With that particular medium facing increasing competition, a savvy Blanc looked to film animation for the next stage of his career. Soon he was working on shows like KFWB's "The Johnny Murray Show" and "The Joe Penner Show" at CBS Radio. Tired of merely scraping by, Estelle later convinced her clearly talented husband to give Hollywood another try.īack in Los Angeles in 1935, Blanc was already improving his track record from the previous visit. By 1933, Blanc had returned to Portland with his new bride where they were hired by station KEX to create, produce and host a late-night show called "Cobweb and Nuts." Working with on a shoestring budget, Blanc's inability to hire a large cast forced him to expand his repertoire of voice characters during its two-year run. A year of making the rounds yielded little professionally, although Blanc did meet Estelle Rosenbaum, who he would marry one year later. Various short-term jobs on stage and radio followed until Blanc at last succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, arriving in Los Angeles in 1932 and looking for voice work. Blanc's career in radio began in 1927, when he joined the ensemble as a voice actor on "The Hoot Owls" show, aired on Portland radio station KGW. Upon leaving Portland's Lincoln High School, Blanc - who changed his name from "Blank" after an unfeeling teacher had told the boy that was just what he would grow up to be - went to work with several orchestras and comedy vaudeville acts up and down the Northwest Coast. An astute mimic from an early age, he was also a proficient musician, playing the bass, violin and sousaphone. After the family, which included older brother Henry, relocated to the north, Blanc grew up in the Portland, OR area. As much as any matinee idol, Blanc remained a true Hollywood icon whose gifts were appreciated with each new generation of fans.īorn Melvin Jerome Blank on in San Francisco, CA, the future voice actor was the son of Jewish parents Frederick and Eva Katz Blank, who managed a women's clothing store business. Late-career efforts like the voice of the robot Twiki on the space adventure "Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century" (NBC, 1979-1981) and several voices in the smash hit feature "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988) found Blanc's unique talents as in demand as ever. With the end of his exclusive Warner contract in 1960, Blanc branched out and began working with up-and-coming animation studios like Hannah-Barbara on such hit shows as "The Flintstones" (ABC, 1960-66), while still voicing Warner's stable of cartoon stars well into the 1970s and beyond. Blanc broke new ground in his long underappreciated profession when in the mid-1940s, he negotiated onscreen credit for all of his voice work and for years remained the only voice actor accommodated with such recognition. Even as he lent his voice to the creation of such cartoon characters as Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird and Yosemite Sam, the voice actor continued to work in radio, primarily as an ensemble player on "The Jack Benny Program" (NBC, 1932-1948). After making a star of the stuttering Porky Pig, Blanc proved instrumental in the creation of the wise-cracking rabbit, Bugs Bunny. Starting out as a musician and radio personality, Blanc broke into animation in 1937 at Leon Schlesinger Studios, home of the Warner Bros. Known as "the man of a thousand voices," prolific voice actor Mel Blanc gave life to countless classic animated characters over the span of his remarkable career.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |