Walker Edmiston

Talented, prolific and versatile voice and character actor Walker Edmiston had a remarkable career in radio, movies and television that spanned over five decades. Walker was born on February 6, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. Edmiston discovered at an early age that he could perfectly mimic other people's voices; he used to entertain his family with his vocal impression of Lionel Barrymore. After World War II ended Walker went to Los Angeles to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. Edmiston was introduced to animation producer Walter Lantz while performing in a play. This in turn lead to his first steady job doing various incidental voices on the children's show "Time for Beany." In the 50s and 60s he hosted "The Walker Edmiston Show," a children's TV program broadcast in Los Angeles which featured puppets of Edmiston's own creation that included Kingsley the Lion and Ravenswood the Buzzard. Walker worked often for Saturday morning TV series creators Sid and Marty Krofft; he supplied the voices of Sparky the Firefly on "The Bugaloos," Dr. Blinkey and Orson the Vulture on "H.R. Puffnstuf," and Big Daddy Ooze on "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters." Moreover, Edmiston portrayed a crazy old Civil War prospector on "Land of the Lost" and had a recurring role as token benevolent and intelligent Sleestak Enik. He provided the scary grunts and growls for the ferocious Zuni fetish doll in the final and most frightening segment of the made-for-TV horror anthology "Trilogy of Terror." Walker did the voice of Inferno for the "Transformers" cartoon show. For twenty years Edmiston was the voice of both beloved "nice guy" Tom Riley and the notorious Bart Rathbone on the popular radio program "Adventures in Odyssey." In addition, Walker was the voice of Ernie the Keebler Elf in countless TV commercials for ten years. Among the TV shows he had guest spots on are "Maverick," "Thriller," "The Virginian," "Green Acres," "Get Smart," "Star Trek," "The Wild, Wild West," "Bonanza," "Mission: Impossible," "Gunsmoke," "Fantasy Island," "The Waltons," "Little House on the Prairie," "The Dukes of Hazzard," "Falcon Crest," and "Knots Landing." He appeared on several records with Spike Jones, looped actor's voices on numerous films (one of these jobs was doing the off-camera lines for Orson Welles in "Start the Revolution Without Me"), and even supplied many different voices on all five "Planet of the Apes" pictures (he's the voice of the talking baby chimp in "Escape from the Planet of the Apes"). Walker Edmiston died from complications from cancer at age 81 on February 15, 2007.