Chuck Jones once said Mel Blanc was not the male June Foray's counterpart; rather, Mel Blanc was the male June Foray. She was Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Granny, Cindy Lou Who, and the terrifying Talky Tina, yet for years she worked entirely uncredited. This is the story of a performer whose job was to be invisible and who demanded to be seen.

This deep dive traces nearly nine decades of work, from a dancer sidelined by pneumonia who channeled everything into her voice, to an industry advocate who forced Hollywood to treat animation as high art. We follow her from golden-age radio through Disney, Warner Bros., and the institutions she built.

• How a dancer's physical understanding of breath and posture made her voice acting uniquely embodied
• Why studios kept voice actors nameless, and how she made herself indispensable inste ...