The voice actors of Mickey and Minnie Mouse were in love in real life

By Raechal Shewfelt, Yahoo Entertainment

For decades, voice actor Russi Taylor found it easy to provide the voice of Minnie Mouse, the beloved Disney character who is fascinated by the original Disney mascot, Mickey Mouse.

Taylor, who died of colon cancer on Friday at the age of 75, was not only an accomplished artist who had previously lent her voice to “Strawberry Shortcake” and “Pebbles – Flintstones,” but she was also deeply in love with Wayne Allwine, the actor who played Mickey from the 1970s until his death in 2009.

In fact, Taylor first met Allwine while working on the 1988 Disney special Totally Minnieaccording to the WashingtonPost.

“When I started voicing Goofy in 1987, they were both in a bad marriage,” actor Bill Farmer told the newspaper. “But over the years, they became Mickey and Minnie. They divorced their respective spouses and then fell in love. Everyone saw it coming. Just by watching them work together, I could see their relationship developing into something deeper than just a working relationship.”

Taylor and Allwine married in Hawaii in 1991.

Still, they kept their romance a secret because they didn’t want to overshadow Mickey and Minnie. Allwine sometimes got around this during performances by staying in character to show his love.

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“Wayne would bring a little ukulele to play riffs and sing little songs, and quite often he would sing a little love song to Minnie as Mickey,” Farmer said. “You knew it was Wayne talking to Russi.”

The couple also visited Disneyland, where they delighted the little ones with their voices, especially those who were having an unfortunate moment.

When they were inducted into the Disney Legends Hall of Fame in 2008, Roy E. Disney described the couple as people who “donated generously to many charitable causes, especially when it came to working with children.”

In 2009, Allwine died at the age of 62 from complications of diabetes, but Taylor continued to talk about their love.

Andrew Farago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, told the post that, as far as he was concerned, Taylor and Allwine was Minnie and Mickey: “Kindhearted, generous, friendly to everyone they met. … I think they really embodied those characters.”