Joe Alaskey, 63; a voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck . WASHINGTON -
Joe Alaskey lived through his characters. "Even at 3 years old," he
once said, "I was always looking for a pair of sunglasses or people's
cigar butts to grab to do characters, and that led into me working on
impressions, and that led into theater. As himself, Mr. Alaskey was a
jovial, energetic jack-of-all-trades. But he could be just about anyone
else. The impressionist and Emmy award-winning voice actor who
succeeded Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck died of cancer
Wednesday in New York. Mr. Alaskey was 63. Over the course of his
lifetime, he lent his voice to some of animation's greatest hits. He
became one of the principal Looney Tunes actors after Blanc's death in
1989, voicing not only Bugs and Daffy Duck, but virtually all the
characters, including Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird. Mr. Alaskey
also played Yosemite Sam in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," his first major
film and a seminal work in live-action animation. Before he was
recognized as a sonic sensation, however, he had envisioned himself in
a variety of other jobs - perhaps a telling glimpse into the
shape-shifter that he would become. He was born Joseph Francis Alaskey
III in Troy, N.Y. At age 10, Mr. Alaskey told Splitsider, he wanted to
be an archaeologist. A while after that, he wanted to be a priest, and
then an English teacher. Mr. Alaskey was in his early 20s when he moved
to New York City to pursue show business as a stand-up comedian. While
doing shows on the side, he worked for an insurance company and
apprenticed for a diamond cutter. It was on stage, though, that he
sharpened his impressions. A heavyset man who wore wire-rim glasses and
joked about having a second head below his double chin, Mr. Alaskey
could manipulate his voice to adopt both high and low pitches, tenors
young and old. He switched between characters without missing a beat,
an entire comedy troupe in a single man. In 1981, he got a call from
Friz Freleng, the creator of Looney Tunes. "This guy calls me on the
phone . . . and says, 'It's Friz Freleng. I heard your act. We're
looking for replacements. Mel Blanc is not going to live forever,' "
Mr. Alaskey recounted to Splitsider with a laugh. There was no more
cutting diamonds after that. The rest of his career was more about
sharpening the sound of Bugs Bunny talking through his big buck teeth.
When he was just starting out in impressions, Mr. Alaskey had also
honed to near-perfection his Jackie Gleason. Many told him he bore a
striking resemblance to the renowned and rotund comic genius, a genetic
gift that paid off when Gleason himself called on Mr. Alaskey to voice
him on the "lost" episodes of Gleason's "The Honeymooners" that were
revived in the 1980s from Gleason's private collection. "That was quite
an honor," Mr. Alaskey said in a TV interview. The project "closest to
[his] heart" was "Duck Dodgers," a cartoon starring Daffy Duck as a
science fiction hero for which Mr. Alaskey won an Emmy in 2004. He was
up against, among others, Henry Winkler (of "Happy Days" fame) and John
Ritter (of "Three's Company" and "Clifford the Big Red Dog"). "John
Ritter had just died, actually, so everyone thought he would win," Mr.
Alaskey told Slipsider. "Even my mother said, 'You're not going to get
it.' Aside from Looney Tunes characters and Jackie Gleason, Mr. Alaskey
also voiced various political personalities in the late 1980s puppet
show "D.C. Follies. Ever the prolific actor, he was moreover heard on
"Rugrats" as Grandpa Lou Pickles, and on "Forrest Gump" as Richard
Nixon. Mr. Alaskey was remembered fondly this week for his lively
presence and dedication to his craft. "He took it so seriously, it
meant so much to him - it was a heavy responsibility," Mr. Alaskey's
niece and former assistant, Trish Alaskey, told the Los Angeles Times.
"He loved the characters - he loved Mel [Blanc] - and it was very
important to him that they came off the right way. He would visit her
school and perform voices for her classmates. "My friends were
requesting autographs," she recalled. On social media, fans expressed
appreciation for how Mr. Alaskey brought to life the beloved
personalities of their youth. Mark Evanier, a comic book and television
writer, posted a tribute to his friend and colleague on his blog. While
Evanier said Mr. Alaskey could be "temperamental and fiercely insecure
at times," no one doubted his talent. "The only problem we had was that
Joe had so many different voices that is was sometimes difficult to
choose which one we wanted out of him," Evanier wrote. "The one I liked
best was when he sounded like Joe Alaskey. He had a long, long list of
voices but that's the one I will miss the most.
