TT CXVIII Q7

[dmm]

I came here looking for an expanded answer to last week's question 7:

7. What unusual distinction is shared by all these performers? Phil Hartman, Don Knotts, Roddy McDowall, Zero Mostel, Paul Newman, John Ritter, Jimmy Stewart, Orson Welles. The final movie role of all these late stars was a voice performance in an animated film. RIP Paul Newman.

So I guess I'll have to supply it myself.
Phil Hartman: the cat Jiji in Kiki's Delivery Service (US dub), 1998
Don Knotts:the turkey Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little, 2005
Roddy McDowall: the ant Mr. Soil in A Bug's Life, 1998
Zero Mostel: the seagull Kehaar in Watership Down, 1978
Paul Newman: the race-car Doc Hudson in Cars, 2006 (though Wikipedia says he was a narrator for the 2007 film Dale - guess that doesn't count as a "role"?)
John Ritter: the big red dog Clifford in Clifford's Really Big Movie, released 2004
Jimmy Stewart: the dog Sheriff Wylie Burp in An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, 1991
Orson Welles: the planet-eating robot Unicron in Transformers: The Movie, released 1986

[Ken Jennings]

Oll kurrect. Phil Hartman's next-to-last film was a voice in "Small Soldiers" if you don't count the US dub of a Japanese movie as a new release.

I have no idea what "Dale" is; it's not even in IMDb right now. News reports after Newman's death always singled out Cars as his "last movie."

[dmm]

It actually is in IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0815140/
It's a documentary about Dale Earnhardt. So it's questionably a "role" and questionably a "movie".

[RingoOSU]

Actually, all of Phil Hartman was seen in Small Soldiers as the annoying neighbor.

[Ken Jennings]

Oops, I thought Hartman was one of the voices. Never mind. Gotta be Kiki's then.

I see that IMDb lists "Actor" roles separately from "Self" appearances, and evidently "Narrator" is one of the latter. Which I can totally see...it's not really a "role," is it?

[dmm]

That's fair - "role" implies that you're not playing yourself.

[RingoOSU]

Narrator is a role if it's this movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/

[Ken Jennings]

Or the narrator in Our Town--a role which Newman actually played, late in life.

[dmm]

I was about to ask if there were any movies in which "Self" was a role, but a number of them came to mind immediately. IMDB seems to list them as their name, rather than "Self". And in one case I thought of, it turns out that the role had a different middle name than the actor.