Alan Young

Alan Young (November 19, 1919 – May 19, 2016) was a Scottish–Canadian–American actor, comedian and radio and television host, whom TV Guide called "the Charlie Chaplin of television". He was best known for his roles as Wilbur Post in the television comedy Mister Ed (1961–1966) and Disney's Scrooge McDuck for over 30 years, first in the Academy Award-nominated short film Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) and in various other films, TV series and video games until his death. During the 1940s and 1950s, Young starred in his own variety-comedy sketch shows The Alan Young Show on radio and television, the latter gaining him two Emmy Awards in 1951. He also appeared in a number of feature films, starting from 1946, including the 1960 film The Time Machine and from the 1980s gaining a new generation of viewers appearing in numerous Walt Disney Productions films as both an actor and voice actor.

Alan Young with Olga San Juan

Alan Young
Young in 1944
Born	Alan Young November 19, 1919 North Shields, Northumberland, England
Died	May 19, 2016 (aged 96) Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Citizenship	English (1919–1925) Canadian (1925–2016) American (1944–2016)
Occupation	Actor comedian radio host television host
Years active	1939–2016
Spouse(s)	Mary Anne Grimes ​ ​ (m. 1941; div. 1947)​ Virginia McCurdy ​ ​ (m. 1948; div. 1995)​ Mary Chipman ​ ​ (m. 1996; div. 1997)​
Children	4
Awards	Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor

Connie Hines and Alan Young in TV's Mister Ed

Early life

Young was born as Alan Young on November 19, 1919, in North Shields, Northumberland, England, to Scottish parents. (In his later years he claimed he had been born in 1924.) His father was a mine worker and a tap dancer, and his mother was a singer. The family moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, when Young was a toddler and to West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, when he was six years old. Young came to love radio when bedridden as a child because of severe asthma.[1][2] By the time he was in high school, Young had his own comedy radio series on the CBC network, but he left it during the Second World War to serve in the Royal Canadian Navy.[1][3][4] He later resigned his Navy commission after learning he would be spending his time writing for a Navy show, and he attempted to join the Canadian Army. According to some sources, the Army rejected him due to his childhood asthma.[5]

Career

After leaving the service, Young moved to Toronto and resumed his Canadian radio career, where he was discovered by an American agent who brought him to New York City in 1944 to appear on American radio.[1] Young's first American radio appearances were on the Philco Radio Hall of Fame. This led to his own show, The Alan Young Show, NBC's summer replacement for the series The Eddie Cantor Show.[1] He switched to ABC two years later, then returned to NBC.[6]

Young's film debut was in Margie (1946), and he was featured in Chicken Every Sunday (1949).[7] In 1950, the television version of The Alan Young Show began. By 1951, the series received not only praise, but also several Primetime Emmy Awards, including Best Actor and Most Outstanding Personality for Young.[8] After its cancellation, Young continued to act in films, among which Androcles and the Lion (1952) and Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), and two George Pal films, Tom Thumb (1958) and The Time Machine (1960). He appeared in the NBC espionage drama Five Fingers ("Thin Ice", 1959), starring David Hedison.[9]

Young was best known, however, for Mister Ed (1961–66), a CBS television show, in which he starred as Wilbur Post, the owner of Mr. Ed, a talking horse who would not talk to anyone but him, thus causing comic situations for Wilbur Post, with his wife, neighbors, and acquaintances.[10] In 1962 while not filming Mister Ed Young appeared as John Stetson (inventor of the famous western Stetson hat) on Death Valley Days in the episode "The Hat that Won the West." He also starred as Stanley Beamish in the unaired 1966 pilot episode of Mr. Terrific, but apparently declined to appear in the broadcast series in 1967 that followed. In the late 1960s, he retired from acting for several years. During that time, he founded a broadcast division for the Christian Science Church.[11]

During the 1970s, Young became active in voice acting. After 1974, he voiced Scrooge McDuck in numerous Disney films and in the popular series DuckTales (1987-1990). In Mickey's Christmas Carol, he portrayed the character's miserly namesake. He also played Scrooge in video games such as the Kingdom Hearts series, DuckTales: Remastered in 2013, and the Mickey Mouse cartoon "Goofy's First Love" released in 2015. Apart from Scrooge McDuck, his other prominent roles were Farmer Smurf on The Smurfs, Haggis McHaggis on The Ren & Stimpy Show, 7-Zark-7 & Keyop in Battle of the Planets, and Hiram Flaversham in The Great Mouse Detective. He also guest starred on The Love Boat, The Incredible Hulk, The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.[12]

