For those who grew up in the 60s and 70s, Sterling Price Holloway Jr (1905-92) is the voice of Winnie the Pooh; there can be no other. He was also the voice of the snake Kaa in The Jungle Book (1967) and, before that, of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (1951), amongst other Disney performances.
After training at the American School of Dramatic Arts, Holloway toured widely with stock companies, both acting and singing. He was only 21 when he moved to Hollywood, making his debut in a Fox short called The Battling Kangaroo (1928).
Holloway appeared in over 170 pictures, mostly credited, and almost always bringing something eccentric to the role, with his very distinctive voice and physical appearance. Typical examples would be the frenzied delivery boy in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), or ‘Chilly’ Willie Simms in Mitchell Leisen’s comedy Remember the Night (1940).
He was cast against type, and to great effect, in Lewis Milestone’s war film A Walk in the Sun (1945). He plays the medic McWilliams, whose brief lack of concentration brings about his own death.
Sterling Holloway made appearances in four Metro musicals. In Dancing Girl he plays Pinky, the scene-stealing author of the show being staged. He was uncredited in Going Hollywood and The Cat and the Fiddle, and then featured as Mishka, Danilo’s orderly, in Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow, where he was finally allowed to demonstrate his singing voice.
Holloway carried on working into his eighties, bowing out by narrating the highly-respected ‘Atomic Shakespeare’ episode of Moonlighting in 1986.
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