---
name: "Barbara Luddy"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/barbara-luddy"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "25 May 1908"
died: "1 April 1979"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 80
updated: "2026-09-17T06:08:06.196701+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Barbara Luddy

Actor. Born 25 May 1908 in Great Falls, Montana, USA. Died 1 April 1979.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 25 May 1908, Great Falls, Montana, USA
- **Died:** 1 April 1979
- **Active:** 1955–1961
- **Works often with:** [Clyde Geronimi](https://film.one/person/clyde-geronimi.md), [Donald Halliday](https://film.one/person/donald-halliday.md), [Walt Disney](https://film.one/person/walt-disney.md)
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 79 (2), 1960s 82 (1)
- **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2883986, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0524853/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/64871

## Streaming the US now

- **Disney+:** [*Lady and the Tramp*](https://film.one/film/lady-and-the-tramp.md) (80), [*Sleeping Beauty*](https://film.one/film/sleeping-beauty.md) (78)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Barbara Luddy

> A radio leading lady who spent her last quarter-century speaking for Disney's dogs, fairies and kangaroos, Barbara Luddy had a warm, well-mannered voice with a temper in it, and Merryweather in *Sleeping Beauty* is where the temper shows.

The dress is to be pink or blue, and three fairies settle it with wands. Barbara Luddy plays Merryweather, the cross one, and cross is the right word: not wicked, not even unkind, just the sister who has been outvoted once too often. The argument is a good gag and it is also how the villain finds them, which is neat writing. It comes at the end of the warmest stretch in a cold film, the attempt to make a dress and a cake without magic, and by the time the dress has fought back and the cake has sagged we were fonder of the three of them than of anyone else on screen, princess included. The reason is plain: they sound like three women who have lived together for a very long time.

She had been acting with nothing but her voice for a long while before Disney found her. She sang in vaudeville as a child, made silent films in the late 1920s, and then spent seventeen years as the leading lady of The First Nighter Program on radio, from 1936 to 1953, with Olan Soule as her co-star. Radio teaches an actor to put everything into the sentence, because there is nowhere else to put it. From 1955 she worked mainly for Disney, with occasional live-action television parts through the 1960s and 1970s.

The Disney parts divide neatly. Lady, the cocker spaniel in *Lady and the Tramp* (1955), is her largest role and the refined one. Merryweather in *Sleeping Beauty* (1959) is the spirited one. Rover in *One Hundred and One Dalmatians* (1961) and Kanga in the Pooh films, from *Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree* (1966) to the compilation *The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh* (1977), are the motherly ones. Our review of *Lady and the Tramp* gave its praise to the animators, for the care taken over how a dog moves, and to the spaghetti, and did not single her out. That is fair, and it is also how this kind of work is supposed to go: the voice fits the drawing so closely that you stop noticing there is a voice.

The limit is the same as the virtue. Nobody has ever gone to a Disney film for Barbara Luddy, and the studio, having found she was useful as the elegant one or the spirited one or the mother, kept her there. We can find no critic with a reservation about her, which is a compliment and also a sign of how little she was ever asked to risk. If you want to hear what she could do, start with the fairies, and take Merryweather's side on the dress.

## Biography

Barbara Luddy (1908–1979) was an American actress. She began her career in vaudeville and appeared in silent films in the late 1920s before working extensively in radio, including on the long-running series *The First Nighter Program*.

Luddy is best known for her voice roles in Walt Disney animated films. She provided the voice of Lady in *Lady and the Tramp* (1955) and Merryweather in *Sleeping Beauty* (1959). She also voiced Kanga in several Winnie the Pooh featurettes and other characters in *One Hundred and One Dalmatians* (1961) and *Robin Hood* (1973).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (3)

- *One Hundred and One Dalmatians* (1961), Fi1m 82, as Rover (voice) — [page](https://film.one/film/one-hundred-and-one-dalmatians.md)
- *Sleeping Beauty* (1959), Fi1m 78, as Merryweather (voice) — [page](https://film.one/film/sleeping-beauty.md)
- *Lady and the Tramp* (1955), Fi1m 80, as Lady (voice) — [page](https://film.one/film/lady-and-the-tramp.md)

## Also known for

- *Robin Hood* (1973), Mother Rabbit / Mother Church Mouse (voice) (uncredited)
- *The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh* (1977), Kanga (voice)
- *Once Upon a Studio* (2023), Merryweather (voice) (archive sound)
- *Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day* (1968), Kanga (voice)
- *Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree* (1966), Kanga (voice)
- *Kolchak: The Night Stalker* (1974), Woman
- *Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too* (1974), Kanga (voice)
- *Adam-12* (1968), Woman

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© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/barbara-luddy