Mel Blanc - 1959
publicity photo
Yesterday was the birthday of one of the most heard but never seen man in the history of radio, television and film, Mel Blanc. He was the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, the Tasmanian Devil, Pepé Le Pew and numerous other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons.
Blanc began his career during the Golden Age of Radio when he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for comedy radio programs, including those of Jack Benny, . . .
from left to right: Eddie "Rochester" Anderson,
. . . Abbott and Costello . . .
. . . Burns and Allen . . .
and Judy Canova
Mel Blanc was born as Melvin Jerome Blank in San Francisco, California, on May 30, 1908, and grew up in the city's Western Addition neighborhood. He is referred to as "The Man of a Thousand Voices" and is regarded as the greatest and most influential voice actor of all time.
In April of 1941 Blanc signed an exclusive contract with Leon Schlesinger Productions, where he made his mark as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd and other characters. As a freelancer he worked at all the animation studios, including Columbia, MGM (you can hear him in Peace on Earth) and Walter Lantz, for whom he originated the voice of Woody Woodpecker in 1940. His contract with Schlesinger didn’t cover live-action films (like the Jungle Book) or the field of radio, where Blanc was active, working with Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, and countless others. Nor did it prevent him from doing recordings or appearing on television, where he voiced the character of Barney Rubble on The Flintstones.
Blanc began smoking at least one pack of cigarettes per day at the
age of nine and continued up through 1985, having quit smoking after
being diagnosed with emphysema. He was later diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), after his family checked him into the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 19, 1989, when they noticed he had been coughing profusely while shooting an Oldsmobile commercial. He was originally expected to recover, but after his health had worsened, doctors discovered that he had advanced coronary artery disease. He also fell from his bed and broke his femur during the stay.
Blanc died at the age of 81 from complications related to both
illnesses on July 10, 1989, at 2:30 pm, nearly two months after being
admitted into the hospital. He is interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery section 13, Pinewood section, plot No. 149 in Hollywood. His will specified that his memorial marker read "That's all folks"—the phrase with which Blanc's character, Porky Pig, concluded Warner Bros. cartoons from 1937 to 1946.
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