About Thurl Ravenscroft
Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (; February 6, 1914 – May 22, 2005) was an American actor and bass singer best known for providing the voice of Tony the Tiger in Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials from the 1950s until his death and for singing "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" in the 1966 Christmas television special How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. Ravenscroft did voice-over work and singing for Disney in various films and Disneyland attractions (which were later featured at Walt Disney World), the best known including The Haunted Mansion, Country Bear Jamboree, Mark Twain Riverboat, Pirates of the Caribbean, Disneyland Railroad, and Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. His voice-acting career began in 1939 and lasted until his death in 2005 at age 91. == Early life and career == Ravenscroft left his native Norfolk, Nebraska, in 1933 for California, where he studied at Otis Art Institute. In 1939, he joined a singing group formed by tenor Bill Days called The Sportsmen: Days, Johnny Rarig, Max Smith, and Ravenscroft. They served as backup singers to vocalist Marie Greene on the Okeh record label (credited as "Marie Greene and Her Merry Men"). The quartet also contributed to a Disney feature, Pinocchio (1940), singing "Honest John". This was deleted from the film, but can still be heard in the supplements on the 2009 DVD. The group, billed as The Four Merry Men, appeared in three-minute musical films, produced in 1941 by the Featurettes company, for coin-operated jukeboxes. That same year the Four Merry Men left Featurettes for the more successful Soundies company, and made more jukebox musicals; they were now billing themselves as "The Four Sportsmen".
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