This is a tough one for me. Walker Edmiston, a wonderful actor, cartoon voice, puppeteer and kids' show host, died on February 15. I just found out this afternoon.
If you look back, you'll see me talking about him in this post of the day before. At the time I wrote it, I didn't know he was hospitalized and not expected to survive for long.
I first knew of Walker as a kids' show host here in Los Angeles. He'd been a performer on the original Time for Beany puppet show. In fact, for a while after Daws Butler left, he was Beany. He'd done other puppet shows as well, including The Walker Edmiston Show, which he hosted on KTLA here in town. The still below is of him on that program, posing with his main puppets. Left to right, they were R. Crag Ravenswood, Calley the Cat, Barky the Dog and Kingsley the Lion. The show, which he ad-libbed every day, was as hip and funny as anything ever done for children or even most adults. You'll have to take my word for that because few episodes (if any) survive…but I would stack it up against the best of Soupy Sales and Chuck McCann. It was that good.
It was also a small part of Walker's career. He did hundreds of movies, hundreds of cartoons, hundreds of on-camera appearances, thousands of commercials. He was part of Red Skelton's stock company on his TV show. He was a recurring character (an expert in replicating voices) on Mission: Impossible. He did the voices of many creatures and aliens on the original Star Trek.
I first worked with Walker on shows for Sid and Marty Krofft. He was one of their main voice people. On H.R. Pufnstuf, he did the voices of all the male characters who weren't done by Lennie Weinrib. On Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, he was Sigmund and many of the other creatures. On The Land of the Lost, he was Enik the Sleestak and dozens of others.
You heard him constantly without knowing it was him. He did dozens and dozens of movies where they brought him in to imitate and redub another actor. For example, he looped Orson Welles in Start the Revolution Without Me. Once, when one of Mel Brooks's movies was being released, the studio wanted Mel to do the radio commercials but Mel was out of town so Walker went in and did an imitation, and everyone thought it was Mel Brooks. He was the announcer for years for the Stater Brothers market chain in Southern California. He was several of the Keebler Elves.
He did cartoons — Top Cat, Spider-Man, Plastic Man, The Flintstones, The Transformers and many more. Walker took over the role of Ludwig Von Drake after Paul Frees retired from it…and being an ethical person, he only agreed to take it on after talking to Paul and getting his blessing.
He was also — and I don't want this to get lost among a list of credits — a very dear, lovely man.
This is not a formal obit. I'm helping the L.A. Times assemble one and I'll link to it when it's up, probably next week. This is also certainly not an overview of his entire career because I wouldn't know where to start. These are just some quick thoughts about a fine actor and fine gentleman…and someone I already miss. I'll post more details of his extraordinary life here shortly.