Ask Francis Michael McNally for a resume, and he tosses out a self-effacing one-pager that reads like a photo caption and doesn’t even begin to tell the story of this man of many voices. His education essentials are to the point: bachelor of science in finance from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management; master’s in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University’s College of Communications; participation in BC’s doctoral program in Educational Administration.

His employment record is equally succinct: teacher, Boston Public Schools; administrative assistant to the Dorchester High School headmaster; administrative assistant to the deputy superintendent of the Boston Public Schools; media liaison officer/intergovernmental affairs.
Then comes the denouement at the bottom of the page: voiceover artist specializing in radio, television, and documentary narrations. The reference is about as innocent as George Bailey losing a wad of dough in the classic It’s a Wonderful Life.
Mike McNally, born in Quincy and raised in Dorchester, has recorded more voiceovers than perhaps anyone in America—by count, in excess of 10,000 radio and television commercials and documentaries over the last 30 years, relying on 50-to-100 distinct voices, among them Jimmy Stewart, Jack Nicholson, the Kennedy brothers, Elvis, Gregory Peck, Dean Martin, Peter Falk and Telly Savalas. Who loves ya, baby?
We all do in that at one time or another, we’ve all heard McNally’s out-of-body narrations. His veiled voice has entertained, edified, and informed millions of viewers and listeners on radio and TV ads for prominent banks, institutions and products, like the trademark Colombo yogurt commercials he did years ago. McNally has made a lucrative living from all this. I hate to bother you, but could you pass me the check!
McNally also is known for his biting satirical political commentaries, distinguished PBS documentaries on Frontline and the American Experience, and, early on, for his on stage dalliance at Boston’s old Playboy Club where he performed as a callow 20 year old who was not old enough to be admitted.
His range of talent and voices is enough to render one artistically schizophrenic, or as the dictionary defines the word, “characterized by foolish mannerisms, delusions, and regressive behavior.” Great work, if you can get it! McNally still relishes the thought of making a career out of pretending to be someone he isn’t, so much so that one wonders if he truly knows who he is.
To an observer, the cacophony of voices on a gray January mid-afternoon is numbing in the snug living room of McNally’s Marina Bay condominium in Quincy, high above the horizon. The temptation to hear more is intoxicating. In a flash, McNally obliges with a flush of other voices.
“Nicholson never seems to take a breath when he talks,” McNally says. Then in his best mimic of Col. Nathan R. Jessup in A Few Good Men, he declares, “May I ask you a question? The way I got this thing figured, there ain’t no one who knows why I never have to breathe…and I can’t handle what’s going on here…”
Quicker than you can say To Kill A Mockingbird, McNally transitions to Gregory Peck, dropping his Adam’s apple deep into his chest for the baritone. On a roll, he engages in conversation with the Kennedy brothers, each accent wholly on target.
McNally has a knack for studying voices, a gift he discerned as a kid—one reinforced with a delighted audience in the school playground. Explaining the Kennedy idiom, he remarks, “Many people, particularly out-of-towners, think all Kennedys sound alike. That’s not true. Jack always sounded like he was yelling; he had a lazy “L,” and sounded like he was in a phone booth. He didn’t seem happy, like he just got Jackie’s bill for her clothes. He was always serious. Bobby was much higher-pitched. Even though he was supposed to be the tough guy, his voice was meek. Teddy sounded a bit like Jack, but younger and more nasal. His voice was more formal, as if he was trying to live up to the accent.”
For decades, McNally has been living up to the billing that he’s a class act and on cue can talk his way in and out of any thing. The first voice he ever did in grammar school was Snagglepuss, the pink anthropomorphic cartoon mountain lion, best known for the catchphrase, “Heavens to Murgatroyd!”
“I just imagine the character or the person, and let it happen,” McNally explains. “You channel them, if you will. You have to have a good ear, a liquid voice, and the ability to change tone, pitch, and range. You glide into it. Often you exaggerate without over exaggerating. It’s not a parody; it’s an impression.”
First rule of thumb, he says, is: Find a unique voice. McNally found his own voice through the mentoring of his late father, Francis, a Belfast-born sales manager for John Hancock Insurance Company, a guy who know how to close a deal, particularly with his son. The irony is that his father always wanted McNally to go to law school, and thus pushed—no shoved—him in that direction.
“I remember when I was in seventh grade at St. Ann’s in Neponset, and struggling with some of my school work,” McNally says. “My dad took me aside one day and boldly told me, ‘Son, you’re going to study at BC High, then you’re going to Boston College, then Boston College Law School, and then you’re going to become a judge.”
Period. End of sentence.
Adding an exclamation point, his father immediately drove him to see Boston College, and then took him to BC High. McNally was suitably impressed. His dad instructed him, as if whacking his son with a piece of granite between the ears to make a point: “To get to Boston College, you have to get to BC High. To get to BC High, you have to have much better marks at St. Ann’s.”
