I want to start out by thanking the handful of people who wrote to me to let me know where to find more info on Katie Leigh! Thanks to them I got a few questions answered and have a lot more info to stick here, as well as having seen a few pictures of Katie, so now I know that among other things, she's got a *great* smile that just lights up the room. :)
As far as I can tell (since she said that she was about 24 in 1983), Katie is right around 46 years old, and a mother. Katie has been a voice on cartoons since the early 80's, when she was on such backbones of the North American child's youth as "Dungeons and Dragons", "the Gummi Bears", and my favourite, "Muppet Babies". She played Rowlf! Can you believe that?? *G*
Katie was also the voice of a Junior Ghostbuster on "Slimer and the Real
Ghostbusters!". Now, I loved "The Real Ghostbusters", and I want to say I'd
love any work the wonderful Ms. Leigh would do, but... I hated the Junior
Ghostbusters. I don't know anyone who doesn't. ;) Not her fault though...
Thanks to interviews with Katie on her fan club website, I've finally had this information verified (after YEARS of wondering! LOL) - Katie's first acting role was on the hideous early morning Disney Channel kiddie show "Dumbo's Circus", as Dumbo. For years I never saw that verified anywhere, but I remembered noticing that Dumbo sounded a lot like Sunni Gummi
at the same time I noticed that Lionel sounded like one of Jim's voices. Turns out that she was recently asked in an interview what her first voice role was, and that was it; apparently she expects that no one would remember it. How sad - I did. But for the record I thought she was adorable. ^_~
Most of Katie's voice work was done in the 80s, primarily on a few rather
cute shows aimed at younger children. She has had a few roles in the 90s, but
they're much more interspaced. The most recent one listed was from "Babe: Pig
in the City", from 1998, in which she played the kitten. (awwwww) She was also a
voice in a video game that same year.
Katie's main focus now, though, is on a radio program called "Adventures In Odyssey", on which she plays Connie Kendall. AIO is run by a company called "Focus on the Family" and reflects Katie's firm belief in the importance of family and faith. From what I've read of her in interviews she's a very warm person who is committed to helping kids.
I've always liked Katie's vocalizations. Everything I've heard her do, I feel
she's given a really distinct character to. She does seem to do voices of
young boys quite well, but I believe she's just talented in general. :) I can't
recall her ever having portrayed any other characters on Darkwing.
Katie's publicity photo
(Taken from the Official Katie Leigh Fan Club. They have many more photos there but I felt they should be unique to the site.)
Voiceography (that's a made up word, but I didn't make it up):
For a much fuller list, visit Katie's page at Voice Chasers. There are a lot more roles there, many of which I didn't include here because they don't include the years.