The Radio Personality Who Became An Iconic TV Star: “Laugh-In’s” Gary Owens

Is it possible to make lots of money with just your voice?

Certainly. For decades people have made successful careers out of voice acting, voiceovers, radio,even automated systems.

Only a handful, however, reach the pinnacle of the profession, people who do indeed make tons of money from their voice.

And sometimes their careers take unexpected turns. And that’s where we find longtime radio personality turned TV star Gary Owens.

Get your copy of Gary Owens’s book

He was a successful and popular radio personality in Los Angeles in the 1960s, when he was recruited to join an unusual new TV show called “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.”

But actually, even though “Laugh-In” may be what he is best remembered for, Gary Owens had a very long and very successful voice acting career.

Owens was never one to gatekeep, so in 2004 he wrote a book called How to Make a Million Dollars With Your Voice. Now keeping in mind that that was over 20 years ago, long before anyone knew that AI was going to take over a lot of the voicing environment, so some of what he says is a little dated.

But not to worry, because listening to the stories that Gary Owens tells more than makes up for it.

So here now, from 2004, Gary Owens.

Gary Owens died in 2015, at age 80.

Mel Blanc

Photo by Alan Light

This was actually one of the most popular interviews I posted last year on Now I’ve Heard Everything — and since tomorrow, May 30th, would have been his 112th birthday, I wanted to re-share my 1988 interview with the unmatched master of voice acting, Mel Blanc.

Bugs Bunny. Daffy Duck. Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Twety, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble. Heck, he was even the voice of Jack Benny’s car.

Virtually everyone has heard Mel’s voice characterizations.

So here now, from 1988, Mel Blanc:

Less than a year after our interview, Mel Blanc died at the age of 81, taking with him hundreds of the voices many of us grew up with.