Ladies And Gentlemen…Meet The Voice Of Sleeping Beauty

Mary Costa (R) was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and went on to become a famous opera singer. Although Disney’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ debuted in 1958, all the voices were recorded in 1952. ‘Sleeping Beauty’ spent nearly the entire decade of the 1950s in production: the story work began in 1951, animation production took from 1953 until 1958, and the stereophonic musical score, mostly based on Tchaikovsky’s ballet of the same name, was recorded in 1957. The film holds a notable position in Disney animation as the last Disney animated film to use hand-inked cels. Beginning with the next feature, 101 Dalmatians, Disney would move to the use of xerography to transfer animators’ drawings from paper to celluloid. By the way, if you ever put together Aurora model kits and wondered about the name Aurora, it’s Latin for “dawn”. I only now know this because Coast’s character is Princess Aurora and the translation was mentioned in my research. In this photo, the lady on the left is Mary Starr, a well known Knoxville television hostess of the 50s and 60s, and this photo was taken on a visit home by Costa.

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