Luis d'Antin van Rooten was a Mexican-born American actor and author, who, for Disney, provided the voice of both The King and The Grand Duke in the 1950 Disney animated feature film Cinderella.
Van Rooten was born in Mexico and emigrated to the United States with his parents when he was eight, growing up in Pennsylvania. He earned his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an architect before deciding to pursue film work in Hollywood during World War II. He worked as a translator and conducted a variety of broadcasts in Italian, Spanish, and French. This led into film work, often in roles requiring an accent or skill with dialects.
Known for his villainous roles, he played Nazi ringleader Heinrich Himmler in The Hitler Gang and Operation Eichmann. Van Rooten also appeared in films, like Two Years Before the Mast, Beyond Glory, The Big Clock, Saigon, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, and Detective Story.
Other than from narration, he also acted in radio dramas, such as The Affairs of Peter Salem, The Mysterious Traveler, I Love a Mystery, and Valiant Lady. For television, he appeared in shows, such as Perry Mason, The Honeymooners, X Minus One, The Joe Palooka Story, I Spy, The Alcoa Hour, Gunsmoke, Peter Gunn, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Shirley Temple's Storybook, and 77 Sunset Strip.
Aside from acting, van Rooten authored several sophisticated books of humor, such as Book of Improbable Saints and The Floriculturist's Vade Mecum of Exotic and Recondite Plants, Shrubs and Grasses, and One Malignant Parasite, but is mostly known for his collection of poems written in French, Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames.
Roles[]
(Cinderella)