Born:
October 25, 1957
in
Dayton, Ohio
Best Known For:
Being the voice of Bart Simpson.
Early-life:
Nancy Jean Cartwright was born on October 25, 1957 in Dayton, Ohio, United States and raised in Kettering, Ohio. She discovered her talent for voices at a young age and won a school-wide speech competition with her performance of Rudyard Kipling's How the Camel Got His Hump when she was in fourth grade. Nancy attended Fairmont West High School. She frequently entered public speaking competitions and judges often said she should do cartoon voices. Nancy studied at Ohio University and took a part-time job doing voiceovers on radio adverts. She began corresponding with Hanna-Barbera cartoons voice actor Daws Butler for feedback on her work while at university and transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles to be closer to him and Hollywood.
Career:
Cartwright's first professional voice acting role was in the animated series Richie Rich. She went on to appear on-screen in the leading role in TV film Marian Rose White (1982) and her first feature film was Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). In 1987, she auditioned for a role on The Simpsons while it was a series of animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show. She voiced Bart Simpson for three seasons on The Tracey Ullman Show and has retained the role ever since The Simpsons became a half-hour show. Cartwright also voices other characters on The Simpsons, including Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum and Todd Flanders. Besides The Simpsons, Cartwright has voiced Chuckie Finster in Rugrats and All Grown Up!, Mindy in Animaniacs, Rufus in Kim Possible and many other characters. She has also appeared on-camera in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, 24, Empty Nest and Godzilla (1998).
Quote:
On auditioning for The Simpsons: 'I went in, saw Lisa, and didn't really see anything I could sink my teeth into. But the audition piece for Bart was right there, and I'm like, ‘whoa, 10 years old, under-achiever and proud of it? Yeah, man - that's the one I want to do!'.'
Trivia:
She published her autobiography, My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy, in 2000 and adapted it into a one-woman play in 2004.