Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc

 Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989)

Although he began his 60-plus-year career performing in radio, Blanc is best remembered for his work as the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, the Tasmanian Devil, and many of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons during the golden age of American animation - in fact, for all of the major Warner Bros. cartoon characters except for Elmer Fudd, whose voice was provided by radio actor Arthur Q. Bryan (although Blanc later voiced Fudd, as well after Bryan's death). He later worked for Hanna-Barbera's television cartoons, most notably as the voices of Barney Rubble on The Flintstones and Mr. Spacely on The Jetsons. Blanc was also the original voice of Woody Woodpecker for Universal Pictures, and provided vocal effects for the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons directed by Chuck Jones for MGM. Furthermore, during the golden age of radio, Blanc was a frequent performer on the radio programs of famous comedians from the era, including Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, and Judy Canova. Having earned the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Voices", Blanc is regarded as one of the most influential people in the voice-acting industry. Throughout the 1980s, Blanc performed his "Looney Tunes" characters for bridging sequences in various compilation films of Golden-Age-era Warner Bros. cartoons, such as The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales, Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island, and Daffy Duck's Quackbusters.

After spending most of two seasons voicing the robot Twiki in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Blanc's last original character was Heathcliff, in the early 1980s. Blanc continued to voice his famous characters in commercials and TV specials for most of the decade. His final performance of his "Looney Tunes" roles was in "Bugs Bunny's Wild World of Sports" (1989). Blanc began smoking cigarettes when he was 9 years old. He continued his pack-a-day habit until he was diagnosed with emphysema, which pushed him to quit at age 77. On May 19, 1989, Blanc was checked into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center by his family when they noticed he had a bad cough while shooting a commercial; he was originally expected to recover. Blanc's health then took a turn for the worse and doctors found that he had advanced coronary artery disease. He died on July 10 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, at the age of 81. Mel Blanc is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.