Linda Gary’s voice work for the Filmation Masters of the Universe run is among the most accomplished sustained voice performances of the entire 1980s animation era. She voiced Teela, the Sorceress, Queen Marlena, Evil-Lyn, Catra (in She-Ra), and a rotating cast of secondary female roles across approximately 200 episodes between He-Man and She-Ra. This episode is a memorial-style retrospective on her work and the broader career that culminated in her early death from a brain tumour in 1995 at age 50.
Gary began her voice career at Filmation in the late 1970s on The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and worked through the studio’s catalogue across the 1980s, becoming one of Lou Scheimer’s most trusted female leads. Her Teela has a particular technical achievement: she gave the character a slightly different vocal placement than the Sorceress, who was Teela’s actual biological mother in the show’s lore, so that audiences could feel the family resemblance without ever being told.
The Sorceress is the role most associated with her. Linda Gary’s Sorceress carries an authority and a gentle gravity that nothing on Saturday-morning television in 1983 had any business carrying. The voice direction (Lou Scheimer) allowed her to take time with each line, to use pauses, and to let the character feel ancient without ever feeling tired. The Sorceress scenes are some of the most-loved moments in the entire Filmation run, and Gary’s performance is the reason.
Beyond Filmation, Gary worked on Strawberry Shortcake, The Smurfs, Captain N: The Game Master, Spider-Man: The Animated Series (as Aunt May), X-Men: The Animated Series (multiple roles), Transformers (Arcee, Lyzack), G.I. Joe (the Baroness in earlier episodes), Pinky and the Brain (multiple guest roles), and The Critic. Her Spider-Man Aunt May is the role most non-MOTU fans remember.
The 1995 cancer diagnosis was sudden. She continued working until weeks before her death; her last recording sessions were for Spider-Man: The Animated Series in early 1995. Marvel Productions credited her on the closing episodes of the season she had been working on.
The Power-Con community holds an annual Linda Gary memorial panel that runs alongside the convention; archival audio from her past interviews and from her later voice direction sessions has been preserved by Filmation historian and former staff member Bob Kane.
Length: approximately 55 minutes.
