Elwood Edwards, the iconic voice behind AOL’s classic “You’ve Got Mail” slogan, had died at 74, one day before what would have been his 75th birthday.
WKYC, for which Elwood was a former employee, reported that the North Carolina native died after a “long illness.” Edwards worked on air and behind the scenes as a news operator and weatherman, but it’s his AOL role that made him a household voice.
In 1989, Edwards’ wife Karen was working for the company originally known as America Online (or Quantum Computer Services). Sometime that year, she overheard then-America Online CEO, Steve Case, discuss needing a voice actor for software that the company planned to develop.
Those phrases would end up being “Welcome,” “Files done,” “Goodbye,” and, of course, “you’ve got mail.”
“And what started off as a test has continued to this day,” Edwards said in the video below. “So that’s the story behind the catchphrase which, well, I have a certain amount of trouble trying to escape.”
He added that he recorded “you’ve got mail” and other phrases on a cassette deck, another relic of ’80s and ’90s technology. He was paid $200 for the job.
In 2015, Edwards had a nostalgic AOL moment when he read cue cards on an episode of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.
Frank Macek, senior broadcast director at WKYC, recalled that Edwards’ voice was instantly recognizable to anyone who met him.
“Every time someone would come to visit at WKYC, he’d introduce himself and they’d recognize him,” Macek said. “There was such an association between his voice and AOL for such a long period of time that he became an instant celebrity as a result.”
