He says the magic words

With a script in his hand, Jim Dale scrunches his face in a sneer and lets out a gurgling, brusque voice that transforms the 69-year-old British actor into the large, beefy, purple-faced Aunt Marge, a minor character in the “Harry Potter” series.

He is reading from one of his favorite passages in the third book of the series to eager fans Tuesday evening at Storyopolis in Studio City. The crowd sits rapt as Harry unleashes his magic on the drunk and villainous Aunt Marge, inflating her like a balloon and making her fingers fat as salamis.

Dale has given voice to more than 200 characters in the audio versions of the six “Harry Potter” books published so far (author J.K. Rowling has said a seventh title will end the series). The first five audiobooks in the series smashed previous sales records with more than 4 million copies sold in North America.

For the initial run of the most recent title, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” 635,000 audio versions were printed, making it the largest first run in the history of audiobooks, says Amanda D’Acierno, a spokeswoman at Random House Audio.

Although the “Harry Potter” audiobooks Dale worked on -- for which he’s garnered much praise -- have become blockbusters, his schedule is far from glamorous. Because of tight security restrictions on the book, he received only 100 pages of the manuscript at a time. He color-coded the characters and had to devise voices for the new ones practically overnight, keeping track of them on a tape recorder.

Once he got in the studio, Dale would spend nearly seven hours in a cramped sound booth -- unless his voice gave out sooner -- recording almost 20 pages per hour. Then he would hand back the recorded portion of the manuscript and get another 100 pages, often with more new characters.

The recording of the most recent book took two weeks. No cameras were allowed to film him as he worked, for fear that parts of the book would be leaked before its release date.

“I was the only one in America with the book (in manuscript form),” Dale says. “Released into the wrong hands, it could have ended up on the Internet and losing a lot of people a lot of money.”

More than 100 people, many of them adults, packed the Storyopolis bookstore, cheering and applauding for their favorite characters and scenes. With his glasses pushed down his nose and his brow furrowed, Dale read herbology lessons in Professor Sprout’s whiny voice and spoke in gruff, bellowing tones as Hagrid tended to his pet insects.

Dale is not often recognized in public, but as he ordered food at a McDonald’s recently, a couple of kids recognized his voice. Dale finished placing his order as Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

He says he is inspired by other actors, using the late John Houseman’s precise and deliberate speech to create Dumbledore’s voice. But he also finds muses in everyday situations.

As he pushed into a crowded elevator one day, Dale heard a squeaky voice come from below.

“Excuse me, sir, could you take your bum out of my face?”

Dale turned around to encounter a very short man, and the voice of Dobby the house elf was born.

With a career in entertainment spanning more than 53 years, Dale has excelled on stage and as a song writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the lyrics to the title song for the film “Georgy Girl” in 1966 and he won a Tony for his lead role in “Barnum” in 1980. Working with Beatles record producer George Martin, Dale also had a brief pop singing career.

Still, Dale believes his “Harry Potter” recordings will become his strongest legacy. He expresses pride for his place in the Guinness World Book of Records for creating and recording 134 voices in one audiobook, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

“People are beginning to realize that this is another ‘Peter Pan’ or ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ” he says of her series. “It will be there forever; not only my grandchildren but their grandchildren will read it and that’s amazing.”