Mary Costa voiced Princess Aurora in Disney’s 1959 animation masterpiece,Sleeping Beauty. She talks about the years that went into the making of the film.
“One night in 1952, I was at a party and a group of guests were gathered round the piano. I began to sing under my breath and, when I finished, the man next to me, who was the music director for Disney, said they’d spent three years looking for a voice for Princess Aurora. He asked me to audition the next day. When I arrived, I found a sound booth crowded with people and looked in vain for Walt Disney. It turned out he was listening from behind a screen and knew after the first bar that I was what he’d been seeking. I had a warmth to my voice, he said, and my easy phrasing sounded like it was a plausible extension of speech.
When Walt decided he wanted me to do the speaking part too, there was concern about my Tennessee accent. “If Vivien Leigh could play a southern girl in Gone With the Wind, surely a southern girl can play an English princess,” Marc Davis, Aurora’s lead animator, said to me. Luckily, my dad and I had always enjoyed practising accents and English was our favourite, so when they hastily scribbled a few lines for me to say, I passed muster.
Because everything was hand-drawn, if the animators changed so much as a single expression I’d have to re-record the line. It ended up taking three years to complete my recordings. Walt told me to imagine the changing colours of a kaleidoscope and try to paint with my voice — advice that coloured my whole career.
Meanwhile, Marc would sit in the sound booth and sketch my every gesture and expression. Although they’d used an actress to model the figure of Aurora, he superimposed some of my mannerisms. When I took my mother to see the film, she cried out: “Oh Mary, she looks just like you!”
The tensions that dogged the many years of filming never touched me, partly because the other actors and I had such fun. Eleanor Audley, who voiced Maleficent, was a small person, but had such a huge, commanding voice we’d all rush into the sound booth to hear her.
Marc modelled Maleficent’s imposing facial features and expressions on her, yet off-mic she was a hilarious character who loved a joke. The three fairy godmothers and I enjoyed teasing Bill Shirley, who played the prince. He was shy and handsome and we all had a crush on him. Before he recorded a song, Verna Felton, who played Flora, would hold up a pencil as though she was about to conduct him and he’d crack up.
Being with Walt taught me an invaluable work ethic. He said to achieve your dream you needed three other Ds: dedication, determination and discipline. He wanted everyone to be punctual and prepared and would speak right out if you weren’t.
Back then, the voice wasn’t given much prominence in animated films and I wasn’t even invited to the premiere. I had no idea that this would be a role I would always be remembered for. Once, when someone asked me what it was like doing a voiceover, Marc told her sternly: “Voices are the ocean of sound on which we animate.”
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