Ed Herlihy
Encyclopedia
Edward Joseph "Ed" Herlihy (August 14, 1909 – January 30, 1999) was an American newsreel
narrator for Universal-International
. His voice was heard in countless films on every subject, making him one of the best-known voices in broadcast history. He also was a long-time radio and television announcer for NBC
, hosting The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour
in the 1940s and 1950, and was briefly interim announcer on The Tonight Show
in 1962. He was also the voice of Kraft Foods
radio and TV commercials from the 1940s through the early 1980s. When he died in 1999, his New York Times obituary fondly remembered him as "A Voice of Cheer and Cheese."
, graduating in 1932, he gained his first radio job in his hometown, at Boston's WLOE. When he was hired by NBC in 1935, he decamped for New York, along with his friend, fellow Boston announcer Frank Gallop
, who was hired by CBS
. In their early days as network announcers, Herlihy and Gallop shared an apartment on West 45th Street. He was immediately successful in network radio, at that time in its sharpest ascendancy. He was the announcer for many radio shows from the 1930s, to the 1950s, among them: America's Town Meeting
, The Big Show
, The Falcon
, Mr. District Attorney
, and Just Plain Bill
. Herlihy became the host of the The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour
on radio in 1948, remaining its announcer when the show went to television. He continued his success in the new medium: his early television credits included Sid Caesar's
hit Your Show of Shows
and soap operas As the World Turns
and All My Children
. He was also the host of Recollections At 30, which was a special NBC Radio series created for the network's 30th birthday.
In 1947 Herlihy began his long association with Kraft Foods on radio and continued it when the company sponsored the Kraft Television Theater on television in the 1950s. Richard Severo writes in his obituary of Herlihy that the show — and Herlihy's talent — suited Kraft well:
In his capacity with Kraft, Severo writes, Herlihy "introduced Cheez Whiz
, offered innumerable entreaties to buy Velveeta
and delivered eloquent apologias for the entombment of almost anything edible with Miracle Whip
."
s in the 1940s, Herlihy narrated editions describing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Allies' early setbacks against the Axis powers, the turning of the tide of WWII, the death of President Roosevelt, and the detonation of the first atomic bombs. In the next decade, during the Cold War, he narrated the very first American newsreel on the launch of Sputnik.
Herlihy's role as Kraft spokesman lasted nearly 40 years, his voice becoming as familiar as a next-door neighbor's. From his New York Times obituary: "He liked to recall a summer day in Times Square
when he helped a blind
man to cross at 44th Street. He took the man's arm, and the man said it was a beautiful day. "Yes," Herlihy replied, "this is the kind of day the Lord made for the good guys." The blind man replied: "I know you. You're the cheese man on TV.""
, then a fledgling writer. Allen was so impressed with Herlihy's voice that he used him in several of his films in the 1980s, including Hannah and Her Sisters
, Radio Days
and Zelig
; his other film credits included Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy
and Tim Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure
.
He also appeared in road company stage productions outside New York City, including Camelot
, Good News
and Damn Yankees
. He was in Watergate: The Musical, in Atlanta in 1982; Herlihy played Senator Sam Ervin
, a role for which he spent $40 for a pair of bushy eyebrows, only to find that they would not move up and down.
, at age 89. The Herlihy family is one of the supporters of the Lillian Booth Actors Home
in Englewood, New Jersey
; the foyer, with its oil portrait of Herlihy, is named in his memory.
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
narrator for Universal-International
Universal Newsreel
Universal Newsreel was a series of 7- to 10-minute newsreels that were released twice a week between 1929 and 1967 by Universal Studios. A Universal publicity official, Sam B. Jacobson, was involved in originating and producing the newsreels...
. His voice was heard in countless films on every subject, making him one of the best-known voices in broadcast history. He also was a long-time radio and television announcer for NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, hosting The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour
The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour
The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour was a variety show with a cast of children, including some who later became well-known adult performers. It had a long run for more than three decades...
in the 1940s and 1950, and was briefly interim announcer on The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
in 1962. He was also the voice of Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
radio and TV commercials from the 1940s through the early 1980s. When he died in 1999, his New York Times obituary fondly remembered him as "A Voice of Cheer and Cheese."
Radio and television
Educated at Boston CollegeBoston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
, graduating in 1932, he gained his first radio job in his hometown, at Boston's WLOE. When he was hired by NBC in 1935, he decamped for New York, along with his friend, fellow Boston announcer Frank Gallop
Frank Gallop
Frank Gallop was an American radio and television personality.-Radio:Frank Gallop went into broadcasting by chance...
, who was hired by CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
. In their early days as network announcers, Herlihy and Gallop shared an apartment on West 45th Street. He was immediately successful in network radio, at that time in its sharpest ascendancy. He was the announcer for many radio shows from the 1930s, to the 1950s, among them: America's Town Meeting
America's Town Meeting of the Air
America’s Town Meeting of the Air was a public affairs discussion broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1956, mainly on the NBC Blue Network and its successor, ABC Radio...
