On Friday, singer Levi Stubbs passed away at the age of 72 following a long battle with cancer. Best known as the lead singer of The Four Tops, Stubbs also provided the voice for “Audrey II” in both the stage musical and the film musical versions of Little Shop of Horrors. Though his only film role as a voice actor (he could also be heard in the Saturday morning cartoon Captain N: The Game Master), it was plenty. His performance as the carnivorous plant put him in the ranks with Douglas Rain (”HAL-9000″), Anthony Daniels (”C-3PO”) and James Earl Jones (”Darth Vader”) as far as iconic vocal parts in live action movies go. Unfortunately, due to a lack of lasting enthusiasm for Horrors, Stubbs is not quite as celebrated as the others. But could you possibly imagine or accept any other voice begging for Seymour to “feeeeeeed” him? Just thinking of the idea reminds me of the clip of Darth Vader actor David Prowse speaking the lines before Jones’ voice was overdubbed.
As a kid, much of my delight with Little Shop of Horrors was with Stubbs’ voice, which I loved to try and imitate. In particular, it was this Oscar-nominated song, “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space,” written for the film and not originally in the stage musical, which was the most fun to sing along to, because of the racy (to a nine year old) lyric, “I’m gonna bust your balls!” And, of course, I always enjoyed the lead-in line, which I would often attempt in my best prepubescent baritone, “noooooo shit, Sherlock!” Stubbs performed the song live at the 59th Academy Awards, but I don’t recall how censored the lyrics were, and unfortunately only the performance of the winning song (”Take My Breath Away” from Top Gun) appears to be available online.
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