Jack Grimes (April 1, 1926 - March 10, 2009) was an American voice and radio actor who voiced Sparky and Chim Chim in the original Speed Racer series.
Background[]
Jack Grimes was born in Manhattan. His career in acting began at age seven, during the depression, when Jack was forced to find work in order to help earn money for his family.
Jack went on to get work in radio beginning with the CBS program, "Let's Pretend." He was also cast in "Fred Allen", "The Phillip Morris Playhouse", "Second Husband", and "Death Valley Days." By age 12 Jack was doing 35 to 40 radio shows a week. In 1944, Jack commuted to California to act in films for Universal Pictures.
Mr. Grimes also appeared in many episodes of the two most iconoclastic science fiction radio programmes of the 1950s. These programmes were written by writers who went on to become some of the most important and influential science fiction writers of the 20th century. Jack Grimes was able to appear in a remarkable number of these science fiction programmes due to his remarkable versatility; —particularly his unusual ability to play younger men and juveniles throughout his long career. Jack Grimes possessed one of the greatest natural vocal instruments in radio, and he knew how to use it! When you learn Mr. Grimes voice, you will be amazed.
Without Dimension X, X Minus One, and great actors like Jack Grimes, there would have been no Star Trek. Writers like Robert A. Heinlein, Murray Leinster, Philip K. Dick, Frederik Pohl, James E. Gunn, Clifford D. Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, Cyril Kornbluth, Fritz Leiber and Isaac Asimov got their start writing for the radio "X" programmes (1950 - 1957). These writers went on to establish the modern school of science fiction writing. Writers would often specifically ask for Jack Grimes. —He was that good.
Grimes also voiced Jimmy Olsen in the last three years of The Adventures of Superman radio program, and the Filmation TV series The New Adventures of Superman.