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Maddie Blaustein

Madeleine Joan Blaustein (October 9, 1960 — December 11, 2008), most commonly credited as Maddie Blaustein, was an American voice actress for the English-language dub of the Pokémon anime. Her most famous role is that of Meowth. In season 1, she was credited under her birth name Adam Blaustein, while in seasons 2 and 3, as well as the first three movies, she was credited as Addie Blaustein.

Biography

Blaustein was born in Long Island, New York, as Adam John Blaustein. A transgender woman, she was usually cast as male characters due to her deep voice.

In addition to being a voice actress, Blaustein was also an artist and writer. She had written and edited for Marvel Comics and, at the time of her death, was the senior digital artist at DC Comics. She created the character of Rubber-Band Man from the cartoon Static Shock. Blaustein was an artist in Tranny Road Show, a performing group composed of transgender artists and performers. She had also collaborated with Gina Kamentsky on the cartoon Platform 6. Additionally, she coached Kayzie Rogers for anime voice acting.

As a voice actor, Blaustein was one of the original voice actors on Pokémon. Rogers helped her get her first role on the show, where she initially only played characters of the day, but after EP032, she took over Nathan Price's role as Meowth. She had commented that she tried to view the Japanese version of the series, and one of her goals was to emulate the scream that Inuko Inuyama gives Meowth. She remained with the series until the end of the eighth season, when Pokémon USA and TAJ Productions took over the dubbing and distribution of the series. Most of her roles were taken over by Bill Rogers and Billy Beach, who took over Meowth's role.

She returned in the special based on Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness as the voice of Chatot, which is her only role in the PUSA dub, as well as her final role on Pokémon before her death.

Death

Pokémon fan sites PokéBeach and Serebii.net both reported that anonymous sources, at least one affiliated with 4Kids Entertainment, told them Blaustein died in her sleep of a stomach virus on December 11, 2008, after saying she was not feeling well.[1][2]

Several days later on December 16, a blogger for 4Kids' The Buzz news feed posted confirmation of Blaustein's death.[3]

Pokémon roles

Anime

Humans

Major

Minor

Pokémon

Major

Minor

Musical appearances

Video games

Other non-Pokémon roles

Trivia

Shortly after it was announced that the voice cast would change after the eighth season, she joined both the Bulbagarden and Serebii.net forums to answer questions from fans.

Blaustein and Ikue Ohtani are the only actors listed as reprising their anime roles (Meowth and Pikachu, respectively) in Pokémon Live!. While Ohtani is listed as the voice of Pikachu in the show, considering Ohtani's role in the dub is just a reuse of her work from the Japanese version, it's likely only archive recordings of Ikue Ohtani were used for Pikachu in the show. Given this, Maddie is very likely the only actor from the anime to actually contribute a new performance for the live show.

References



