Samuel E. Wright, the iconic voice of Sebastian the crab, dies at 72
Published:Thursday | May 27, 2021 | 12:59 PMShereita Grizzle/Staff Reporter -
Samuel E. Wright, the actor who was the voice of Sebastian the crab in Disney's The Little Mermaid, has died. He was 72.
Wright played the role of the Jamaican crab, who was an adviser to King Triton in the famed 1989 film. According to the Washington Post, Wright died on May 24 at his home in Walden, NY. He was 72. The cause was prostate cancer, said his daughter Dee Wright-Kelly.
In a post made via Facebook, Kelly dubbed her father a "beautiful, strong, loving daddy" and said she was still "processing the fact that the light that was and is my daddy will not be able to physically be here with me".
She urged fans of the late actor to keep the family in their prayers and keep talking about her father. "Speak his name today, tell his stories, make someone smile by sharing something you learned from him. That is what he would want. Today we celebrate Samuel E .Wright, my daddy," she wrote in the post.
In his performance as Sebastian the crab, Wright sang the Oscar-winning song Under the Sea from composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman and Kiss the Girl, which also earned him an Oscar nomination. He would go on to reprise his role as Sebastian in The Little Mermaid TV show and the film's subsequent direct-to-DVD sequels – The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea in 2000 and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning in 2008.