Candy Candido was an American radio performer, bass player, vocalist and animation voice actor, best remembered for his famous line, "I'm feeling mighty low."

Born Jonathan Joseph Candido in New Orleans, Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, Candido, who later used the legal name John B. Candido, was a bassist and vocalist in Ted Fio Rito's big band, and they can be seen in a Soundie

Soundies

Soundies were an early version of the music video: three-minute musical films, produced in New York City, Chicago, and Hollywood between 1940 and 1946, often including short dance sequences. The completed Soundies were generally released within a few months of their filming; the last group was...

, "Ma, He's Making Eyes at Me."
In 1933 he married to Anita Gordon, a singer who worked in radio and as the Singing Harp in Mickey and the Beanstalk
(1947), and the singing voice for Jeanne Crain in State Fair (1945) "It Might As Well Be Spring."

Radio

Candido's distinctively deep voice became a fixture on radio

Old-time radio

Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...

 where he was a regular on Jimmy Durante

Jimmy Durante

James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...

's radio program. His weekly repetition of "I'm feeling mighty low" made it a national catchphrase. The running gag became so familiar that he recorded a song of the same title with Durante. The line can be heard in the 1950 Bugs Bunny

Bugs Bunny

Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...

 cartoon Homeless Hare

Homeless Hare

Homeless Hare is a Merrie Melodies cartoon short starring Bugs Bunny, directed by Chuck Jones and released by Warner Brothers studios in 1950.This cartoon was produced in 1949 and released to theaters on March 11, 1950.-Plot:...

, although it was not spoken there by Candido.

Voices

Candido provided the voice of a skeleton in Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion

Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion

Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion is a 1950 film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello.-Plot:Bud Jones and Lou Hotchkiss are wrestling promoters. Their star, Abdullah , no longer wishes to follow the script for their crooked matches, especially since he is supposed to lose his...

, and he later teamed with Bud Abbott

Bud Abbott

William Alexander "Bud" Abbott was an American actor, producer and comedian. He is best remembered as the straight man of the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, with Lou Costello.-Early life:...

 during Abbott's attempted comeback in 1960. He was the voice of the bear in the Gentle Ben

Gentle Ben

Gentle Ben is a children's novel by author Walt Morey, first published in 1965. The book concerns the friendship between the title character, a bear, and a young boy named Mark...

TV series, and he worked as a voice actor on animated films, notably for Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

, where he portrayed the Indian Chief in Peter Pan

Peter Pan (1953 film)

Peter Pan is a 1953 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. It is the fourteenth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and was originally released on February 5, 1953 by RKO Pictures...

, one of Maleficent's goons in Sleeping Beauty, the Captain of the Guard in Robin Hood

Robin Hood (1973 film)

Robin Hood is an 1973 American animated film produced by the Walt Disney Productions, first released in the United States on November 8, 1973...

, Brutus and Nero in The Rescuers

The Rescuers

The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on June 22, 1977. The 23rd film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is about the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization headquartered in New York and shadowing...

, the Escaped Convict (Gus) in the Haunted Mansion

Haunted Mansion

The Haunted Mansion is a dark ride located at Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland. A significantly re-imagined incarnation of the ride, known as Phantom Manor, is located in Disneyland Paris...

 attraction and Fidget the peg-legged bat in The Great Mouse Detective

The Great Mouse Detective

The Great Mouse Detective is a 1986 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, originally released to movie theaters on July 2, 1986 by Walt Disney Pictures...

.

Other animated films with Candido voices: Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones

Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...

' adaptation of The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth (film)

The Phantom Tollbooth is a 1970 American live-action/animated film based on Norton Juster's 1961 children's book The Phantom Tollbooth. This film was produced by Chuck Jones at MGM Animation/Visual Arts. Jones also directed the film, save for the live action bookends directed by fellow Warner Bros....

, and the Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...

 movies Hey Good Lookin' and Heavy Traffic

Heavy Traffic

Heavy Traffic is a 1973 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film, which begins, ends, and occasionally combines with live-action, explores the often surreal fantasies of a young New York cartoonist named Michael Corleone, using pinball imagery as a metaphor for...

.

Films

His various credited and uncredited roles as an actor, bassist and vocalist in live-action films include Sadie McKee

Sadie McKee

Sadie McKee is a 1934 motion picture, directed by Clarence Brown, and starring Joan Crawford, Gene Raymond, Franchot Tone and Edward Arnold. In the film, Crawford plays the title character—a young working girl suffering through three troubled relationships on her road to prosperity.-Synopsis:Sadie...

(1934), Roberta

Roberta

Roberta is a musical from 1933 with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics and book by Otto Harbach. The musical is based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller...

(1935), Only Angels Have Wings

Only Angels Have Wings

Only Angels Have Wings is a movie directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. It is generally regarded as being among Hawks' finest films, particularly in its portrayal of the professionalism of the pilots, its atmosphere, and the flying sequences.It inspired the 1983 television...

(1939), The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...

(1939), Rhythm Parade (1942), Campus Rhythm (1943), Sarge Goes to College (1947), Smart Politics (1948) and The Great Rupert

The Great Rupert

The Great Rupert, is a 1950 comedy family film, produced by George Pal, directed by Irving Pichel and starring Jimmy Durante, Tom Drake and Terry Moore...

(1950).

Recording

Candido recorded a few children's 78rpm records for Capitol Records:

CAS-3105 - Side one "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man", side two "The Little White Duck". (1952)

CAS-3156 - Side one "You're Nothin' But a Nothin'", side two "Barnacle Bill the Sailor". (1953)

Death

Candy Candido died in his sleep at his Burbank, California

Burbank, California

Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....

 home, aged 85, from natural causes. He was survived by his wife, Anita. He was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery

San Fernando Mission Cemetery

The San Fernando Mission Cemetery is a Catholic cemetery located at 11160 Stranwood Avenue in the Mission Hills community of the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California, near the San Fernando Mission....

.

External links

• Find a Grave