Samuel E. Wright, the Voice of Sebastian in ‘The Little Mermaid,’ Dies at 72
Samuel E. Wright, a veteran stage actor who earned two Tony Award nominations but was best known for voicing the headstrong crab Sebastian in the 1989 animated film “The Little Mermaid,” died on Monday at his home in Walden, N.Y. He was 72.
Mr. Wright performed in eight Broadway shows beginning with “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 1971. His most prominent role was as Mufasa in the original cast of Disney’s “The Lion King,” which brought him one of his Tony nominations for best featured actor in a musical in 1998. He received another nomination for the same award in 1984 for his role in “The Tap Dance Kid.”
But Mr. Wright reached his widest audience working on several Disney movies, particularly “The Little Mermaid,” in which he voiced the Jamaican crab Sebastian. In the movie, he performs the song “Under the Sea,” in a bid to keep Ariel, a rebellious mermaid princess, from engaging with humans and falling in love with a prince named Eric.
“Ariel, listen to me / The human world, it’s a mess / Life under the sea is better than anything they’ve got up there.”
