Tale as old as time! Beauty and the Beast was a massive success upon its release in 1991 — and the voice cast featured some major Hollywood icons.
Veteran Broadway actress Paige O’Hara led the cast as Belle, while Ice Castles star Robby Benson played the Beast. Though O’Hara was already known for her stage work when she took the role, she later said that playing Belle was the thing that truly established her career.
“People might not know me, but I’ll say, ‘I am the voice of Belle,’” the Florida native told Parade in September 2016. “And then you can get charity work done, I can raise money for kids, I can utilize this in such a positive way that I would never, ever have been able to do had I just been a working actress in New York. So, it’s enabled me to branch out and do my work and my charities and, on a selfish point, my concert career took off. It’s made me financially comfortable, so I can take time and go work with kids.”
Several members of the supporting cast were already household names, but Beauty and the Beast introduced them to a whole new generation of viewers. The late Angela Lansbury, who voiced Mrs. Potts, said that children continued to recognize her voice even 25 years after the film’s release.
“I can be talking to a friend in a supermarket, and if a kid happens to be around me at the time, some little child who’s with his mom, he’ll say, ‘Mom, that’s Mrs. Potts!’” the Murder, She Wrote alum told Entertainment Weekly in November 2016. “They recognize the timbre of my voice. And they’ve watched the movie so many times, because kids don’t just watch movies once. They watch them over, and over, and over again, because they can never get enough.”
After Lansbury’s death in October 2022, producer Jon M. Chu revealed that he planned to honor the actress in Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration, ABC’s anniversary special about the animated classic. “We definitely do a nod to her for sure. How could we not pay tribute?” the Crazy Rich Asians director told Variety in December 2022 ahead of the special’s premiere. “We have some great cameos in this. Paige O’Hara, the voice of the original Belle, has a cameo. Composer Alan Menken does a little appearance.”
Keep scrolling for a look back at the voice cast of Beauty and the Beast: