Jim Dale MBE (born James Smith on August 15, 1935) is a British singer, songwriter, and actor. Several of his songs entered the UK singles chart: * "Be My Girl" (1957) * "Just Born" (1958) * "Crazy Dream" (1958) * "Sugartime" (1958) He wrote the song "Dick-a-Dum-Dum (King's Road)," which became a minor hit for Des O'Connor in 1969, and his lyrics for the movie theme Georgy Girl were nominated for an Academy Award in 1966. The song (performed by The Seekers) reached number 1 in the US charts the following year. Dale appeared in a number of the Carry On films, generally playing the romantic lead, in the noted silent short film The Plank, though he also had success as a comic villain in the Disney films Pete's Dragon and The Spaceman and King Arthur. He is an accomplished stage actor (in both straight and musical roles) who has been nominated for four Tony Awards, winning one for Barnum. He is the narrator of the American edition of the Harry Potter audiobooks (Stephen Fry reads the UK versions), and also the Harry Potter DVDs. Dale was awarded an MBE in 2003. To millions of fans in the United States and Canada, Jim Dale is the "voice" of Harry Potter. (In Britain the audiobooks are produced by Bloomsbury, and Stephen Fry reads them.) He has recorded all seven books in the Harry Potter series, and as a narrator he has won two Grammy Awards, six Grammy Nominations and a record nine Audie Awards including "Audio Book of the Year 2004," "Best Narrator 2004/2005/2007," "Best Children's Audio Book 2005," two Benjamin Franklin Awards and eleven Audio File Earphone Awards. Dale also narrates the television show, Pushing Daisies.
