Pat Carroll, the voice of Ursula in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, died on Saturday, according to Variety. The 95-year-old worked as an entertainer for decades, winning an Emmy in 1957 for her work on the sketch comedy show Caesar’s Hour. Variety reports Carroll died while recovering from pneumonia.
A portrait of Pat Carroll.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
An actor and comedian, Carroll was a regular on Caesar’s Hour and on the sitcom The Danny Thomas Show in the ’60s. Her credits also include the TV series Too Close for Comfort, She’s the Sheriff, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Police Woman. She also appeared on game shows including The $10,000 Pyramid, The Match Game, To Tell the Truth, I’ve Got a Secret, Password and You Don’t Say.
Carroll made her Broadway debut in 1955 with the musical revue Catch a Star, which garnered her a Tony nomination. She starred in a one-woman show about the writer Gertrude Stein (Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein) beginning in 1979, and won a spoken-word Grammy for her recorded version of the play.
Her voiceover career took off in the ’80s, according to The Hollywood Reporter, when she lent her voice to cartoon TV shows like Galaxy High School, Yogi’s Treasure Hunt, Foofur and Pound Puppies. She also voiced Granny in the English language dub of My Neighbor Totoro.
According to The New York Times, Stein once said her role as the sea witch Ursula in the 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid was “the one thing in my life that I’m probably most proud of.”
“I don’t even care if, after I’m gone, the only thing that I’m associated with is Ursula,” she said, according to the Times. “That’s OK with me, because that’s a pretty wonderful character and a pretty marvelous film to be remembered by.”
On Sunday, Carroll’s daughter Tara Karsian wrote about her mother’s passing on Instagram. “It is with a heavy heart that I write that my mother, Pat Carroll, has passed away at the grand old age of 95. We ask that you honor her by having a raucous laugh at absolutely anything today (and everyday forward) because besides her brilliant talent and love, she leaves my sister Kerry and I with the greatest gift of all, imbuing us with humor and the ability to laugh…even in the saddest of times.”