Young later starred in the sitcom Coming of Age for two seasons from 1988–89. In 1991, Alan Young returned to the stage, starring as Cap'n Andy Hawkes in the California Musical Theatre's adaptation of Show Boat. He had been called for the role after Van Johnson, who was initially cast in the part, was hospitalised.[13] He had also appeared in the plays A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and The Girl With the Freudian Slip. In 1993, he recreated his role as Filby for the mini-sequel to George Pal's The Time Machine, reuniting him with Rod Taylor, who had played George, the Time Traveller. It was called Time Machine: The Journey Back, directed by Clyde Lucas. In 1994, Young co-starred in the Eddie Murphy film Beverly Hills Cop III. He played the role of Uncle Dave Thornton, the Walt Disney-esque founder of the fictional California theme park Wonderworld, and in that same year, Young played the role of Charlie in the television film, Hart to Hart: Home Is Where the Hart Is.

After 1994, he played at least eight characters, including antique dealer Jack Allen on the radio drama Adventures in Odyssey. In 1997, he did the voice of Haggis McMutton in the PC game The Curse of Monkey Island. His later guest roles in animated series included Megas XLR, Static Shock, House of Mouse, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Duckman, Batman: The Animated Series and TaleSpin.[14] In 2002, he had a cameo as the flower store worker in Simon Wells' remake of The Time Machine, and in 2010, he read H.G. Wells's original novel for 7th Voyage Productions, Inc. Young's television guest roles include Gibbsville, The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, St. Elsewhere, Coach, Party of Five, The Wayans Bros., USA High, Hang Time, ER, Maybe It's Me, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch ("Sweet Charity", 1997) in which he played Zelda's love interest.

From his debut in 1946 to his final voice work in 2016, Young became one of the few actors to have a career that spanned over seventy years.

Personal life

Young was married three times.[15] He and Mary Anne Grimes were married from 1941 to 1947 and had two children, Young married his second wife Virginia McCurdy in 1948, and they had two children.[16] They divorced in 1995, with Young marrying Mary Chipman the following year, but Young and Chipman then divorced in 1997.[17][18] He dedicated his book Mr. Ed and Me to her.[19]

Young supported Ronald Reagan,[20] although he stated in a later interview that he was apolitical.[21]

Death

Young spent his later years in Woodland Hills, California, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, a retirement community, where he died of natural causes on May 19, 2016, at the age of 96.[15]

Filmography

Radio

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1939	Stag Party	Himself
1940–1944	The Alan Young Show	Alan	Canadian version
1944–1949	The Alan Young Show	Alan	U.S. version
1945	The Old Gold Comedy Theater Known also as The Harold Lloyd Theatre	Bob Bennett	"Nothing but the Truth"[22]
1947	Hedda Hopper's This Is Hollywood	Roy Hornsdale	"Margie"
1947–1948	Texaco Star Theatre	Himself
1948–1949	The Jimmy Durante Show	Co-host
1949–1950	Family Theater	Johnny the Leprechaun, Donald	"The Leprechaun Who Didn't Listen" "The Lion Tamer" "My Terminal Moraine"
1950	The Jack Benny Program	Himself
1952	Hollywood Star Playhouse	Ernie	"Nor Gloom of Night"
1979	Sears Radio Theater	Harry Silverman, Otto Glitch, Steve	"The Care and Feeding of a Sex Symbol" "The Terrible Dream of Mr. Glitch" "A Very Nice Couple"
1994–2009, 2012	Adventures in Odyssey	Jack Allen

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1946	Margie	Roy Hornsdale
1949	Chicken Every Sunday	Geoffrey Lawson
1949	Mr. Belvedere Goes to College	Avery Brubaker
1952	Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick	Aaron Slick
1952	Androcles and the Lion	Androcles
1955	Gentlemen Marry Brunettes	Charlie Biddle / Mrs. Biddle / Mr. Henry Biddle
1958	Tom Thumb	Woody
1960	The Time Machine	David Filby / James Filby
1976	Baker's Hawk	Paul Carson
1978	The Cat from Outer Space	Doctor Winger
1983	Mickey's Christmas Carol	Scrooge McDuck	Voice, Animated short, also credited for "Story"
1985	The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal	Himself	Documentary
1986	The Great Mouse Detective	Hiram Flaversham (voice)
1987	Alice Through the Looking Glass	White Knight (voice)
1990	DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp	Scrooge McDuck (voice)
1993	Time Machine: The Journey Back	Filby	"Time Machine: The Journey Back"
1993	Disney Sing-Along Songs	Scrooge McDuck (voice)	"The Twelve Days of Christmas"
1994	Beverly Hills Cop III	Dave Thornton
1996	The Flintstones Christmas in Bedrock	Additional voices
1999	Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas	Scrooge McDuck (voice)	Direct-to-video
2002	The Time Machine	Flower Store Worker
2004	Em & Me	Grandfather	San Diego Film Festival Award for Best Actor Monaco International Festival Best Actor Award
2004	Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas	Scrooge McDuck (voice)	Direct-to-video

