Actor creates Potter patter

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Sep 2, 2007 | by Dennis Lythgoe Deseret Morning News

It was his 72nd birthday, and Jim Dale was relaxing at home on his bed in New York City, with his dog on one side and the telephone on the other.

The famed British-born actor, sometime songwriter and superstar of audio books, had just returned from a reading tour around the country for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

"I'm a jack of all trades and master of none," he said wryly. "I can't be very good at any of them."

On the contrary, of course, his commanding voice has provided narration for each of the seven Potter books. Author J.K. Rowling created 146 voices for "Deathly Hallows," all of which are provided by Dale.

Book No. 5 got Dale recognized by Guinness World Records for his 134 voices, so he is excited about breaking his own record. His grandkids, he claims, care more about that record than they do his narration.

When a Potter book is finished, he must record it quickly so the audio version can be packaged and put on the shelf the same day that the book is released.

How does someone provide a continuous narration for 17 hours (over about 2 1/2 weeks) without forgetting or muffing one of those voices? He creates his own "rules and shortcuts."

Dale said that before he records a new book, he "glances through the first 100 pages, searching for voices," and then he develops them. He marks the pages with voice numbers and records a sentence of that voice on a little tape recorder.

The next day he goes to the studio and records most of the 100 pages. But he stops recording when he comes to an unfamiliar voice and quickly listens to it, then he resumes. "You can't keep all those voices in your head." That night he goes through the next 100 pages.

Dale said he speaks in a generic British accent, patterned loosely on that of his old school headmaster. "The vocal chords are a delicate little box. I've lost my voice recording some gravelly voices, like Long John Silver. The pirate voices I'm doing now for Dave Barry tear my voice to pieces. Fortunately, I'm the one who decides when to stop recording, which I do if my voice gets a bit rough."

He knows the voice must remain consistent in quality throughout the recording, so he stops if his tiredness begins to show. When he is in a recording mode, he goes straight home and purposely avoids talking to his American wife, Julia Schafler. He doesn't take phone calls or go out. Sometimes he takes honey for his voice, and he avoids "fizzy drinks" that may cause him to burp.

"Recording is like sitting in a straitjacket for hours," Dale said. "I get cramps in my legs. Sometimes I stand, but that gets tiring too. There are always movement problems. If I touch my shirt or my stomach rumbles, or I turn a page, we have to stop recording."

Dale was offered this narration after someone had seen him and Maggie Smith in "Travels With My Aunt," in which they portrayed 33 roles between them. "The only thing is -- I just played the aunt and the nephew. So I got the job under false pretenses. I didn't know I could do voices.

"I try to imitate distinctive voices from English radio. John Houseman, the actor who starred in the wonderful TV series, 'Paper Chase,' became Dumbledor."

Even though Dale is British and spent half his life in England, Stephen Fry does the Potter narration in England. "My audio books are not for sale in England," something he regrets. But Americans often recognize his voice when he checks into a hotel. His target audience -- young children -- often memorize the books, so if he makes a mistake, a young girl will stand during a reading and say, "You left out a sentence."

An estimated 12 million people have heard the Potter books on audio over the past eight years.

He considers Rowling to be a genius. "Any woman with seven stories in her head without a computer -- then writes it all down with a pencil -- is remarkable."

Dale gives the characters "broad English accents" and avoids speaking too quickly, so all listeners can understand. "If you can't understand the narration, it is the narrator's fault."

As a songwriter, Dale's most popular song remains "Georgy Girl," which he wrote for the Lynn Redgrave movie, for which he still receives royalty checks. But he says writing songs has only been a hobby. He started as a comedian and pop singer in England. He hopes to continue acting in Broadway plays and musicals until he is 90.

His next play is "Busker Alley," written by "the Mary Poppins people," and he is doing the narration for the new ABC-TV series, "Pushing Daisies." His resume is roughly the length of a novella and includes radio, TV and theater credits, including Shakespeare.

Dale has several new audio books in the planning stages, including "A Christmas Carol" and "Alice in Wonderland." He has already completed "Peter Pan." "I want to do the good stuff while I'm hot."

E-mail: dennis@desnews.com