Charles Martinet has been the voice of Mario for quite some time now, but he's not the only actor to bring the famous character to life. In the early '90s, Mario was voiced by Walker Boone, who would provide his vocal talents to both The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World cartoon shows, from 1990 and 1991 respectively.
Sadly, Boone – whose real name was Theodore Nicoloff – passed away at the end of January of this year, but his death has gone largely unnoticed until today. He was 76.
Boone was born on May 4th, 1944 and attended McGill Law School before embarking on a teaching career in London and Toronto. He then made a name for himself in various American television shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, War of the Worlds, Highlander: The Raven and Due South.
Optimus Prime voice actor Peter Cullen was the first to give Mario a voice, playing the character in 1983's Saturday Supercade. Lou Albano, who was the voice of Mario prior to Boone (in 1989's The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!), sadly passed away in 2009. The late Bob Hoskins played the character in the troubled live-action 1993 movie.
Super Mario's voice is something of a hot topic right now; we're getting a Super Mario movie soon, but it hasn't been confirmed that Martinet is voicing the character. We do know, however, that comedian Sebastian Maniscalco is involved – he recently confirmed he was playing the role of Spike, Mario and Luigi's boss from Wrecking Crew.
[source aftercare.org, via twitter.com]