The moment was a turning point for McNally, not that it set him on fire for the bar, but because it instilled in him the need for a vision in life and a passion for what one pursues.
Growing up in Dorchester on working-class Chickatawbut Street, McNally was schooled on street smarts. While his dad was the disciplinarian, his mother Elizabeth (McLaughlin), with family roots in Sligo and throughout County Mayo, was more tender. The combination produced an artist with the drive of a fullback.
Both McNally and his younger brother Brian, who died years ago after a long illness, had after-school jobs for the discipline of it and for the security of some walking around money. McNally worked at Supreme Market bagging groceries and at Berry’s Hardware, selling marine equipment, a job retained during his college years and his early stage days.
Following the bearing set by his father, McNally enrolled at Boston College as a pre-law student in finance after graduating from BC High. At the Heights, the course of his life changed direction with an introduction to Ed Forry, one of the luminaries at BC’s radio station, WVBC, and now publisher of this newspaper, the Boston Irish Reporter. Forry gave him an audition, then his own show—“The Voices of Shannon”—for impersonations, commentaries, and playing music. “I didn’t write scripts, I just ad- libbed,” McNally recalls. “I did mock interviews with David Brinkley and people like Bobby Kennedy and Sen. Everett Dirksen. I had Walter Brennan as a member of the White House cabinet.”
The howls throughout Fulton Hall propelled McNally away from the legal beat. Through his connection with the BC station, he was introduced to Boston radio personality Jess Cain, who took an immediate liking to him. “Jess was a mentor and gave me my first opportunity in a big market,” he says.
McNally was an immediate hit, so much so that Cain one day—shortly before Bobby Kennedy announced his presidential bid—told his student to go on air and “give it anything you got.” When the red light came on in the booth, McNally launched into his Kennedy impersonation in a monologue that stunned Boston. “I would just like to announce that as of this moment, I’m a candidate for president of the United States.”
Cain flipped out. “Cut, cut, cut!” he yelled. The phones in the studio rang like church bells. “No, no,” the station manager assured callers time and again. “Kennedy has not announced! That was just that lunatic from Boston College.”
The shocking experience didn’t sour Cain on McNally. The broadcaster continued offering him opportunities, though not live spots, and persuaded him to pursue a graduate degree in broadcasting, rather than more gigs at the Playboy Club. In the interim, McNally began substitute teaching at Dorchester High where he caught the eye of the headmaster who walked by the classroom one day and was amazed at McNally’s control over otherwise unruly students.
“It was a carrot-and-stick approach,” McNally says. “If the students cooperated in class, they were entertained later with voices.” It was a quid pro quo that no adolescent could pass up.
McNally was then offered a full time position teaching economic geography and business math, filling the vacancy left, interestingly, by John Connolly, who had joined the FBI and would later enter into a fateful association with Whitey Bulger.
For a while, it looked as if McNally would be a professional educator—short of his dad’s vision for law school, but something indeed more serious than making fun of others. Time to put the big-boy pants on.
Well, not yet! After a stint of teaching and tenures as an administrative assistant to the headmaster and deputy school superintendent, the lure of the microphone remained enticing; it was the passion, the vision thing. McNally not only had the voice, but “the look” for both radio and television. Tall, thin, and handsome, with a velvet voice.
“It was kind of creepy when you answered a cattle call for a casting session in New York or Boston, and everyone looked like you,” he recalls.
While McNally has appeared many times on camera, his sense of his true calling along with his pragmatic zeal (“thank you, Dad”) for making a good living kept him in the recording studio. “I wasn’t a trained actor, and it took all day or two days to cut a TV commercial on a flat pay rate. I soon realized that I could make more money doing voiceovers. You can do 15 voiceovers in an hour, if you’re focused.”
Now in his mid-60s, McNally is still focused on his trade, doing ten recording sessions a month. He spends as much down time as possible these days with his wife, Claire, a broker for Coldwell Banker. The couple has no children.
So what does Mike McNally want to do when he grows up? “I’m not growing up,” he says, indicating the big-boy pants are still in the closet. “I love what I do.”
There’s no question things can seem bewildering with all those voices around the house and in recording studios. For example, in one PBS documentary, McNally recorded seven voices for a Frontline piece about Panama and its then military governor Manuel Noriega. In the piece, McNally did voices for Noriega, his generals, and a newscaster.
Still, there’s no chance that McNally suffers from an identity crisis. He will always be able to distinguish his own voice, instilled through his father. “I’ve been blessed,” he says. “I know my voice and will always follow it. I still can’t believe I get paid for doing this.”
Greg O’Brien is president of Stony Brook Group, a publishing and political/communications consulting company based on Cape Cod. He is a regular contributor to the Boston Irish Reporter, the editor/author of several books, and contributes to various regional and national publications.