James LaRue Avery was an American actor and voice actor, who was best known for his voice role as The Shredder in the original 1987 series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and for his television role as Philip Banks in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (alongside Will Smith) between 1990 and 1996. He also portrayed Steve Yeager in The Brady Bunch Movie.
For Disney, he voiced a shaman in Gargoyles, Haroud Hazi Bin in the Aladdin TV series, Mr. Clapper in Pepper Ann, Br'er Bear and Br'er Frog in Splash Mountain (the former role of which he reprised in Kinect: Disneyland Adventures), Chief Keewazi in The Legend of Tarzan, Crandall Smythe in The Proud Family, and Mr. Narrator in The Lion King: Animated StoryBook. He also played Oliver in Sunday Drive, Calvin Bridges in You Lucky Dog, and Presto Jones in That's So Raven.
