[msb-alumni] Alan Young, star of 1960s sitcom 'Mr. Ed,' dies at 96
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 14:31:06 -0400
BlankAlan Young, star of 1960s sitcom 'Mr. Ed,' dies at 96 AP LOS ANGELES (AP)
'
Actor-comedian Alan Young, who played the amiable straight man to a talking
horse in the 1960s sitcom Mister Ed ,'has died, a spokeswoman for the Motion
Picture and Television Home said Friday. He was 96. The English-born,
Canadian-educated
Young died Thursday, according to Jaime Larkin, spokeswoman for the retirement
community where Young had lived for four years. His children were with him
when he died peacefully of natural causes, she said. Young was already a
well-known radio and TV comedian, having starred in his own Emmy-winning variety
show, when Mister Ed 'was being readied at comedian George Burns' production
company. Burns is said to have told his staff: "Get Alan Young. He looks like
the kind of guy a horse would talk to. Mr. Ed was a golden Palomino who spoke
only to his owner, Wilbur Post, played by Young. Fans enjoyed the horse's
deep, droll voice ("WIL-bur-r-r-r-r") and the goofy theme song lyrics ("A horse
is a horse, of course, of course ... "). Cowboy star Allan "Rocky" Lane
supplied Mr. Ed's voice. An eclectic group of celebrities including Clint
Eastwood, Mae West and baseball great Sandy Koufax made guest appearances on
the show. Mister Ed 'was one of a number of situation comedies during the early
to mid-'60s that added elements of fantasy. Others were My Mother the Car
,'in which a man's dead mother spoke to him through an old car; My Favorite
Martian 'in which a Martian took up residence on Earth disguised as the uncle
of an earthling; and Bewitched 'in which a witch married a mortal. A loose
variation on the Francis the Talking Mule 'movies of the 1950s, Mister Ed 'was
one of the few network series to begin in syndication. After six months, it
moved to ABC in October 1961 and lasted four seasons. When the cameras weren't
rolling, the human and four-legged co-stars were friends, according to Young.
If
Ed was reprimanded by his trainer, Young said, "He would come over to
me, like, 'Look what he said to me.' In July 1997, Alan Young posed with Mister
Ed-For-A-Day, a horse named "Champagne" in San Francisco. (Photo: Susan
Ragan, AP) Like many series of its vintage, Mister Ed' won new fans in later
decades through near-constant cable TV syndication and video releases. Young
also appeared in a number of films, including Gentlemen Marry Brunettes ,' Tom
Thumb,'The Cat from Outer Space 'and The Time Machine ,'the latter the 1960
classic in which, speaking in a Scottish brogue, he played time traveler Rod
Taylor's friend. Young had a small role in the 2002 Time Machine 'remake.
In later years, Young found a new career writing for and voicing cartoons. He
portrayed Scrooge McDuck in 65 episodes for Disney's TV series Duck Tales'
and did voice-overs for The Great Mouse Detective . Young's sly, low-key style
first attracted a wide U.S. audience in 1944 with The Alan Young Show 'on
ABC radio. He also drew attention from Hollywood, but early films such as
Margie
'and Mr. Belvedere Goes to College 'did poorly and in 1950 he turned to
the growing new medium of TV and moved The Alan Young Show 'to the small
screen,
where it offered a contrast to the slapstick and old vaudeville of other
variety shows. His gentle comedy caused TV Guide to hail him as "the Charlie
Chaplin of television," and the fledgling Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences
awarded Emmys to Young as best actor and to the show as best variety series.
Alan Young as Wilbur Post with Mister Ed in a scene from the 1960's television
show, 'Mister Ed. (Photo: Mister Ed) Howard Hughes, who had seen Young on TV,
hired him for the lead in a film version of Androcles and the Lion ,'a comedy
based on the George Bernard Shaw play. When it opened in theaters, however,
nobody laughed, so Hughes withdrew the movie and shot two weeks of new
sequences.
"He put in girls with gauze and a real lion, and it became a blood-and-guts
film," Young recalled in 1987. Angus Young was born Nov. 19, 1919, of Scottish
parents in the north England town of North Shields. (In his later years he
claimed he was born in 1924.) The family moved to Canada when he was a child,
and he began entertaining in Vancouver when he was 13. He had his own radio
program, Stag Party ,'on the CBC network by the time he graduated from high
school. After two years in the Canadian navy, he moved to New York City. Young
was a Christian Scientist from his teen years. In the early 1970s, he left
his career to work for the Mother Church in Boston. He spent three years
establishing a film and broadcasting center, then toured the country for two
years
as a Christian Science lecturer. Disillusioned by the church bureaucracy, he
returned to Hollywood in 1976. In 1940, Young married Mary Anne Grimes and
they had a daughter, Alana, and a son, Alan Jr. The marriage ended in 1947. In
1948 he married singer Virginia McCurdy, and they had a son, Cameron Angus,
and a daughter, Wendy. There was no information on survivors.
Other related posts:
- » [msb-alumni] Alan Young, star of 1960s sitcom 'Mr. Ed,' dies at 96 - Steve
