Singer Ilene Woods died 1 July 2010 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Born Jacquelyn Ruth Woods on 5 May 1929 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, she was the speaking and signing voice of the title character in Walt Disney’s Cinderella (1950) opposite future talk-show host Mike Douglas. She was named a Disney Legend in 2003.
Woods got her start as a singer on local radio at the age of 11, and three years later had a national radio program, the thrice-weekly 15-minute “The Ilene Woods Show”, which ran on the Blue Network. In 1945, she had her only on-screen film role, in On Stage Everybody. Soon after that, two songwriter-friends, Mack David and Jerry Livingston, asked her to record two of their newest songs as a demo for an upcoming Disney animated feature. When Walt Disney heard her voice on the recordings, he chose her for the film’s title role.
In 1946, she married Stephen Steck, Jr. They had one child, and then divorced. In 1963, she married Ed Shaughnessy (who survives her). She is survived by their son and three grandchildren. Shaughnessy was a drummer with The Tonight Show band from 1967 to 1992.