Elwood Edwards, renowned as the voice behind AOL’s “You’ve Got Mail” greeting, has died at 74. He died on November 5 in New Bern, N.C., a day before his 75th birthday. According to WKYC, he succumbed to a "long illness," although details surrounding the same remain scarce.
Born in November 1949, Elwood Edwards boasted a net worth of $300,000, according to Celebrity Net Worth. He was most known for AOL's iconic phrases: "You've got mail", "Welcome", "File done", "You've got pictures", and "You've got voice mail." He started recording for the company in 1989 and held stints in the news and sports industries.
A look at Elwood Edwards' journey, from working behind the scenes to garnering international fame
At the Cleveland television station, Elwood Edwards worked as the “graphics guru, camera operator, and general jack-of-all-trades," they said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "Yet it was a somewhat random opportunity in 1989 that earned him international fame.”
Over three decades ago, Elwood Edwards delivered his rendition of the four popular lines for what was then known as America Online. His wife, Karen, worked for Quantum Computer Services at the time. The company then became known as AOL, and she signed her husband up to do the lines.
At the time, Karen overheard then-CEO Steve Case say he wanted to "make the service more personal by adding the voice of a person." She immediately volunteered her husband. The company then became known as AOL, and the rest is history.
“I’d never met him, and didn’t know what his voice sounded like. But I figured it would at least be a good prototype, a sample we could play for other voiceover actors when we started auditions,” Case said, per the LA Times.
As reported by The Express, Elwood Edwards recorded the sayings on a cassette desk while sitting in his living room. During a 2016 interview, Edward recounted the whole experience:
"I’d been an announcer throughout my entire broadcasting career, and she volunteered me," he said of his wife.
According to Case, Edwards' voice “couldn’t have been more perfect." He noted, in his 2016 book The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future:
“It was disarmingly friendly, like the voice you’d expect from a stranger who offered to carry your grandmother’s groceries. The second I heard it, I knew we weren’t going to be auditioning anyone else.”
In speaking about his journey with AOL and what came of it, Edwards said in a 2019 interview on the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast:
"I had no idea it would become what it did, I don’t think anybody did. Suddenly, AOL took off… I remember standing in line at CompUSA and seeing (stacks of AOL CDs) and thinking, ‘my voice is on every one of those, and nobody has a clue'."
Notably, though, Elwood Edwards was only compensated with $200 for his work.
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During his lifetime, Edwards lent his voice to several other projects, including the 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail and The Simpsons.
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