AOL’s ‘You’ve got mail’ guy dies at age 74
Elwood Edwards during the Suggestion Box bit on "The Jimmy Fallon Show" on March 4, 2015.(Credit: Douglas Gorenstein/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
NEW BERN, N.C. - Elwood Edwards, an announcer known for voicing the iconic AOL email alert "You’ve got mail!" has died. He was 74 years old.
He died Tuesday at his home in New Bern, North Carolina, his daughter confirmed. The cause was complications from a stroke late last year, she said.
Edwards taped his AOL greeting in 1989 into a recorder while sitting in the living room of his home. "You’ve got mail" became a pop culture catchphrase in the late 1990s and served as the title of the 1998 Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan film.
"He would still blush anytime someone brought it up," his daughter said. "He loved the attention, but he never got used it."
The ubiquitous alert popped on computer screens just as Americans were starting to learn to use the internet. Edwards was also the voice of AOL’s "Welcome," "Goodbye" and "File’s done" messages. He made $200 from the recordings.
"It started off as a test, just to see if it would catch on," Mr. Edwards said in an interview with Great Big Story, a documentary production company, in 2016. "At one point they said my voice was heard more than 35 million times a day."
Elwood Hughes Edwards Jr. was born on Nov. 6, 1949, in Glen Burnie, Maryland, to Elwood and Julia (Wheeler) Edwards. His father was in the Army and the family moved to North Carolina, where Mr. Edwards attended high school and began what would be a long career in broadcasting, starting in AM radio.
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He got the gig while working at an independent TV station in Washington, D.C. His second wife, Karen, was a customer service representative for the internet provider that later became known as AOL. She heard the company was looking for someone to be the voice of its software and suggested her husband.
"They were so impressed, they didn’t have him go in a recording booth," his daughter said.
He made an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in 2015 to repeat the famous catchphrase, smiling broadly and chuckling as the studio audience cheered. He also added his voice to an episode of "The Simpsons" in 2000.
The family plans to hold a memorial service Monday in New Bern.