By Lara Warren

EMMY AWARD-WINNING ACTRESS AND VOICE-OVER ARTIST NANCY CARTWRIGHT ’81 LOVES HER JOB.

“I’m still amazed that they’re paying me to be funny — to burp and fart, and do the things that I got punished for when I was a kid,” she says. Nancy is best known as the voice of Bart Simpson, the devilish 10-year old on The Simpsons, one of the most famous television shows in history and America’s longest running prime time show. In its 14th season, the show chronicling the politically incorrect lives of the cartoon family from Springfield is watched by 70 million people in 70 countries each week — exceeding even Baywatch in its prime. Time magazine named Bart Simpson — best known for such epithets as “Eat my shorts!” or “Don’t have a cow, man!” — one of the top 100 entertainers and artists of the 20th century. The Simpsons was recently named by TV Guide as one of the greatest shows of all time.

But The Simpsons is not Nancy’s only claim to cartoon fame. She’s been Chuckie on Rugrats, Mindy on the Animaniacs and Dafney on The Snorks, among countless others.

Nancy, who attended Ohio University on a speech scholarship, was always told she had a “unique voice.” The summer after her freshman year, she worked at a local radio station. “I was able to fill in occasionally when a DJ wasn’t there,” she says. It was on that show that Nancy created the on-air character Lily Padd, who she describes as “a distant cousin of Bart.” It wasn’t long before Nancy knew what she had to do — move to Hollywood to become a cartoon voice-over artist. That same summer, she found the phone number of Daws Butler — the legendary voice of such cartoon greats as Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Spike from Tom & Jerry and Elroy from The Jetsons — and gave him a call.

His answering machine picked up. A British accent came on: “Hello. My name is Percival Pickles. I’m Mr. Butler’s butler. Mr. Butler is not home just now. If you would like to leave a message, wait for the beep.” Nancy quickly responded by leaving a message in a Cockney accent, asking him to contact her. Much to her surprise, he did. They became friends quickly, Daws becoming her mentor. He began sending her scripts in the mail. She would record herself reading the lines in various characters and mail them back, and he’d critique her work.

After meeting Daws, Nancy had no questions about what she wanted to do — cartoon voices. She knew that, to have a career, she’d have to move to Los Angeles. Nancy decided to transfer colleges. She opened up a map, and saw that UCLA was the school closest to Beverly Hills — and Daws. UCLA it would be.

Two weeks before Nancy moved to California, her mother died of uterine cancer. It wasn’t an easy time for Nancy.

“I came out to UCLA very lonely and sad,” she says. Once at UCLA, she immersed herself in theater. It saved her life. “I absolutely loved the theater program at UCLA,” she says. “UCLA was a wonderful training ground for me.” She learned everything about theater — from set design to costuming to acting technique.

Daws helped her get an audition in 1979 to read for the part of Gloria on the Saturday morning cartoon, Richie Rich. She got the part. A college junior, Nancy was a working actress and didn’t have an agent or a car, and was still living on campus in the dorms.

Nancy played a 12-year-old girl in the play The Transgressor during her third quarter at UCLA. The director asked her if she wanted to take a quarter off and play the part in a theater in Hollywood. She took a break from classes during the fall quarter of 1980 and performed the play for two months.

While at UCLA, Nancy began taking on-camera-acting jobs to supplement her voice-over income – the exact opposite of most actors in Hollywood. Some of her acting gigs included a movie-of-the-week, Marian Rose White, and a part in Twilight Zone: The Movie.

The role of a lifetime — Bart Simpson — came about in 1987, in the form of animated shorts aired between acts on the Tracey Ullman Show. Nancy was already working on some eight syndicated shows at the time, so to her it was “just another audition.” She came in to read for the part of Lisa, Bart’s eight-year-old sister (a role later filled by Yeardley Smith). After reading Bart’s description at the audition: “devious, underachieving, school-hating, irreverent, clever” Nancy knew what role was meant for her. She was hired on the spot — the only person to read for Bart. Usually she tries out multiple voices, but she knew Bart’s right off the bat.

The first season was collaborative, as writers and actors together fleshed out the characters. “Then, the writers take over.” The way a typical week works is, they get the script Wednesday evening. Thursday they have a “table read,” and record it on Monday.

Bart isn’t the only role that Nancy plays. Her characters include Bart Simpson, Nelson, Rod and Todd Flanders, Kearney and Mrs. Wiggum. The Simpsons also regularly features celebrity guests. “Guest stars can be really fun, but sometimes they can be difficult,” Nancy laughs, not naming names.

Nancy is the mother of two. So what’s it like having Bart Simpson as a mom?

“At first the kids love it, but I say ‘Eat my shorts!’ a few times and the novelty wears off fast.” Nancy laughs. “Now, I’m just ‘Jack and Lucy’s Mom’.”

As an artist, she says the quality of the show helps her stay inspired. “The Simpsons has such good writing – I think it’s the best written show on television,” she says. “It’s a pleasure to be a part of the show. I love being Bart.”

While she enjoyed her work on The Simpsons, several years into the role of Bart, Nancy knew she wanted more.

“One day the show will end,” she explains. “I didn’t want to just be ‘Nancy Cartwright, voice of Bart Simpson.’”

So, she wrote a one-woman show, In Search of Fellini. The show chronicles her journey to Rome to pursue Italian director Federico Fellini in the hopes of securing the stage rights to his movie, La Strada. She played 14 different characters in the production, which received rave reviews.

“For 90 minutes it’s just me up there on stage,” she says. “It was an exhilarating experience.”

In 1995, she established Happy House Productions with her husband, Warren Murphy, to develop and produce projects for film, television and the Internet. In 2000, she wrote her autobiography, My Life As A 10-Year-Old Boy.

She doesn’t have to worry about being remembered solely as the voice of Bart Simpson any longer.

UCLAlumni Magazine, 2003