Anime voice actor Dean Turner dead at 84

Posted:
Jan 6, 2007

Stage and screen actor Dean Turner, a voice performer in English dubs of several Japanese anime series, died December 28 at Kaiser Moanalua Medical Center in Hawaii. He was 84.

A Hawaiian resident for the past 30 years, Turner succumbed to respiratory failure after fighting diabetes for several years, said his partner of 40 years, actor Richard Pellett.

"He was in Kaiser and he went peacefully. He told the nurse to call me to come over, and he said it was time. We said our goodbyes," Pellett told the Honolulu Advertiser.

Turner voiced Lee and the Secretary Of Commerce in Gasaraki (1998), the Department Chief in Heppoko [Silly] Animation Excel Saga (Quack Experimental Anime Excel Saga)(1999), the Maitre D in A.D. Police: To Protect and Serve (1999), and a driver and council member in Noir(2001).

He also guested in live action in Magnum, P.I., Blood and Orchids and other TV shows filmed in Hawaii.

Born on September 7, 1922 in Pocatello, Idaho, he was the son of vaudeville performers who went along the Western circuit. By age 5, he was appearing with them.

Early in his career, Turner was a contract actor for 20th Century-Fox. He appeared in films with Jane Withers and June Haver. "He helped June Haver with her screen test," Pellett recounted.

His acting career came to a halt during the Second World War, when Turner joined the United States Navy.

Heading to the stage afterward, he was in a couple of flops -- but also in Broadway hit Lute Song, starring Mary Martin, Yul Brynner and Nancy Davis (later to be known as Nancy Reagan). Turner was Brynner's understudy and was once lucky enough to perform duets with Martin.

Turner and Pellett met through friends in San Francisco. They lived there, then in Lebanon for a decade before civil war broke out. They forming a theater group in Beirut to stage shows.

Turner also traveled to London and North Africa before settling in Honolulu. In Hawaii, he performed in about 35 stage productions at such theater groups as Army Community Theatre, Diamond Head Theatre and Manoa Valley Theatre. He also performed often in Readers Theatre staged readings at Army Community Theatre.

For a while, Turner was a model. He was the Pepsodent boy for a year, and famed shutterbug Richard Avedon photographed him. A real estate salesman in San Francisco, he bought Victorian gingerbread houses as fixer-uppers, fixed them up and resold them.

He was a fan of theater as well as a performer. Last fall, as part of his wellness effort, he attended his last show, Annie, at ACT's Richardson Theatre.

"Our good friend, Shari Lynn, was playing Miss Hannigan, so he wanted to go," said Pellett. "We hired a van and a nurse and he enjoyed the show."

"I'll miss his sense of humor; it was just absolutely wonderful. He wasn't a religious man. He had religion stuffed down his throat," Pellett said. "So he didn't want a big hoopla, a memorial service."

Turner's remains were sent to the University of Hawaii's John A. Burns Medical School in Kaka'ako.

Turner's lone survivor is Pellett, who said that services are not planned.