E.T. Was a Real Woman’s Voice! — And It Wasn’t the Only Movie You Heard Her In

Sometimes you think things are a certain way your whole life, and then you realize you had it all wrong. It can be a ground shaking experience, like the time I found out I was only 5'9 instead of 5'10. Believe me, that inch made a lot of difference to me that day.

The same kind of thing happened to me when I read that the original voice for E.T was really a woman. Her name was Pat Welsh, and she really had no acting experience. She was a woman that had been a chain smoker a while and had a raspy voice. When I read the information for her on imdb, I was suprised to find out she was originally paid '$380 for 9 and 1\2 hours of work on E.T.'

It turns out, she was Princess Lea's bounty hunter voice in Star Wars-Return of the Jedi also. Sadly she died in 1995 and I am just learning about her now. those are two of my favorite movies from my childhood.

And all this time I thought it was just some guy making his voice raspy.