Christine Josephine Cavanaugh (née Sandberg; August 16, 1963 – December 22, 2014) was an American voice actress who had a distinctive speaking style and provided the voice for a large range of cartoon characters. She was best known as the voice of the title character in the 1995 film Babe, Gosalyn Mallard in Darkwing Duck, and as the original voices of Chuckie Finster in Nickelodeon's Rugrats and Dexter in Cartoon Network's Dexter's Laboratory. In 2001, she retired from voice acting. On December 22, 2014, she died of undisclosed causes.

Biography

Born in Utah, Cavanaugh moved to Los Angeles, California, to become an actress and ended up doing voice work for a friend's film.

In 1991, Cavanaugh voiced Gosalyn Mallard, the title character's adopted daughter on Disney's Darkwing Duck as well as the voice of Chuckie Finster on the Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats and later, in 1994, the voice of Oblina, one of the three main monster-students on Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.

Cavanaugh could also be heard on The Critic as the voice of Marty, Jay Sherman's son. Her voice credits also include the animated series Sonic the Hedgehog, 101 Dalmatians: The Series, Hercules: The Animated Series, The Powerpuff Girls, The Wild Thornberrys, and Recess, as well as the voice of Birdie in McDonald's commercials. In the early 1990s, Cavanaugh also served as an announcer for The Disney Channel for "coming up next" bumpers.

In 1995, Cavanaugh lent her voice to the live-action film Babe in the starring role of Babe the Gallant Pig. She was offered to reprise her role for the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City, but decided the salary was not enough (the role was instead played by her Rugrats co-star Elizabeth Daily, who voices Tommy Pickles).

Also in 1995, she started doing the voice of boy-genius Dexter in Dexter's Laboratory, which began as a short under Cartoon Network's What A Cartoon! show and later became the first short to be adapted into its own series for Cartoon Network. Cavanaugh later won an Annie Award in 2000 for her performance as Dexter in the hour-long TV special Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip. After her retirement from voice acting, she was replaced by Candi Milo as the voice of Dexter and by Nancy Cartwright (her co-star in The Critic) as the voice of Chuckie in Rugrats.

Cavanaugh also guest starred on several TV shows including Salute Your Shorts, Cheers, Empty Nest, Wings, The X-Files, Everybody Loves Raymond and ER and had supporting roles in the feature films Soulmates and Jerry Maguire.

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