The Voice Actress Of Jesse And Misty From 'Pokemon', Rachael Lillis, Has Passed Away At The Age Of 55 After A Battle With Cancer
Image Source: GoFundMe
Rachael Lillis, the original English voice actress of Misty and Jessie in the Pokémon anime, passed away on August 10th at age 55 after a battle with breast cancer. A GoFundMe for the actress was shared previously to cover medical costs. The news of her passing was first shared by fellow Pokémon castmate Veronica Taylor (original English voice actress of Ash Ketchum) on her X feed:
Lillis was born on July 8th, 1969 in Niagra Falls, New York. She attended Smith College as a pre-med student and studied acting in Boston and New York. Lillis made her anime debut in 1997 as Tatsuki in Takegami: Guardian of Darkness. She followed this up by voicing Cally and Paula in The Slayers and as Utena Tenjō, Chu Chu, and Shiori Takatsuki in Revolutionary Girl Utena in 1998. That same year, she starred as both the third of the Rocket Trio,
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Jessie, and the Cerulean City Gym Leader, Misty, in a little show called Pokémon. The show became a smash hit, quickly moving from first-run syndication to Kids WB on The WB. In addition to voicing Jessie and Misty, she also voiced various Pokémon, including Jigglypuff. Despite the show’s massive success, however, voicing Misty, Jessie, and other characters in Pokémon was not a high-paying job. She and several other voice actors had to take second jobs. Nonetheless, Lillis viewed her time on Pokémon with great fondness, and she loved answering fans’ questions at conventions.
Lillis voiced Jessie and Misty from 1998 until 2006, when she and the rest of her 4kids castmates were, without warning, released from the show and replaced with soundalike actors when 4kids lost the license and The Pokemon Company International took dubbing in-house. In Lillis’ case, her roles were taken over by Michele Knotz, who carried on the legacy of these characters until Pokémon Journeys. Lillis did return to the series, however, in the roles of Maylene, Sunflora, and Shinx. Her other roles outside of Pokémon included Danny in Sonic X, Dr. Reese Drake, Ursula, and Laura in Dinosaur King (which included a variety of former Pokémon voice actors, notably Veronica Taylor as Max), Queen La Andromeda Prometheum in Maetel Legend, Micott Bartsch in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Aunt Mito and Cocco in the 2011 HunterXHunter anime, and Ryoko Miyazono in Your Lie in April. Her last voice-over role was “Maths Teacher” in Ollie & Scoops.
Several fans and colleagues posted tributes to the voice actress, including Eric Stuart, the voice of Brock and James in the original English dub of Pokémon.
In a phone interview with The New York Times, Stuart said “If you met her, you’d not say this was so natural for her…Rachael in real life was pretty low key, kind of quiet and sweet…The minute she stepped in that booth it was like this whole other energy came out.”
Rachael will be missed by fans and industry personnel alike, and her memory will live on forever. Rest in peace, Rachael Lillis.
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Sources: The New York Times, Bulbapedia, Wikipedia, X, [1], [2]):
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