Unless you’re a hardcore animated fan, you probably do not know the name Tom Kane, but there’s a very good chance you’ve heard his voice over the last 25 years. Tom Kane is probably best known for uttering Jedi Master Yoda Star Wars: The Clone Wars and several others Star Wars animated TV shows and video games. Unfortunately, the voice actor had a stroke in November, which mostly prevented him from speaking.
Deadline drew our attention to a post on Tom Kane’s Facebook page yesterday of his daughter Sam. The report reads:
“Hi everyone! This is Tom’s daughter, Sam. Our family wanted to tell me why my dad was MIA. About two months ago he had a stroke on the left side which left him with a weak right side and damage to the speech center of. has given his brain.This means that at the moment he can not communicate or read or spell effectively.It is still competent and very self, but can now only get a few words out.As many of you know about strokes, it was possible for him to regain these functions, and we found excellent care for speech, occupational, and physiotherapy in Kansas City, but his neurologist warned us not to do voices again.
My father is still in a good mood and his extreme stubbornness has helped him to already show improvements in speech. He is fully on board with me to share it and he will see everything you guys post. ‘
This is really tragic. Tom Kane is a lover in the voice-over community, and he has been working steadily for 25 years now. This year alone, he has his roles as Yoda and the series narrator of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, not to mention playing Jedi Master in The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special and the upcoming video game LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. He pronounced Yoda Star Wars projects since The clone wars animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky in 2003. Kane even made the leap to the live Star Wars by voicing Admiral Ackbar for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Apart from the endless work that Tom Kane did in different ways Star Wars media, the actor also starred in Ultron The Avengers: Earth’s Most Powerful Heroes, Professor Utonium in both repetitions of The Powerpuff Girls, Magneto in different X mans animated series and video games, Darwin in The Wild Thorn Berries, and Woodhouse / Hans Hessler in more than a dozen episodes of Archer. Kane was also appointed to present the late Donald Pleasance as a voice presentation as dr. Samuel Loomis in Halloween H20. His work also extends to massive franchises for video games such as Call of Duty and Batman: Arkham, and he even took the lead in the LEGO Indiana Jones video game from 2008. On top of that, there have been dozens of movies that contain his narrative.
Although doctors have warned that Tom Kane may never vote again, anything is possible. We know that Kane will fight to get his communication back, and where there is a will, there is a way. There have been many wonderful recoveries in such cases, and we hope Tom Kane is fortunate enough to be one of them. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope we have not heard the last of Kane’s many characters.
If you want to know more about Tom Kane, here’s a profile of his alma mater, The University of Kansas:
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