Voices of late actors Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and more used in AI text-to-speech app

Late Hollywood icons Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Laurence Olivier are being given new life — or their voices are, anyway.

ElevenLabs, an AI Audio company, announced Tuesday the launch of Iconic Voices on its newly released Reader App, where consumers will be able to have books, articles, and essays read to them by one of these voices, should they so choose. This is all thanks to partnerships with the estates of said stars.

Liza Minnelli, Garland's daughter and representative of her estate, said in a statement, "It's exciting to see our mother's voice available to the countless millions of people who love her. Through the spectacular new technology offered by ElevenLabs, our family believes that this will bring new fans to Mama, and be exciting to those who already cherish the unparalleled legacy that Mama gave and continues to give to the world."

These voices are the first of the ElevenLabs’ Iconic Voices to launch, with additional voices due to be added in the coming months. The company notes that the voices "are exclusively available through the ElevenLabs Reader App," which "means they do not form part of the wider ElevenLabs voice library and are limited in what they can be used to narrate. The audio generated with these voices are designed to be enjoyed for individual streaming use, rather than to create content designed to be shared."

“Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier are some of the most celebrated actors in history. We deeply respect their legacy and are honored to have their voices as part of our platform,” Dustin Blank, head of partnerships at ElevenLabs, said. “Adding them to our growing list of narrators marks a major step forward in our mission of making content accessible in any language and voice.”

The app, which is free to download and use for the first 3 months, is currently only available in select countries on iOS, but will be made available worldwide and on Android in the coming weeks once multilingual support is available, per the company.

The potential use of celebrity voices for AI has been a hot button topic in recent months. In May, Scarlett Johansson made headlines when she accused the tech company OpenAI of featuring a voice "eerily similar" to her own in the latest version of its ChatGPT bot after Johansson expressly declined to lend her voice to the system, a move that she said left her "shocked" and "forced to hire legal counsel" to address the matter. Johansson called for new laws to address issues of AI technology and individual rights. The company denied that the voice in question, named Sky, was intended to resemble Johansson.

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The use of AI in the entertainment industry was also a divisive topic as labor union SAG-AFTRA negotiated with Hollywood studios during its lengthy 2023 strike. The actors' union secured "consent and compensation guardrails" on the use of AI; studios must obtain an actor's informed consent before creating or using a digital replica of any performer, from A-list stars too background actors.