, The Big Show
The Big Show (NBC Radio)
The Big Show, an American radio variety program featuring 90 minutes of top-name comic, stage, screen and music talent, was aimed at keeping American radio in its classic era alive and well against the rapidly-growing television tide...
, The Falcon
The Falcon (radio)
The Falcon radio series premiered on the Blue Network on April 10, 1943, continuing on NBC and Mutual until November 27, 1954. Some 70 episodes were produced....
, Mr. District Attorney
Mr. District Attorney
Mr. District Attorney is a popular radio crime drama which aired on NBC and ABC from April 3, 1939 to June 13, 1952 . The series focused on a crusading D.A., initially known only as "Mister District Attorney," or "Chief", and was later translated to television. On television the D.A...
, and Just Plain Bill
Just Plain Bill
Just Plain Bill was a long run 15-minute daytime radio drama program heard on CBS and NBC. The series was sponsored by Anacin for 18 of the program's 23-year run. Other sponsors over the years were Kolynos toothpaste, Clapp’s baby food and BiSoDol...
. Herlihy became the host of the The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour
The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour
The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour was a variety show with a cast of children, including some who later became well-known adult performers. It had a long run for more than three decades...
on radio in 1948, remaining its announcer when the show went to television. He continued his success in the new medium: his early television credits included Sid Caesar's
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
hit Your Show of Shows
Your Show of Shows
Your Show of Shows is a live 90-minute variety show that appeared weekly in the United States on NBC , from February 25, 1950, until June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca....
and soap operas As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...
and All My Children
All My Children
All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...
. He was also the host of Recollections At 30, which was a special NBC Radio series created for the network's 30th birthday.
In 1947 Herlihy began his long association with Kraft Foods on radio and continued it when the company sponsored the Kraft Television Theater on television in the 1950s. Richard Severo writes in his obituary of Herlihy that the show — and Herlihy's talent — suited Kraft well:
- "A dramatic offering, all of it done live, the show featured everything from ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
to Rod SerlingRod SerlingRodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...
; it was at the center of what critics would come to call television's Golden AgeGolden Age of TelevisionThe Golden Age of Television in the United States began sometime in the late 1940s and extended to the late 1950s or early 1960s.-Evolutions of drama on television:...
. During commercials for Kraft products (Good food and good food ideas, Mr. Herlihy would say), audiences heard only his voice, a voice he said he tried to make sound friendly. It was an avuncular, next-door-neighbor, deep, mellow kind of voice, a digestive guide through the preparation of all manner of souffles, dips, marshmallow salads and fondues. He was noted for his ability to ad lib through commercials when dramatic presentations ran too long or too short."
In his capacity with Kraft, Severo writes, Herlihy "introduced Cheez Whiz
Cheez Whiz
Cheez Whiz is a thick processed cheese sauce or spread sold by Kraft Foods. It was developed by a team led by food scientist Edwin Traisman and was first marketed in 1953....
, offered innumerable entreaties to buy Velveeta
Velveeta
Velveeta is the brand name of a processed cheese product having a taste that is identified as a type of American cheese with a texture that is softer and smoother. It was first made in 1918 by Swiss immigrant Emil Frey of the Monroe Cheese Company in Monroe, New York. In 1923, The Velveeta Cheese...
and delivered eloquent apologias for the entombment of almost anything edible with Miracle Whip
Miracle Whip
Miracle Whip is a white salad dressing and sandwich spread manufactured by Kraft Foods, sold throughout the United States and Canada. It is often used as an alternative to mayonnaise in recipes, although it is sweeter and has additional ingredients.-History:...
."
Newsreel narration
For Universal NewsreelUniversal Newsreel
Universal Newsreel was a series of 7- to 10-minute newsreels that were released twice a week between 1929 and 1967 by Universal Studios. A Universal publicity official, Sam B. Jacobson, was involved in originating and producing the newsreels...
s in the 1940s, Herlihy narrated editions describing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Allies' early setbacks against the Axis powers, the turning of the tide of WWII, the death of President Roosevelt, and the detonation of the first atomic bombs. In the next decade, during the Cold War, he narrated the very first American newsreel on the launch of Sputnik.
Herlihy's role as Kraft spokesman lasted nearly 40 years, his voice becoming as familiar as a next-door neighbor's. From his New York Times obituary: "He liked to recall a summer day in Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
when he helped a blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
man to cross at 44th Street. He took the man's arm, and the man said it was a beautiful day. "Yes," Herlihy replied, "this is the kind of day the Lord made for the good guys." The blind man replied: "I know you. You're the cheese man on TV.""
