Sondra James, the veteran character actress who founded and ran the New York-based postproduction loop group Speakeasy, has died. She was 82.
James died Sunday at her home in New York after a five-month battle with lung cancer, her manager, Carolyn Anthony, reported.
Speakeasy organized voice work for producers, directors, sound designers and editors, and her voice and her team was heard in more than 500 films, TV shows and animation.
The native New Yorker was in charge of voice casting for such Coen brothers films as O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), A Serious Man (2009) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).
She also provided automated dialogue replacement/loop castings on other films including Primary Colors (1998), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), American Gangster (2007) and Julie & Julia (2009) and was a loop group coordinator on such TV shows as Sex and the City, Bored to Death, Damages, Boardwalk Empire and Royal Pains.
Born on July 21, 1939, Sondra Weil was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1955 and then from City College with a double major in anthropology and archeology.
James was seen on the big screen in Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Taking Woodstock (2009), The Dictator (2012), Don’t Think Twice (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Joker (2019) and Shiva Baby (2020) and on television on Law & Order, 30 Rock, Blue Bloods, Ray Donovan, Crisis in Six Scenes, At Home With Amy Sedaris and What We Do in the Shadows.
She made her stage debut in the national tour of Funny Girl starring Debbie Gibson in 1996 and toured with Valerie Harper in 2002 in The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife.
Survivors include her sons, Michael and Marc; grandchildren Jake, Jordana, Jenna, Matthew and Zach; great-grandchildren Lynden and Harlow; brother Elliot; and sister Carol.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Actors Fund.
Source: HollyWood
