Donna Paige Helmintoller, better known as Paige O’Hara, is an American actress, voice actress, singer, and painter.
O’Hara began her career as a Broadway actress when she portrayed Ellie May Chipley in the musical Showboat. She made her motion picture debut in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, where she voiced the film’s heroine, Belle. Following the critical and commercial success of Beauty and the Beast, O’Hara reprised her role as Belle in the film’s two direct-to-video follow-ups, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and Belle’s Magical World.
O’Hara also starred as Venus in the BBC’s recorded broadcast of the live presentation of Kurt Weill’s “One Touch of Venus” and in tribute to her Belle character from Beauty and the Beast, she portrayed Angela, a character in a fictional soap opera, for Disney’s 2007 live-action/traditional 2-D animated movie Enchanted. Paige also starred in The Legend of Prince Valiant TV series with Robby Benson, and Tim Curry.