Walter Tetley

Walter Tetley (born Walter Campbell Tetzlaff; June 2, 1915 – September 4, 1975) was an American actor specializing in child impersonation during radio's classic era, with regular roles as Leroy Forrester on The Great Gildersleeve and Julius Abbruzzio on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, as well as continuing as a voice-over artist in animated cartoons, commercials, and spoken-word record albums. He is perhaps best known as the voice of Sherman in the Jay Ward-Bill Scott Mr. Peabody TV cartoons. Career Tetley's foray into voices for theatrical cartoons began in 1936, as the voice of Felix the Cat in three of Van Beuren's Rainbow Parade cartoon shorts: The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg, Neptune Nonsense, and Bold King Cole. The latter short starts with Tetley singing "Nature and Me", showcasing his song styling abilities. For his entire adult life, Tetley had the voice and appearance of a preteen boy, which led to him largely taking voice roles for young boys. The exact cause was never confirmed - while co-star Bill Scott half-jokingly claimed that Tetley had been castrated, it is also possible that he had Kallmann syndrome. Whatever the cause, his unusual situation would allow him to hold roles for young boys far longer than actual boys of that age could before their voices would lower due to puberty. In the late 1930s, he was often featured in Fred Allen's Town Hall Tonight. When Allen took his cast to Hollywood to film Love Thy Neighbor in 1940, Tetley decided to stay in the Coast, working on several radio shows, including The Great Gildersleeve, on which he portrayed Gildy's nephew Leroy until the show's end in 1958. In the late 1940s, he was the voice of Andy Panda in the Walter Lantz Productions cartoons distributed by Universal Pictures.