I was watching some old “What’s My Line” episodes on YouTube and I must say the panel is very good at guessing celebrities, often even when they try to disguise their voices.
Louis Armstrong is one example that couldn’t disguise it even if he tried, however they only got Carol Channing by a fluke.
Even when they try to disguise their voices some come through, like George Burns almost did it as did Haley Mills when she tried to do a French accent and her English accent came through.
I also realize back in the day, the show came from NYC so the panelists had some idea of who was and wasn’t in town.
So, (finally) my question to you is what celebrities of today do you think have such unique voices you could immediately guess them? Or even if they tried to disguise them, do you think you’d still get.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of “unique” voices as there were in the past, but then again, I think smoking had a lot to do with that
Most well-known politicians (Obama, W, Palin, etc)
Yeardley Smith
Oprah Winfrey
Will Smith
Some of these people’s voices are not so much distinctive as the person behind the voice is so omnipresent in their fame, that their voices are ingrained in our heads.
Madonna (especially if she’s doing her ridiculous British accent), Michael Jackson (probably Janet too), Cher, Björk, Oprah, Jerry Seinfeld, Neil Tennant, Dolly Parton and Tim Curry came to mind immediately. Some of those, like Madonna, aren’t there because they have super-distinctive speaking voices but because I’ve spent so much time listening to them.
An odd one is Kylie and Dannii Minogue - their speaking voices are really similar so I think I’d be able to say “that’s a Minogue sister” but I wouldn’t easily guess which one.
And I think there’s one voice in the world that I could narrow down to one of two speakers–Jack Nicholson or Christian Slater. They sound the same to me (of course, they resemble each other in other ways as well, which is often pointed out in the media, so maybe their vocal resemblance is a trick I’m playing on myself).
I recognize Tim Allen and Denis Leary’s voices from their ads for car companies. Leary’s voice is distinctive so that wasn’t surprising, but Tim Allen? Yep.
Oh, and that actress from Chicago Hope who does a cosmetics ad.