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1950–1953	The Alan Young Show	Alan	Television version Lead Role Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (1951) Nominated - Primetime Emmy for Most Outstanding Personality (1951)
1954	General Electric Theater	Alan Parker	"Wild Luke's Boy"
1955	Screen Director's Playhouse	Ernest Stockhoeffer/Vernon Hathaway	"The Life of Vernon Hathaway"
1955–1956	Studio One	George Abernathy, Timothy	"The Man Who Caught the Ball at Coogan's Bluff" "This Will Do Nicely"
1956	Chevron Hall of Stars	Robinson	"I Killed John Harrington"
1956	Matinee Theatre		"Ask Me No Questions"
1956	Studio 57	Hector Tutwilder	"Swing Your Partner, Hector"
1956–1958	The Steve Allen Show	Himself	5 episodes
1958	Alan Young (TV series)	Alan	3 episodes
1959	Five Fingers	Carl	"Thin Ice"
1959	Encounter	Wilbur Bowser	"The Last of the Hot Pilots"
1960	Startime	Clarence	"Tennessee Ernie Ford Meets King Arthur"
1961–1966	Mister Ed	Wilbur Post	Lead Role 143 episodes
1962	Death Valley Days	John Batterson Stetson	"The Hat That Won the West"
1966	Mr. Terrific	Stanley Beamish	TV pilot
1976	Gibbsville	Kanzler	"Saturday Night"
1978–1980	Battle of the Planets	7-Zark-7, Keyop	Main Characters English dub 85 episodes
1978, 1983	The Love Boat	Ross, Phil Sharp	2 episodes
1980	Humpty	Humpty Dumpty (voice)
1981	Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends	Mr. Frump (voice)	"The Fantastic Mr. Frump"
1982	The Incredible Hulk	Cyclops (voice)	"The Cyclops Project"
1982–1989	The Smurfs	Farmer Smurf (voice) Miner Smurf (voice) Scaredy Smurf (voice)	49 episodes
1983	Alvin and the Chipmunks	Grandpa Seville (voice)	"Grandpa and Grandma Seville"
1983	The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show	Gaggy Rogers (voice)	"Wedding Bell Boos!"
1983	Saturday Supercade	additional voices	13 episodes
1983	Mister T	Doctor Kirby (voice)	"Mystery on the Rocky Mountain Express"
1984	Robo Force	S.O.T.A.	TV film
1984	Down to Earth	Alistar Coogan	"Everything Old Is New Again"
1986	Murder, She Wrote	Floyd Nelson	"Keep the Home Fries Burning"
1987	St. Elsewhere	Knox	"A Coupla White Dummies Sitting Around Talking"
1987–1990	DuckTales	Scrooge McDuck/Narrator (voice)	Lead Role 97 episodes
1988–1989	Coming of Age	Ed Pepper	15 episodes
1990	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	Scrooge McDuck (voice)	"A DuckTales Valentine"
1990	TaleSpin	Doctor Cooper (voice)	"The Old Man and the Sea Duck"
1990	City	Donald	"Just a Passing Dad"
1991	Earth Angel	Norman	TV film
1992	Raw Toonage	Scrooge McDuck (voice)	"The Treasure of the Sierra Marsdre"
1993	Doogie Howser, M.D.	Doctor Emmitt Randall	"Eleven Angry People...and Vinnie"
1993	Coach	Ranger Farley	"One for the Road"
1993	A Flintstone Family Christmas	Mr. Gravelberry (voice)	TV film
1994	Batman: The Animated Series	Tod Baker (voice)	"Baby-Doll"
1994	Party of Five	Jack Gordon	"Homework"
1994	Hart to Hart	Charlie Loomis	"Home Is Where the Hart Is"
1994–1995	The Ren & Stimpy Show	Haggis McHaggis (voice)	4 episodes
1995	Duckman	Wilbur Nelson (voice)	"America the Beautiful"
1995	Maybe This Time	Arthur	"Gracie Under Fire"
1995	The Wayans Bros.	Reverend Benton	"Loot"
1997	Sabrina the Teenage Witch	Mr. Berry	"Sweet Charity"
1997	USA High	Mr. Phipps	"Goodbye, Mr. Phipps"
1998	Kelly Kelly	Great Uncle Billy	"The Kilt Show"
1998	The Tony Danza Show	Doctor Harris	"Mini-pause"
1999	Mickey Mouse Works	Scrooge McDuck (voice)	2 episodes
2000	Rude Awakening	Priest	"Truth Don't Fail Me Now"
2000	Hang Time	Mr. McHenry	"That '60s Show"
2000	ER	Archie Mellonston	"Benton Backwards"
2001	God, the Devil and Bob	Wilbur Post (voice)	"God's Girlfriend"
2001	FreakyLinks	Henry	"Subject: Sunrise at Sunset Streams"
2001	Maybe It's Me	Abe Lasky	"The Hair Episode"
2002	Disney's House of Mouse	Scrooge McDuck (voice)	3 episodes
2004	Static Shock	Dr. McDonald	"Now You See Him"
2004	Megas XLR	Jax (voice)	2 episodes
2015–2016	Mickey Mouse	Scrooge McDuck (voice)	"Goofy's First Love" "No"

