Listen To Harry Potter Live
The new Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling is 896 pages long. If you think that's a lot, imagine reading the entire book out loud and making up the voices of the 134 characters in it. That's what actor Jim Dale did. You will hear his voice on the audio version of "Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix."
If you are in New York City on Monday, you can hear him read an excerpt from the book live from our CBS studio located at 767 Fifth Avenue, on the Southeast corner of 59th street.
Come as your favorite Harry Potter character, or as yourself, from 7:30 to 7:45 a.m. There will be trivia contests, free Harry Potter giveaways and other fun activities.
The audio book is 26 hours and 30 minutes long. Dale says it took 145 hours to record and notes, "We made 10, 000 start-and-stop edits. Sometimes a word she (Rowling) invented, we didn't know how to pronounce. There were hundreds of different words."
The result is 23 CDs, or 17 cassettes, where Dale portrays 134 characters. He says, "You have to invent the voices. The joy about the audio books is the children get a chance to hear the British accents that she wanted the children (characters) to have." He said that it was left up to him what parts of the U.K. the children would be from. He was referring to children from different parts of the country having different accents.
Although 67-year-old Dale has become popular lately among Harry Potter fans for the audio recordings of the books, he has been acting for 50 years. You may recognize him in films like "Pete's Dragon," "Hot Lead and Cold Feet," "Huck Finn" and as a theater performer (Barnum, Oliver). He is also known for his work on the "Carry On" series in Britain.
Similar to Richard Harris and Maggie Smith, he is best known to the younger generation for his work in Harry Potter, but he has been recently recognized by the Queen Elizabeth II for his body of work. This month, Dale was on the Queen's birthday list, in which civilians who have distinguished themselves through "exceptional achievement or service" are honored. He has been honored with an "MBE" (Member of the British Empire). The formal ceremony will be in October at Buckingham palace.