its source, and Stafford was hired for the role. She provided Woody's voice continuously from 1950 to 1972, and also performed in non-Woody cartoons produced by the studio. After the Lantz studio closed permanently in 1972, she returned to the character on rare occasions, including Woody's cameo appearance at the 51st Academy Awards ceremony in 1979.

Initially, Stafford chose not to be credited for the role, believing that audiences would be disillusioned upon learning that Woody was voiced by a woman. She eventually reversed that position and, beginning with the 1958 short Misguided Missile, allowed her name to appear on screen. Outside of animation, Stafford appeared on an episode of the television program What's My Line? on November 10, 1963.