Voice actor, writer, and director Peter Fernandez died 15 July 2010 of lung cancer. Born 29 January 1927 in New York City, he may be best remembered for voicing (after translating and directing) the title character in Speed Racer, which came to the US in 1967. So connected was he to the series that he was given a cameo role as a race announcer in the live-action film that was released two years ago.
He was a model and radio actor as a child, and appeared in the Broadway play Whiteoaks when he was 11. He was drafted into the Army during World War II. After the war, he worked as a writer for pulp magazines. When producer Fred Ladd started imporiting Japanese cartoon series (including Astro Boy, Gigantor, and then Speed Racer) in the early 1960s, he hired Fernandez to write English dialogue. That work lead to dubbing, and to a whole career in animation that included writing, acting, and directing.
His genre work, in multiple capacities, included: Courage the Cowardly Dog (1999-2002), Nattens engel (1998), Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders (1995), Gandahar (1988), The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986), Castle in the Sky (1986), Fantasy Forest (1986), Day of the Dead (1985), Silent Madness (1984), The Enchanted Journey (1984), 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983), Blood Link (1982), Dogs of Hell (1982), Star Blazers (1979), Taro the Dragon Boy (1979), Rupan sansei: Mamo karano chousen (1978), Puss ‘n Boots Travels Around the World (1976), Infra-Man (1975), L’anticristo (1974), Speed Racer (1967), The Killing Bottle (1967), The Space Giants (1967), Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster (1966), Gigantor (1964), and Astroboy (1963).
Fernandez is survived by his wife, Noel Smith (whom he married in 1978), a sister, a brother, two children from his first marriage (to Marion Russell, which ended in divorce), a stepdaughter, and nine grandchildren.