Her mom worked on the behind the scenes of videos, taking Ilene with her. She started acting at two years old. When she was 14, she was given the job to have her own radio show on the new station called The Blue Network on ABC Radio during the 1944 summer. It was shortly known as The Ilene Woods Show. The entire show was about 15 minutes of music for 3 days a week. A lot of songwriters came on the show to present their music to her. That was how she became friends with Mack David and Jerry Livingston. Later in life she moved to California, feeling it was time to move on. Her mother was a lot like Ilene. She was very strict, and had Ilene live her youngest years through life lived only by her mother’s way. One day, two of her friends Mack David and Jerry Livingston called. They asked for a favor of her to record on discs, a few of their most recent written songs for a movie. They also wanted her not just to record them, but to sing them. When her friends asked it as a favor, and not for business, she wasn’t sure if she should record the songs. Soon the songs were presented to Walt Disney so it could be used in the English version of Cinderella. Walt Disney heard Ilene’s voice on the tape, and two days later asked Ilene to voice the star role of Cinderella. She gladly accepted the role, surprised by the fact that she was auditioning, and over 300 other auditioning girls. She only saw Walt Disney after every day working on Cinderella. She said at one interview for Classicfilm, “Seeing it in its new form was breathtaking for me. It’s so beautiful. The color is magnificent, it just took my breath away, it was so wonderful. I sort of forget when I’m watching the movie that I had anything to do with it. Yet, it brings back so many beautiful memories of working with the wonderful artists and working with Walt mostly. It brings back wonderful, wonderful memories.” For the direct-to-video sequels to Cinderella, she was replaced by Jennifer Hale to voice Cinderella. Her recent film appearance was Cassie in Touched By An Angel as a night nurse. She has sung for President Roosevelt at his home in Hyde Park. She also sang at the White House for President Truman, after singing for the soldiers and sailors of war. She married George Burns at the age of 17. She had three children; 1 girl, and 2 boys. Their names are Jeannie Ilene Thomas, and Jennifer Nowlin. In 2003, she was awarded a Disney Legends award for her voicework on the film Cinderella. Woods passed away on July 1, 2010. She was eighty-one. |
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