Nancy Jean Cartwright was born on October 25, 1957 in Dayton, Ohio. Today, she’s known for a wide range of things, from being an aunt to actress and singer Sabrina Carpenter to being a writer and philanthropist. Yet, she’s hands down most known for playing not one, but five regular characters on what is arguably the longest running scripted television show in television history (Currently on its 36th season – for reference, the number two slot belongs to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which is currently ten seasons behind.)
But we’ll get to that in just a moment.
Young Nancy
Nancy discovered her unique vocal talents at a fairly young age. In the fourth grade at St. Charles Borromeo (in Kettering, Ohio) she won a vocal speech competition by reciting How the Camel Got Its Hump (Rudyard Kipling). During her high school years, she was active in both drama and the marching bands while still participating in the occasional speech competitions, which she soon became a force to be reckoned with in the more humorous categories. After high school, she got a job in Radio doing voice overs for commercials on WING (1410 AM).
During this period, she had gotten the attention of Warner Bros., who seemed to think that with a little refinement, she might be a good candidate for vocal acting in cartoons. They sent her a list of contacts, but there was one name that stood out to her: Daws Butler (voice of Huckleberry Hound, Elroy Jetson, and Yogi Bear, just to name a few.) She called him and left a voice message in a funny Cockney accent. As soon as Butler heard this, he quickly returned the call and the rest, as they say, is history.
He eagerly agreed to be her mentor.
Nancy was accepted at Ohio University where she stayed for a couple of years, but she must have decided that Ohio wasn’t the place to be if you wanted to break into the Entertainment Industry – for that, she’d need to head out to sunny California.
Working Nancy
While she was attending classes at UCLA, she began to meet every week with Butler who would assign her a comedic piece to do. At home, she’d make an audio recording which she would bring to their next meeting so they could critique it.
Butler introduced her to many fo the talent he knew that was wroking at the time for Hanna Barbara. He also introduced her to Gordon Hunt who begged her to audition for a new show he was working on called Richie Rich. (She’d get the part of Gloria.)
In 1980, after hiring the services of a talent agency, she garnered her first acting role for a new sitcom called “In Trouble”, although beyond releasing the pilot as a Made-For-TV movie, the networks passed. In later interviews, Cartwright called the project “forgetable” but was glad that it at least got her foot in the door.
The following year, during the Summers when she wasn’t taking classes at UCLA, she returned to Ohio and joined an Improv Troupe through Kenyon College, where she got to work with the likes of Johnathan Winters.
The following fall, back in LA for school, she autitioned for (and got) a role in a Television movie called Marian Rose White and her performance caught the eye of several television critics who called her chubby and cross eyed, but also stated that lent to her charm. The film would be nominated for an Emmy Award (which it won) but not for Cartwright’s acting, but for Sound Editing.
Fresh off the success for that movie, she auditioned for The Twilight Zone: The Movie, a role about a girl that gets trapped in a cartoon world, a role that in retrospect seemed maybe a bit too perfect, considering what was to come. But, at least Nancy Cartwright was in a major Hollywood Movie so … Good for her.
The Role She Was Meant To Play
By 1987, a slightly more experienced Cartwright auditioned for a series of animated shorts that would bookcase the commercial breaks for a new show called The Tracey Ullman Show, featuring a rather dysfunctional family: The Simpsons. She went into that audition thinking that the role of Lisa would be good for her, but when she read the script, she decided that playing Bart would be a lot more fun.
Even though Tracey Ullman’s show did not last long (some of us think it was cancelled WAY too soon) the network believed The Simpsons was going to be a hit. At the time, Fox was more known for dysfunctional family sitcoms (Married … With Children, anyone) and The Simpsons cartoon certainly fit that bill.
In 1989, the Simpson family dynamics was tweaked a little bit (for example, Maggie never appeared in the original shorts) and with a slightly higher animation budget, The Simpsons debuted, starring Nancy Cartwright as Bart. (To be fair, she also voiced Maggie Simpson, Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, and Nelson Muntz as well.)
I rather doubt that anybody in 1989 had any idea that The Simpsons would become the global phenomenon, with currently 39 seasons, not including the Tracey Ullman shorts, Disney+ Shorts, the movie, themepark rides, and so much more. And a large part of that success was the bad boy character Bart, as well as the actress that played him, Nancy Cartwright.
Nancy Today
Today, Nancy Cartwright continues to voice Bart Simpson, but she had expanded her profile a bit. She recently penned her first memoir, My Life As A 10-Year-Old Boy which is definately worth reading.
Beyond playing a Simpson, she’s also branched out into numerous other cartoons, earning her a reputation in the world of animation as a delight to work with.
In 2005, giving back to the school that helped launch her rather unique career, she formed a scholarship program aiming to help kids follow their dreams in Speech and Voice Acting.
In interviews, Nancy has sometimes commented about being one of the most famous people that people don’t tend to recognize. But, as soon as she pulls off the Bart Simpson voice, suddenly everyone knows who she is.
