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Charles Fleischer

Charles Fleischer has built a career around restless comic energy, vocal invention and a willingness to move between stand-up, live action, animation, writing and music. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1950, he began performing comedy remarkably early: his first appearance came at Pennsylvania’s Camp Kewanee when he was nine. Fleischer initially studied medicine at Southampton College before transferring to the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago to train as an actor. After moving to Los Angeles in 1970, he became a regular on the city’s comedy circuit. Television soon gave that act a wider audience. He appeared on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In in 1973, playing homemade musical instruments fashioned from lead pipe and shower wands, and made his first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson the following year. He was also a regular on Keep On Truckin’. His television work included recurring roles as Carvelli on Welcome Back, Kotter and Chuck on Laverne & Shirley, but Fleischer is best known for the voices he brought to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Beyond Roger Rabbit himself, he voiced Benny the Cab, Greasy and Psycho, helping give the film’s animated world several sharply different personalities. He continued performing Roger for Disney television and theme-park appearances, as well as three follow-up shorts, and later returned as Benny the Cab for House of Mouse. Fleischer’s other voice credits include We’re Back! and The Polar Express, while his live-action film appearances include Back to the Future Part II and Gridlock’d. That range captures the shape of his work: not a career confined to one lane, but one that repeatedly circles back to performance, sound and comedy. He has also worked as a writer, screenwriter, director, producer, singer and songwriter, and performed as a musician, including a guest appearance on harmonica with Blues Traveler. Whether seen on screen or heard from somewhere just beyond it, Fleischer’s work is driven by the instincts of a performer who started young and kept experimenting.