Joe Alaskey, voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, dies aged 63

 

Joe Alaskey, who provided the voice for famous cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety and Sylvester the Cat, has died aged 63.

Alaskey, who was born in New York on April 17, 1952, died from cancer on February 3, 2016. Before working on TV and films, Alaskey was a successful stand-up impressionist and worked on a Boston radio morning show called Effective Radio with Bill, along with June Foray, before he was hired by Warner Bros in 1989 to take over from famed voice artist Mel Blanc, who had died that year.

Alaskey, who said he sang every day to keep the larynx supple, also voiced other legendary Looney Tunes characters, among them Elmer Fudd, Marvin the Martian, Plucky Duck on Tiny Toon Adventures, Grandpa Lou Pickles on Rugrats, and the ghost Stinkie from Casper. In 2004, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for his work on the cartoon Duck Dodgers, providing the voice of the eponymous hero, whom he described as "an egotistical, obnoxious duck with his own show".

He was also the narrator on the television documentary series Murder Comes To Town, which aired on the Investigation Discovery Network. Alaskey remained a great imitator of voices and he supplied the voice of Richard Nixon in the Oscar-winning film, Forrest Gump.

He was also used to re-dub actors for the TV or airline releases of movies when "rude" words had to be replaced; he cleaned up 62 swear words uttered by Jack Lemmon in David Mamet's profanity-filled Glengarry Glen Ross.

 Telegraph