To his family, friends and audiences around the world who never even saw him, Mel Blanc was a one-of-a-kind performer who gave voices to memorable cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the stuttering Porky Pig. Blanc died Monday of heart disease. He was 81.
"He loved every minute of doing those voices. He became those characters," his son Noel told United Press International. "And his last recorded words in a commercial we did the day he went into the hospital were `That's all, folks.' "That phrase, known to millions as the parting shot of Porky Pig, was one of many that became as famous as any in the language. From Bugs Bunny's "Eh, what's up doc?" to Sylvester the Cat's "Sssufferin' Sssuccotash," Blanc's trademark bon mots became part of the American vocabulary in five decades of work in Hollywood's cartoon industry.
Blanc had been hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center since May 19 and died at 2:30 p.m. of heart disease and related medical problems, hospital spokesman Ron Wise said. His wife of 56 years, Estelle, and his son were by his side.
Blanc worked in radio, movies and television as the voice behind the cartoons, creating a menagerie of characters including Woody Woodpecker, Tweety, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzalez and Daffy Duck. The voice of Elmer Fudd, often attributed to Blanc, was actually done by Cliff Nazarro.
By his own count, Blanc estimated he had mastered at least 900 different accents and dialects.
In the years when cartoons were as much a part of the movies as the newsreel and the double feature, Blanc was dubbing at least 50 cartoons a year and once estimated he worked in more than 1,000 pictures.
Although he never personally won an Academy Award, one of the six Oscars his voice helped earn for Warner Bros. later was presented to him by the widow of a studio chief.
"They (the characters) were all Mel Blanc. He not only gave them immortality, but won it for himself. As long as these cartoons are seen and enjoyed, Mel Blanc's genius will be there for everyone," Warner Bros. Chairman Robert A. Daly said.
In radio's heyday, Blanc starred with such performers as Jack Benny, Judy Canova, Abbott and Costello and Burns and Allen.
Benny hired him to do the voice of Carmichael, the growling bear that guarded Benny's basement vault.
"Finally I told Jack I could talk, too," Blanc recalled later. "So he let me do the train announcer who called out `All aboard for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga.' I also did his Maxwell car, his parrot and some of the other characters."
Blanc's first famous voice was that of Porky Pig who stuttered, "That's all, folks" for Warner Bros., for whom he provided 90 percent of the cartoon voices.
Then came the voice of Bugs Bunny and the line, "What's up, Doc?" which was mimicked nationwide and solidified Blanc's reputation.
The only person to copy his voice, his son Noel, now does voice-overs needed for his father's characters.