Born in 1947 in Glendale, Allwine grew up in Burbank and graduated from John Burroughs High School.
“They had a good performing arts department and he did many productions, like ‘Charlie’s Aunt’ and others,” she said. “He loved doing shows there. He always talked really fondly of the teachers there.”
Allwine was very proud to be the voice of Mickey Mouse, Taylor said, but added he was never a show-off about it.
“We’ve always said we were the caretakers of these characters,” she said.
And part of that belief was to keep the mystique of their characters by not using their voices in public, Taylor said.
“We tried to never break that bond,” she said. “Mickey is his own person.”
Allwine used to make phone calls to ill children and talk to them in Mickey’s voice, Taylor said. Once he saw a little boy in the park who was crying.
“Wayne came up and stood behind him and in Mickey’s voice, asked him not to cry,” she said. “Then Wayne said ‘Where’d he go? He was here just a second ago.’ But there was no more crying.”
One of Allwine’s biggest fans is Rick Dempsey, senior vice president of Creative Disney Character Voices Inc. at the Walt Disney Co. campus in Burbank.
They met 20 years ago when Dempsey started at Disney, he said. Allwine was already cast as the voice of Mickey Mouse.
“It was one of the greatest thrills to meet the voice of Mickey Mouse,” he said. “I was a huge Disney fan. The beauty of Wayne was once you met the guy, there was an instant friendship that lasted 20 1/2 years. There was no pretension about being the voice, he was as humble as Mickey himself.”
And he made people laugh, Dempsey said.
