What Happened To Susan Blu?

[SweetShop209]

Here's something I find interesting. Susan Blu is one of the most notable voice actresses and voice directors, but it seems that she's been slowing down in work lately. While she was very active in both fields, she became much less active in the 2010s.

Her wife Cynthia Songe (I hope I spelled that right), died in 2010 (though she remarried in 2013) , and she took some time off for shows where she was voice director, being replaced in those shows. For example, with Transformers Prime, starting around episode 13, Jaime Simone took over as voice director for the remainder of the series (though Jamie Thomason worked on the show's video game). Similarly, the last 3 years of Handy Manny and the last season of Special Agent Oso had Maria Estrada and Kelly Ward take over as the respective voice directors. For the Curious George cartoon, Kris Zimmerman Salter and Kelly Ward took over as voice directors for a bit before she returned. However, Kris would eventually take over as the sole voice director for the series after 2015. A few more instances include Wes Gleason replacing her for the 2 recent Curious George movies and Charlie Adler replacing her in the last 2 episodes of Ben 10 Omniverse. There was also the 2012 How To Train Your Dragon cartoon, where she was the voice director when the show was on Cartoon Network, but when it moved to Netflix, she didn't return. The only 2010s show where she stayed on the whole way through was Lost In Oz.

As for voice acting, she hasn't done too much recently. She reprised her role as Arcee for Transformers Animated (since she is the show's voice director), but besides that, she's only done 1 episode of OK KO (the episode Monster Party, where she reprised her role as Sibella from Scooby Doo And The Ghoul School) and a few episodes of Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (where she, Peter Cullen, and Frank Welker voice the Yokai Council).

I would assume the death of her first wife affected her career, but I want to know what you think.

 

[zoombie]

Did you know she was the mother in a Friday The 13th movie. I don't remember which one but it came out in the late 80's.

 

[Low Spark of Lyman]

It's not just her; I've noticed many voice actors of the 80s/90s haven't done much, if anything, in recent years, for what could be all sorts of reasons.

Similarly, some do return to reprise roles they did in the past, or even something brand new. Even if one is retired (not saying that's the case with Susan Blu), as seen in past cases like Jim Jordan (of Fibber McGhee and Molly fame; not primarily a voice actor, but he did retire after the death of his wife Marian).

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

In addition to Blu, you don't really hear much of B.J. Ward nowadays.

 

[DocForbin]

Did you know she was the mother in a Friday The 13th movie. I don't remember which one but it came out in the late 80's.

That would be Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood.