Pat Welsh

"I've found elderly female voices to be a superb starting point for aliens. I suppose this stems from the success I had in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial using Pat Welsh as the English-speaking component of E.T.'s voice. She had a deeper tone than average, and with a little electronic pitch shifting, her voice could become completely detached form any age or gender bias."

―Ben Burtt^[2]

Pat Welsh was an American actress who voiced Boushh in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi.

Earlier, she had collaborated with Ben Burtt again as the voice of the extraterrestrial title character in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.^[2]

Welsh had been a chain-smoker since the 1930s, which resulted into a low-pitched voice later in life.^[2]

Biography[]

She used to live in the same neighborhood as Ben Burtt, who met her in a photo store; that day she was at the head of the queue, talking about her credit card to the store clerk, when Burtt heard her voice. Soon after she was approached by Burtt and replied positively to the question whether she would "like to be an alien". Burtt that time was troubled about finding a proper voice for the character, and Welsh accepted to follow him to the studio, a block away. According to Burtt, after the success of E.T., she answered phone calls in the same tones as the character, and also spoke to groups of children.^[2]

For Jedi, she gave the lines of "Boushh", with a dialogue in Ubese written by Burtt, then edited with an electronic texture. Welsh was also familiar with Kipsang Rotich, then a college exchange student, and introduced him to Burtt. Rotich voiced Nien Nunb's Sullustese dialogue.^[2]