‘Yogi Bear Show’ Voice Actress Julie Bennett Dead at 88 From Coronavirus Complications

Julie Bennett, a voiceover artist and actress best known for her role as Cindy Bear in the Hanna-Barbara Yogi Bear cartoons, died Tuesday from the novel coronavirus. She was 88. Bennett’s death was announced by her talent agent and friend, Mark Scroggs, Deadline reports. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bennett died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Bennett began her long spanning career in animation with voiceover roles on the “Fractured Fairy Tales” segments of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show before being cast as Yogi’s girlfriend on The Yogi Bear Show. In the 1964 feature film Hey There It’s Yogi Bear, she reprised her role as Cindy, and also appeared in the subsequent Yogi Bear series. Giving the parasol-loving Cindy Bear a sweet Southern accent, Bennett played the character through 1988 on The New Yogi Bear Show. She also had roles in other Hanna-Barbara productions, like the 1962 feature Gay Purr-ee, various Mr. Magoo and Looney Tunes cartoons, the 1963 short Transylvania 6-500, and Woody Allens’ 1966 What’s Up, Tiger Lily.

She also voiced Aunt May on a 1997 Spider-Man animated series and even lent her voice to a Barbie doll.

But before finding her niche as a voiceover artist, Bennett appeared onscreen in series like The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Adventures of Superman, Leave It to Beaver, Dragnet and Highway Patrol. In a Bob Hope special, she gave Olympic gold medalist Mark Spitz his first on-camera kiss in a sketch.

In the early 1990s, Bennett reinvented herself as a personal manager under the name Marianne Daniels, and represented clients for more than 20 years.

Born in Manhattan on Jan. 24, 1943, Bennett and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was young. She returned to New York after attending Beverly Hills High School and worked on stage and in radio soap operas and early TV dramas.

Bennett is survived by close friends Carol, Nick and Mark Scroggs, whom she called her “mutually adopted family.” Donations in her memory can be made to the Actors Fund, a charitable organization that supports performers and behind-the-scenes workers in entertainment.