Elwood Edwards, who voiced AOL’s “You’ve received mail” greeting, has died, aged 74.
Edwards died on Tuesday at his residence in New Bern, North Carolina, his daughter Heather mentioned. The trigger was issues from a stroke late final yr, she added.
Edwards taped his AOL greetingon a recorder whereas sitting in the lounge of his residence in 1989. “You’ve received mail” turned a catchphrase within the late Nineties and served because the title of the 1998 movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
“He would nonetheless blush any time somebody introduced it up,” his daughter mentioned. “He beloved the eye, however he by no means received used to it.”
He was additionally the voice of AOL’s “Welcome”, “Goodbye” and “File’s accomplished” messages. He made $200 from the recordings.
Edwards received the gig whereas working at an unbiased tv station in Washington DC. His second spouse, Karen, was a customer support consultant for the web supplier that later turned generally known as AOL. She heard the corporate was on the lookout for somebody to be the voice of its software program and urged her husband.
Heather Edwards mentioned: “They have been so impressed, they didn’t have him go in a recording sales space.”
Whereas few folks knew Edwards’ face, his voice was heard by tens of millions of individuals daily. “For some time, America On-line [AOL] was protecting it a secret, making me a person of thriller. However lastly it was launched, and there you go,” Edwards mentioned in 1999.
He appeared on The Tonight Present Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2015 to repeat the catchphrase, smiling broadly and chuckling because the studio viewers cheered. He additionally added his voice to an episode of The Simpsons in 2000.
Edwards first labored in radio after which moved into tv. He had a short stint as a climate presenter and labored as an announcer, however largely he spent his time behind the digital camera, Heather Edwards mentioned.
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“He would say: ‘I’ve a face for radio,’” she mentioned, including that her father “at all times had a prepared smile any time you’d see him”.
He later labored at WKYC-TV in Cleveland as a “graphics guru, digital camera operator, and normal jack of all trades”, the station mentioned. Edwards additionally did freelance voiceover work for radio and tv commercials.
He’s survived by one other daughter, Sallie, a granddaughter, Abbie, and his brother, Invoice.
The household plans to carry a memorial service on Monday in New Bern.
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