This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people. And to search for the Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

And to search for The Our American Stories podcast, go to the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Billy May Richards is a Canadian actress best known for voicing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

The special first aired on December 6, 1964 on NBC.

Here's Billy May to share her story.

I go back almost over 75 years now.

I've been in every kind of show business.

I'm quite proud of the work in the Navy show as part of the war effort in World War II.

We went all across Canada and back, and then overseas.

And we did a command performance for the King and Queen and went into Paris.

We played for the American troops in Paris and then Brussels

and Amsterdam and into Germany. So after the World War II that is, you know, how long ago it is,

I took my credits from the Navy and I joined Lauren Green's Academy of Radio Arts and he of course is a very famous

Canadian and he did Bonanza. That was a great series. And so I joined the Academy of Radio

Arts because I had already done stage work and I was a musician and an actor and everything,

but I didn't know the technique for actually for radio and drama. So that's and I was a musician and an actor and everything but I didn't know the technique for actually

for radio and drama so that's why I went there and out of that I graduated and everybody that heard me

gave me a part of the child so that's where I my first big show was a big drama and on the state series in Canada.

So that, it just went from there.

So I spent 25 years in the CBC doing school podcasts.

...