Radio and recordings Born in St. Louis, Miller graduated from
Washington University in St. Louis before commencing his career in radio. When a singer named Marvin Miller debuted on another St. Louis radio station, he began using his middle initial to distinguish himself from the newcomer. For the
Mutual Broadcasting System, he narrated a daily 15-minute radio show titled
The Story Behind the Story, which offered historical vignettes. He also served as announcer on several Old Time Radio shows of the 1940s and 1950s, including the Louella Parsons Show (1948),
The Jo Stafford Show and the long-running mystery series
The Whistler. Miller played Dr. Lee Markham on
The Woman in White on
NBC radio and Howard Andrews on
Midstream on the
Blue Network and appeared as "The voice of the Past" on the May 21, 1942 broadcast of The Right to Happiness. In 1945–47, he was the announcer for
Songs by Sinatra. He played two characters and was the announcer on
The Billie Burke Show (1943–1946). In 1952, Miller had a one-man program,
Armchair Adventures, on
CBS Radio. He did "all voices and narration" in the 15-minute dramatic anthology. He also recorded 260 episodes of a program described in a 1950 trade publication as "Marvin Miller: Famous radio voice in series of five minute vignettes about famous people." The program was syndicated via
electrical transcription by The Cardinal Company. He also won
Grammy Awards in 1965 and 1966 for his recordings of
Dr. Seuss stories on RCA Records: in 1967 for Dr Seuss Presents –
If I Ran the Zoo and
Sleep Book and 1966 for Dr Seuss Presents
Fox in Socks and
Green Eggs and Ham. He also read
Bartholomew and the Oobleck,
Horton Hatches the Egg,
The Sneetches and Other Stories, and
Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories., In the mid-1970s, Miller even lent his voice to sports films, narrating the official
Indianapolis 500 films in 1975 and 1976.
Film In films, the heavyset Miller was often cast as a villain, many times playing Asian roles. He portrayed a sadistic henchman in the 1947
Humphrey Bogart film
Dead Reckoning and was Yamada in the 1945
James Cagney film
Blood on the Sun. In 1946's film noir
Deadline at Dawn he plays Sleepy Parsons, a blind pianist. Miller played George "Gusty" Gustafson in the
George Raft film noir classic
Johnny Angel. Additionally, he also appeared in "Red Planet Mars" (1952), "Forbidden" (1953), "Time Stood Still" (1956) and "When the Girls Take Over" (1962). Miller also did a great deal of voice work in animation from the 1950s into the 1970s, from the narration on the 1950
Academy Award-winning
United Productions of America cartoon
Gerald McBoing-Boing and the 1952 Chamber of Commerce film
The Story of Creative Capital to the 1970
The Ant and the Aardvark cartoon
Scratch a Tiger.
Television From 1949 to 1950 Miller starred as Dr. Yat Fu on the short-lived
ABC series
Mysteries of Chinatown, with
Gloria Saunders cast as his niece, Ah Toy. In 1961, Miller guest-starred as Johnny Kelso, with
Erin O'Brien, in "The Marble Slab" episode of the
Frederick Ziv-,
United Artists-, and
MGM-produced
Bat Masterson, starring
Gene Barry. Original air date was May 11, 1961. Further, in television, he was a narrator on "The F.B.I.", "Police Squad", "Electra Woman and Dyna Girl", plus appeared on "Land of the Lost" and "Love, American Style". Miller voiced "Mr. Sun" in the
AT&T Corporation educational film
Our Mr. Sun, and "Hemo" in the AT&T educational film
Hemo the Magnificent, parts of a series featuring Dr.
Frank C. Baxter and directed by
Frank Capra, which was shown on American network television in 1956 and 1957. Miller crossed paths with other prolific voice-over artists many times in his career, including
June Foray, playing "Deer" in
Hemo the Magnificent and in the TV series
Rocky and Bullwinkle along with
Paul Frees, who voiced "
Boris Badenov" in that program. Miller and Frees also performed in separate segments on the audio recording
Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America Volume One: The Early Years. Miller made a guest appearance in 1963 on
Perry Mason as unscrupulous attorney F.J. Weatherby in "The Case of the Lover's Leap". Miller voiced
Aquaman for the
Filmation studio for their 1967 series
The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. He was the voice of the arrogant alien "Zarn" in three episodes of the second season of
Land of the Lost. Miller also lent his distinct voice to
The Pink Panther Show, often talking with the feline offscreen and asking questions, while also voicing The Inspector, his second Deux Deux and their boss The Commissioner. He also won Grammy Awards in 1965 and 1966, for his recordings of stories by Dr. Seuss. In more than 200 episodes of
The Millionaire, Miller played Michael Anthony, conveying the wishes of the "fabulously wealthy" John Beresford Tipton Jr., voiced by Paul Frees. ==Death==