Ilene Woods

'Ilene Woods' (qv) was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of "a backstage mom" who was responsible for Ilene getting her show biz start on the stage--at age two! At 14, during a vacation in New York City, she received an offer to top-line her own radio show once she became available at the end of that school year. "The 'Ilene Woods' (qv) Show," a three-nights-a-week, 15-minute musical series, soon started its run on the Blue Network with the teenager as its star. Radio work in Chicago preceded a move to California, her first and only on-screen movie role (_On Stage Everybody (1945)_ (qv)) and a stint on the 'Jack Carson' (qv)-starring radio series "Sealtest Village Store." Her songwriter-friends 'Mack David' (qv) and 'Jerry Livingston' (qv) asked her, as a favor, to record two of their newest songs, not telling her that they were for the upcoming Disney animated feature _Cinderella (1950)_ (qv). When 'Walt Disney' (qv) heard her voice on the recordings, he chose her to voice that film's title role. Woods, married at age 17, had three children, a girl and two boys; when the third was born, she "re-cast" herself in the role of full-time wife and mother.::Tom Weaver <tomweavr@aol.com>