Friday, July 11, 2025

Jean Thurston Vander Pyl



Jean Thurston Vander Pyl was born on October 11, 1919 and was an American voice actress. She is best known as the voice of Wilma Flintstone for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Flintstones. In addition to Wilma Flintstone, she also provided the voices of Pebbles FlintstoneRosie the robot maid from The Jetsons; Goldie, Lola Glamour, Nurse LaRue, and other characters in Top CatWinsome Witch on The Secret Squirrel Show; and Ogee on The Magilla Gorilla Show.
On radio, she participated in such programs as The Halls of Ivy (1950–52) and on Father Knows Best during the early 1950s, where she portrayed Margaret Anderson; the role was played on television by Jane Wyatt. Her husband, Carroll G. O'Meara, was a graduate of Stanford University who worked as a copywriter at KHJ radio in the mid-1930s and later became an advertising executive.
Vander Pyl was born in Philadelphia to John Howard and Kathleen Hale Vander Pyl. Her grandfather had come from the Netherlands. Her father was the district manager for Knit Underwear; her mother was from Tennessee. The two died within six months of each other in the early 1950s. By 1939, she was already working as a radio actress.
Vander Pyl made numerous TV appearances as an actress in programs such as Leave It to BeaverThe Donna Reed ShowFather Knows BestThe Beverly HillbilliesThat Girl, and Petticoat Junction. She did the voices of Maw Rugg and her daughter Floral Rugg on a rural cartoon, The Hillbilly Bears and Winsome Witch; both shows were part of The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show (1965–1967). Jean Vander Pyl was also the voice of Little Ogee on The Magilla Gorilla Show. In 1969, Vander Pyl guest-starred on the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode "Foul Play in Funland", playing Sarah Jenkins.
In the 1970s, she was the voice of Marge Huddles, the main character's wife on Where's Huddles?, in which she played a role similar to that of Wilma Flintstone and was reunited with her Flintstones cast members Alan Reed and Mel Blanc. She went on to voice Mrs. Finkerton on Inch High, Private Eye, and several female characters on Hong Kong PhooeyThe Tom and Jerry Show, and Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels.
In the 1980s and 1990s, she did voices on Mister TSnorks, and Yogi's Treasure Hunt, and also on The Flintstone Kids as Mrs. Slaghoople. She mostly reprised Wilma Flintstone on spin-off series and films such as The Flintstone Comedy HourThe New Fred and Barney ShowThe Flintstone Comedy ShowThe Jetsons Meet the FlintstonesI Yabba-Dabba Do!Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby, and A Flintstones Christmas Carol.
She married Carroll G. O'Meara on March 9, 1939; together they had three children. O'Meara died on February 18, 1962, at the age of 53. She then married her second husband Roger Wells DeWitt in 1963; the couple had one son. They remained married until DeWitt's death in 1992.
Vander Pyl died of lung cancer at her home in Dana Point, California, at the age of 79. Vander Pyl was buried in Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest, California.

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Jean Thurston Vander Pyl

Jean Thurston Vander Pyl  was born on October 11, 1919 and was an American voice actress. She is best known as the voice of  Wilma Flintston...