Jane Barbe
| Jane Barbe | |
|---|---|
Jane Barbe
|
|
| Born |
Millicent Jane Schneider July 29, 1928 Winter Haven, Florida, U.S. |
| Died | July 18, 2003 (aged 74) Roswell, Georgia, U.S. |
| Occupation | Voice actor, singer |
| Years active | 1963 - 2003 |
| Spouse(s) | John Barbe |
Jane Barbe (pronounced ˈbɑɹ.bi BAR-bee; July 29, 1928 – July 18, 2003) was an American voice actress and singer. She was known as the "Time Lady" for the recordings she made for the Bell System and other phone companies. The ubiquity of her recordings eventually made her a pop-culture figure, and her death drew national attention.
Barbe was born in Winter Haven, Florida, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She studied drama at the University of Georgia.
After graduating, Barbe worked as a copywriter, though due to her poor spelling, she opted to read her first commercial out loud to her boss instead of submitting it in writing. He asked her to record the commercial herself. In 1963, she began recording messages for the Audichron Company, announcing time, temperature and weather, as well as recordings for early voice mail systems. In the 1970s and 1980s, she regularly recorded the intercept messages used when a number is disconnected or number dial errors, and started sharing recording duties with AT&T voice Pat Fleet in 1981, who eventually took over Barbe's role.
Barbe was selected to be the first voice on the Octel Communications voice mail systems and retained that role for many years. Her voice was used on all the prompts (which numbered in the thousands). People often referred to the voice on Octel systems as "Jane", and Barbe and her husband John were named honorary life employees of Octel in 1992. Over 150 million people used Octel systems prior to the company being acquired in 1997 by Lucent Technologies. By 2000, Barbe's voice was heard by about 300 million people each week. Through the years, Barbe's voice became well-known through the phone companies' use of her recordings, as well as her messages recorded for customized greetings for various corporations who bought Octel voice mail systems. The time announcements she recorded for NBS (now NIST) are still used on radio station WWVH. Her voice was also heard on hotel wake up calls and commercial elevator messages.
...
Wikipedia