Is Paige O'Hara, stage and voice actress, lip-singing in the video?

[sparrman]

Nah, I think she's lip-syncing in that first clip.

Just kidding.

Paige is great. She had two Broadway shows under her belt (Showboat and Drood) before Beauty and the Beast ever happened. I saw her on tour in the title role of Drood, and she was stellar.

[beautywickedlover]

I am sorry for bringing this thread back, but I was surfing this webiste's forums today and someone said this: "I was at the NFFC convention where this video was taken and I can assure you that Paige O'Hara was NOT lip syncing. I was close enough to hear her over without the mic and she really was singing."

http://www.dvdizzy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13521&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=960&sid=4b3799830e5352037ea36eef093349b0

I don't know if I should believe them or not.

[Gaveston2]

I've known Paige since she was 14 and I've heard her sing countless times, sick or not.

If she was lip-syncing, she had no choice, and I will bet it had something to do with the venue, not with how she was feeling. She and Benson are both live performers at heart and are used to singing under all sorts of conditions.

If she was lip-synching, so was Jodie Benson. The two are good friends, but each has too much pride to lip-synch while the other sings live. To my ear, it sounds like they may be singing to pre-recorded tracks (as opposed to the Dennis Miller Show where Paige is singing with a piano).

Oh, and yes, Paige can still sing that song in that key. No problem.

[beautywickedlover]

^ You're right Paige can still sing very well.

For all those who don't think she can listen to her sing in this video beginning at 4:57 and ending at 5:43.



Judy the Musical Paige O'Hara intervew

[Gaveston2]

I saw that production, beauty. Paige was brilliant in it: she sang it beautifully and played Garland movingly without ever seeming to do an "impersonation."

(I've already admitted that I am biased, but the audience seemed to agree.)

[beautywickedlover]

I was disappointed to read this the other day.

"The real Julie Nathanson. I talk for a living. Zeta Project, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars 2, StarCraft II, Skylanders Giants, current voice Disney's Princess Belle"

I suppose it wouldn't be fair to not give this lady a chance, but I feel like a big part of my childhood has ended since someone new is voicing a character that I have loved over the years. It stinks that Paige has been retired as the voice of the character, but at least her voice will not be removed from the 1991 film and its other movies.










Julie Nathanson Twitter

[GavestonPS]

The only clip of BATB at Disneyland that I've seen is clearly Paige singing the songs on the movie soundtrack. It's also Paige's own voice on the video games. (I was wrong here. beautywickedlover cites a source in the next post saying that Nathanson is now voicing the games.)

Maybe Ms. Nathanson dubbed spoken lines necessitated by cutting the show down to the theme park length.

But, beautywickedlover, your post ("At least Paige's voice has been preserved...") reads as if Paige O'Hara died. She did not. (She appears in MENOPAUSE THE MUSICAL in Las Vegas and has for four or five years, singing live (to a prerecorded orchestra track) 8 or so times per week.)

She sings every bit as well as she ever did, if not better. What she HAS stopped doing is singing like a teenager, which Disney asked her to do for years. Particularly since the Judy Garland show she did two years ago, she has been belting full out, something she does better than almost anyone. (She sang Garland's songs in Garland's keys, which gives one a sense of her range.)

The clip that is the subject of this thread is an arrangement created for her CD of children's lullabies. When she sings the title song live, she usually sings full out. I don't know whether she was lip synching or not, but she was obviously uncomfortable, crammed on that tiny stage. Look at her body language: the arms folded in front of her are the classic indicator of being ill at ease.

I don't know why, though singing in a crowd can't be easy. By the time I asked her several years later, she didn't remember which appearance I was referring to. She spends little time on the internet and hasn't seen this thread.

(Usual disclaimer: Paige and I grew up together and remain close friends. I don't pretend to be completely objective.)

[beautywickedlover]

"But, beautywickedlover, your post ("At least Paige's voice has been preserved...") reads as if Paige O'Hara died"

I chose the wrong words to say. Sorry. I am aware that she is very much alive. I saw photos and videos of her attending the opening of the new Fantasyland at Disney World. I've made changes to my last post. What I meant was that even though Paige is not voiced Belle anymore in video games and other media, her voice will always remain in the original film and its sequels along with the Kingdom Hearts games. Ms. Nathanson assumed the role beginning in the game 'Kinect Disneyland Adventures'. In this article Paige also said that she has indeed been retired as the voice of Belle.

Quote:

The gift receded when Disney finally retired her speaking voice in favor of a Belle voice-alike six months ago. "They did a one-fell swoop of all the older princesses and decided to replace all of us," she says. "I was very upset," to the point of re-recording some lines to prove she could still cut it.
But she had to admit, "I did have to work really hard and vocalize soprano for hours on end to get it up there."

End quote

Jodi Benson is still voicing Ariel because she still sounds youthful.





Belle still tolls for actress O'Hara

[GavestonPS]

Thanks, beauty, I hadn't seen that article and I don't think Paige has been crying in her beer, since she never mentioned it to her friends. But as I suspected, it's the speaking voice they replaced.

Which makes sense: it's been over 20 years and Paige wasn't 16 when she recorded the part.

But I promise you, if she has a problem, it's that she sometimes sounds too young, not too old. She was never much of a smoker or drinker and never did drugs, so time has done little damage to her instrument. (She's also happily married: sorry to make her sound dull. She is not. LOL.)

[bk]

"She sang the title song "Beauty and the Beast," which she also covered on her debut album."

And no one in this years long thread corrects this? It would have been very difficult for Miss O'Hara to sing Beauty and the Beast on her debut album, since her debut album was a Jerry Herman album. Know what I mean?

[beautywickedlover]

"I don't think Paige has been crying in her beer, since she never mentioned it to her friends."

I know that she probably is not. The article mentioned that she realized that change is inevitable and she was working harder than ever at this point in her life to still sound like Belle. She also seems to have moved on to painting Belle for Disney Fine Art.

I just did not think that Disney would replace Paiige at this point in her life. Kathryn Beaumont, the voice of Alice from 'Alice in Wonderland' and Wendy Darling from 'Peter Pan', was still voicing these characters, who are no older than 12, when she was over 60 in video games and the program, 'House of Mouse'. But she was eventually replaced by an actress named Hynden Walch.

http://celebritytalentbooking.com/celebrity/hynden-walch/

[GavestonPS]

I don't think Disney has "dumped" Paige. Despite the stories one hears about the "Evil Empire", Paige has said many times that Disney has always been very good to her. They still bring her in to appear at events at the parks. And they hired her to sing a newly rediscovered song written for PETER PAN in a video that appears on that DVD's extras.

As for her fine art, Paige began painting 30 years ago to kill time in between acting jobs. Her paintings based on BATB cels really took off and are still sold by the Disney Fine Art Division, but that isn't all she paints.

Her paintings are available in several of the leading fine art galleries in Las Vegas and elsewhere.

***

bk, you are right, of course. The children's album on which Paige sings the BATB title song was by no means her debut. The Jerry Herman album (my personal favorite of hers) was her debut SOLO album, but I believe she had recorded several show albums even earlier.