Talented, prolific, and versatile voice and character actor Walker Edmiston had a remarkable career spanning over five decades in radio, movies, and television. Born on February 6, 1926, in St. Louis, Missouri, Edmiston discovered at an early age that he could perfectly mimic other people's voices, entertaining his family with his vocal impression of Lionel Barrymore.
After World War II, Walker went to Los Angeles to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. He was introduced to animation producer Walter Lantz while performing in a play, which led to his first steady job doing various incidental voices on the children's show "Time for Beany."
In the 1950s and 1960s, Edmiston hosted "The Walker Edmiston Show," a children's TV program broadcast in Los Angeles, featuring puppets of his own creation, including Kingsley the Lion and Ravenswood the Buzzard. He worked frequently for Saturday morning TV series creators Sid and Marty Krofft, supplying voices for characters such as Sparky the Firefly, Dr. Blinkey, Orson the Vulture, and Big Daddy Ooze.
Edmiston also portrayed a crazy old Civil War prospector on "Land of the Lost" and had a recurring role as the benevolent and intelligent Sleestak Enik. He provided the scary grunts and growls for the ferocious Zuni fetish doll in the final and most frightening segment of the made-for-TV horror anthology "Trilogy of Terror."
Walker did the voice of Inferno for the "Transformers" cartoon show and, for twenty years, was the voice of both beloved "nice guy" Tom Riley and notorious Bart Rathbone on the popular radio program "Adventures in Odyssey." Additionally, Edmiston was the voice of Ernie the Keebler Elf in countless TV commercials for ten years.
Among the TV shows he had guest spots on are "Maverick," "Thriller," "The Virginian," "Green Acres," "Get Smart," "Star Trek," "The Wild, Wild West," "Bonanza," "Mission: Impossible," "Gunsmoke," "Fantasy Island," "The Waltons," "Little House on the Prairie," "The Dukes of Hazzard," "Falcon Crest," and "Knots Landing."
Edmiston appeared on several records with Spike Jones, looped actor's voices on numerous films, and even supplied many different voices on all five "Planet of the Apes" pictures, including the voice of the talking baby chimp in "Escape from the Planet of the Apes." Walker Edmiston died from complications of cancer at the age of 81 on February 15, 2007.
