LOS ANGELES (AP) – Gary Owens, the droll, baritone-voiced announcer on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” and a familiar part of radio, TV and movies for more than six decades, has died. He was 80.
The veteran voiceover star died Thursday at his Los Angeles-area home, his son, producer Scott Owens, said Friday. Gary Owens had struggled with complications from diabetes, which he had since childhood, family spokeswoman Vicki Greenleaf said Friday.
Owens hosted thousands of radio programs in his long career, appeared in more than a dozen movies and on scores of TV shows, including Lucille Ball and Bob Hope specials. He also voiced hundreds of animated characters, was part of dozens of comedy albums and wrote books.
On “Laugh-In,” the 1968-73 sketch show starring Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, Owens was shown on camera in a parody of an old-school announcer, with his hand cupped firmly over his ear. But his voice was always the real thing, rich and authoritative.
Owens had “such a great voice, so smooth. That was his real voice, even if he was ordering in a restaurant,” said actor-comedian Tom Kenny, the voice of “SpongeBob Squarepants” and who worked with Owens on cartoons including “Dexter’s Laboratory.”