Disney actor and narrator Laurie Main dead at 89

Lau­rence “Lau­rie” Main

Australian-born actor Lau­rence “Lau­rie” Main, the voice of Dr. Wat­son in the 1986 Dis­ney car­toon movie The Great Mouse Detec­tive, died Feb­ru­ary 8 in Los Ange­les. He was 89.

Long asso­ci­ated with Disney’s “Win­nie the Pooh” char­ac­ter, he was host and nar­ra­tor of the Dis­ney Channel’s Wel­come to Pooh Cor­ner, a 1980s series com­bin­ing live action and puppets.

He also nar­rated the Dis­ney ani­mated shorts Win­nie the Pooh Dis­cov­ers the Sea­sons (1981) and Win­nie the Pooh and a Day for Eey­ore (1983). In the voice cast of the 1999 car­toon video Win­nie the Pooh: Sea­sons of Giv­ing, he also was the story reader on many Dis­ney Read-Along tapes and CDs.

Main voiced Reg­gie on Ruby-Spears Pro­duc­tions’ The Incred­i­ble Detec­tives, a half-hour 1979 pro­gram that aired as an ABC Week­end Special.

He was in the voice casts of the Hanna-Barbera Aus­tralia TV-movies 5 Weeks in a Bal­loon (1977) and Black Beauty (1978), along with the series Monch­hichis and The All-New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show (both 1983) and The Yogi Bear Show (1988).

Born Lau­rence G. Main in Mel­bourne on Novem­ber 29, 1929, he left home at 16. Later, he moved to Eng­land. There, his reper­tory the­ater work included Diary of a Nobody.

After Main arrived in the United Stated in 1960, he stud­ied act­ing with Agnes Moore­head. His Broad­way debut came in First Impres­sions (1959); that year, he played oppo­site Eartha Kitt in Jolly’s Progress. Other Broad­way pro­duc­tions included 1963’s Lord Pengo and 1978’s 13 Rue de l’Amour.

Main appeared in many live-action movies, includ­ing Her­bie Goes to Monte Carlo, Freaky Fri­day and Mom and Dad Save the World.

He appeared in such TV shows as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Bewitched, Fam­ily Affair, May­berry R.F.D., That Girl and Facts of Life Goes to Paris.