Actress, voice over artist and poet Patricia Alice Albrecht, known to a generation of fans as the voice of green-haired troublemaker Pizzazz in animated series Jem and the Holograms, died on December 25, 2019, at her home in Nashville, Tennessee. The news was shared by her friend and co-star, Samantha Newark (voice of Jem), in a heartfelt Instagram post.
Newark added that in lieu of flowers, Albrecht’s wish was for donations to be made to Free for Life International (https://freeforlifeintl.org), a Nashville-based organization dedicated to finding and helping victims and survivors of human trafficking.
Albrecht was born in Detroit, Michigan and earned a BFA in Theater from Wayne State University, according to her IMDb bio. She played roles in live-action TV series and movies including Remington Steele and Midnight Madness and in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s before landing the role of Phyllis “Pizzazz” Gabor on Jem and the Holograms (1985-88). The character was the spoiled, mischief-making lead singer of Holograms rival band The Misfits, and was often the source of peril for the popular toy tie-in cartoon from Sunbow, Marvel and Hasbro.
Into the mid-’90s, Albrecht continued to provide voices for animated projects, with repeated appearances on The New Yogi Bear Show, Snorks and New Kids on the Block a well as gigs on Tom & Jerry Kids, Droopy: Master Detective, Batman: The Animated Series and The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries.
Albrecht eventually moved to Nashville, where she pursued writing, forming a group and encouraging other aspiring scribes. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in literary anthology Wind Eyes, A Woman’s Reader and Writing Source, The Crone Chronicles, National Library of Poetry and others. She also published poetry chapbooks The Value of Sacrifice, about healing from breast cancer; The Shade of a Forest, about late-life motherhood, and The Season of Dying Mothers. In 2009, Albrecht recorded a poetry CD A Touch of Pizzazz for fans of Jem.
H/T ComicBook.com.
