10 Fascinating Facts About Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
5. A Future Disney Mainstay Was Considered For Sleepy
The seven dwarfs were all voiced by a mixture of existing Disney voice actors and well-known comedians of the time. Sneezy was created purely for the fact that they could get Billy Gilbert as a voice, who was famous for his comic sneezing routines. Other names like comedian Roy Atwell voiced Doc and the original voice of Goofy and Pluto, Pinto Colvig, played both Grumpy and Sleepy.
However, the future Disney Legend wasn’t originally going to play both of these parts. Walt Disney originally wanted to bring in the famous character actor Sterling Holloway to play the part of Sleepy before Colvig was chosen to play both.
This would not be the final Disney project that Sterling would be attached to however, as in 1941 he was brought in to play the role of the Stork in Dumbo and from there he became a reliable choice for the majority of their early feature film projects, including the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, Kaa in The Jungle Book and Roquefort in The Aristocats.
Arguably his most famous Disney role was as the original voice of the title character in 1977’s The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and it’s accompanying shorts, before he was eventually replaced by Hal Smith in the role in 1981. Should he have taken the role as Sleepy though, it would have made him one of the longest tenured voice actors in the company. He was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1991, shortly before his death from lung cancer in 1992.