Voice Actress Paulette Rubinstein Passes Away at Age 98

Paulette Rubinstein (right) and Jack Curtis pose for a picture with daughter Liane.

Actress Liane Curtis has announced on her Facebook page that her mother, actress Paulette Rubinstein, passed away on September 27 at 8:18 a.m. at her home in New York City. She was 98 years old. Liane had been acting as her mother's caregiver in her final years.

Paulette Rubinstein was born on November 7, 1923, in Brooklyn and went on to enjoy a varied career as an actress and songwriter. Liane's IMDb biography for Paulette provides more details:

Paulette Rubinstein was born in Brooklyn, New York to a Russian immigrant father and a French immigrant mother. She graduated high school at 16 and went on to study the arts. She went from summer stock with the likes of Zero Mostel and Maureen Stapleton to Broadway with Eddie Albert and Julie Andrews and then segued into translating into English and directing the dubbed English version of several Ingmar Bergman and other films. She has written songs which were performed by Carmen MacRae and Hal Linden and has written several unpublished (so far) works. She was married to actor, editor, director Jack Curtis (who died in 1970) and had a daughter, actress Liane Curtis, who lives in LA.

She was also a voice actress for Titra Studios (later known as Titan Productions), lending her voice to several tokusatsu productions, such as Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) and Gammera the Invincible (1966). Her husband, Jack Curtis, was also a voice actor for Titra.

In between Paulette Rubinstein and Liane Curtis in December 2010.

I was privileged to conduct a lengthy interview with Paulette in 2006 about her life and career, which you can find on Vantage Point Interviews. I interviewed a total of four voice actors from Titra around the same time, and she was the one with whom I stayed in contact the most after the interviews. I always appreciated Paulette's directness and honesty, as well as her political convictions. She was one of the most principled people I've ever met. 

And I'm very proud to say that I did eventually meet her. I visited Liane's L.A. home in December 2010 when Paulette was in town for a visit. Suffice it to say, it was great to spend the day with her. We stayed in touch until her health began to decline, and communication between us became impractical. But I still mailed her greeting cards every year to let her know I was thinking of her.

Below is the video interview I did with Paulette that I recorded in December 2010 (with a special appearance by Liane):

Rest in peace, Paulette. I'll always be grateful for your love and friendship.