Video games

Year	Title	Role
1997	The Curse of Monkey Island	Haggis McMutton
2008	Disney Think Fast	Scrooge McDuck
2010	Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
2013	DuckTales: Scrooge's Loot
2013	DuckTales: Remastered

References

1. Barnes, Mike; Byrnes, Duane (May 20, 2016). "Alan Young, Two-Legged Star of 'Mister Ed,' Dies at 96". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
2. Shapiro, T. Rees (May 20, 2016). "Alan Young, Actor Who Played Willllburrrrr on 'Mister Ed,' Dies at 96". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
3. Elbur, Lynn (May 20, 2016). "Alan Young, Star of 1960s sitcom 'Mr. Ed,' Dies at 96". Associated Press. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
4. Stevens, Christopher (2010). Born Brilliant: The Life Of Kenneth Williams. John Murray. p. 368. ISBN 978-1-84854-195-5.
5. Dunham, Will (May 20, 2016). "Actor Alan Young, Human Star of Horse Sitcom 'Mister Ed,' Dies at 96". Reuters. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
6. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio John Dunning; Oxford University Press, pp20–21
7. Thomas, Bob (June 10, 1959). "Comic Alan Young Critical of TV". The Milwaukee Sentinel.
8. "Nominations Search". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on June 17, 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
9. There's No Business Like Show Business...Was Alan Young; BearManor Media, Jul 5, 2006, multiple mentions
10. "Alan Young In Mister Ed". The Gettysburg Times. March 18, 1961.
11. TV Guide 1974 page 36 "Well, he's come back to Hollywood after spending the past six years as a Christian Science lecturer in Boston and other parts of the country. "I set up a film and broadcasting department for the mother church in Boston," Young said"
12. "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981, Animated Series) Voice Cast". Voice Chasers.
13. Sylvie Drake (September 16, 1991). "Stage: 'Show Boat' Afloat Without Its Star".
14. Alan Young's voiceography. Behind the Voice Actors.com – check mark indicates BTVA has verified the entries using screenshots of credits and other confirmed sources.
15. T. Rees Shapiro (May 20, 2016). "Alan Young, actor who played Willllburrrrr on 'Mister Ed,' dies at 96". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
16. "Alan Young, the Affable Owner on 'Mister Ed,' Dies at 96". The New York Times. Reuters. May 20, 2016. Archived from the original on May 21, 2016. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
17. Adams, Cindy (October 15, 2008). "Old Horse Tale Full of Sadness". New York Post. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
18. "Alan Young dead; 'Mister Ed' star was 96". AM New York. Reuters. May 20, 2016. Archived from the original on May 22, 2016. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
19. Young, Alan; Burt, Bill (1995). Mister Ed and Me (1st ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-11852-X. OCLC 31708835.
20. Critchlow, Donald T. (October 21, 2013). When Hollywood Was Right: How Movie Stars, Studio Moguls, and Big Business Remade American Politics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521199186 – via Google Books.
21. "An Interview with Alan Young". December 4, 2010. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
22. "Radio's Golden Age". Nostalgia Digest. 40 (1): 40–41. Winter 2014.

External links

• Official website
• Alan Young at IMDb
• Alan Young at the Internet Broadway Database
• Alan Young at The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
• The Alan Young Show at Outlaws Old Time Radio Corner