Who was the original voice of Donald Duck?

Clarence Nash was the original voice of Donald Duck. He first performed Donald’s distinctive voice in the 1934 animated short The Wise Little Hen and continued voicing the character for roughly five decades.

Nash was an American impressionist who auditioned for Walt Disney after demonstrating his unusual animal sounds. His Donald voice used buccal speech, a specialized technique involving resonance in the inner cheek rather than ordinary vocal-cord production. That helped create Donald’s famously squawky and difficult-to-understand delivery.

Nash remained closely associated with Donald throughout the character’s early film career and voiced him in more than 120 shorts and films. His final film performance as Donald was in Mickey’s Christmas Carol, released in 1983, although he continued related promotional work until his death in 1985.

Tony Anselmo is a frequent wrong answer because he became Donald’s principal successor. Anselmo trained under Nash and took over after Nash’s death; he was not the original voice. Jimmy MacDonald and Walt Disney also voiced other Disney characters, but neither originated Donald’s voice.