Films and stage
When he worked for Sid Caesar in the 1950s, Herlihy met Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, then a fledgling writer. Allen was so impressed with Herlihy's voice that he used him in several of his films in the 1980s, including Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner...
, Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
and Zelig
Zelig
Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Zelig, a curiously nondescript enigma who is discovered for his remarkable ability to transform himself to resemble anyone he's near.The film was shot almost entirely in...
; his other film credits included Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy
The King of Comedy (1983 film)
The King of Comedy is a 1983 American dark comedy film starring Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis, and directed by Martin Scorsese. The subject of the movie is celebrity stalking...
and Tim Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure
Pee-wee's Big Adventure
Pee-wee's Big Adventure is a 1985 American adventure comedy film directed by Tim Burton in his full-length debut and starring Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman. Reubens also co-wrote the script with Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol. Supporting roles are played by Elizabeth Daily, Mark Holton, Diane...
.
He also appeared in road company stage productions outside New York City, including Camelot
Camelot (musical)
Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....
, Good News
Good News (musical)
Good News is a musical with a book by Laurence Schwab and B.G. DeSylva, lyrics by DeSylva and Lew Brown, and music by Ray Henderson.The show opened on Broadway in 1927, the same year as Show Boat, but its plot was decidedly old-fashioned in comparison to Show Boats somewhat tragic and daring...
and Damn Yankees
Damn Yankees
Damn Yankees is a musical comedy with a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop and music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League...
. He was in Watergate: The Musical, in Atlanta in 1982; Herlihy played Senator Sam Ervin
Sam Ervin
Samuel James "Sam" Ervin Jr. was a Democratic Senator from North Carolina from 1954 until 1974. A native of Morganton, Burke County, North Carolina, he liked to call himself a "country lawyer", and often told humorous stories in his Southern drawl...
, a role for which he spent $40 for a pair of bushy eyebrows, only to find that they would not move up and down.
Later life
Herlihy made his last TV appearance on a PBS-TV tribute N.Y.TV: By The People Who Made It in 1999. He was married for many years to his wife, Fredi; they had two daughters, two sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Ed Herlihy died of natural causes in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, at age 89. The Herlihy family is one of the supporters of the Lillian Booth Actors Home
Lillian Booth Actors Home
The Lillian Booth Actors Home of The Actors Fund is an assisted living facility in Englewood, New Jersey operated by the Actors Fund. The facility was the subject of the 2000 film Curtain Call. The facility was established in 1928 at the former mansion of Hetty Green.-History:On May 8, 1902, the...
in Englewood, New Jersey
Englewood, New Jersey
Englewood is a city located in Bergen County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 27,147.Englewood was incorporated as a city by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from portions of Ridgefield Township and the remaining portions of...
; the foyer, with its oil portrait of Herlihy, is named in his memory.
Filmography
- Don't Drink the Water (1994) (TV) .... Narrator
- Malcolm XMalcolm XMalcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
(1992) .... Joe Louis Announcer - Who Framed Roger RabbitWho Framed Roger RabbitWho Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...
(1988) .... Newscaster - The Speeches of Winston Churchill (1988) (voice) .... (archive footage)
- A Fine MessA Fine MessA Fine Mess is a 1986 comedy film written and directed by Blake Edwards and starring Ted Danson and Howie Mandel.The film was intended as a remake of Laurel & Hardy's classic short "The Music Box" and was to be semi-improvised in the same style as the director's earlier comedy, The Party, but...
(1986) .... TV Reporter - Pee-wee's Big AdventurePee-wee's Big AdventurePee-wee's Big Adventure is a 1985 American adventure comedy film directed by Tim Burton in his full-length debut and starring Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman. Reubens also co-wrote the script with Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol. Supporting roles are played by Elizabeth Daily, Mark Holton, Diane...
(1985) .... Mr. Buxton - Police Academy 2: Their First AssignmentPolice Academy 2: Their First AssignmentPolice Academy 2: Their First Assignment is a 1985 comedy film directed by Jerry Paris. It is the first of six sequels in the Police Academy series.Many actors return from the first film to respectively reprise their roles...
(1985) .... Dooley - The King of ComedyThe King of Comedy (1983 film)The King of Comedy is a 1983 American dark comedy film starring Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis, and directed by Martin Scorsese. The subject of the movie is celebrity stalking...
(1983) .... Himself (announcer for The Jerry Langford Show) - ZeligZeligZelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Zelig, a curiously nondescript enigma who is discovered for his remarkable ability to transform himself to resemble anyone he's near.The film was shot almost entirely in...
(1983) .... Newsreel Announcer - The ChosenThe ChosenThe Chosen may refer to:*The Chosen , a novel by Ricardo Pinto*The Chosen , a novel by Chaim Potok**The Chosen , a 1981 film based on Potok's novel*The Chosen , a novel by L. J. Smith...
(1981) .... Newsreel Announcer