Alan Young
Alan Young and Olga San Juan
Born	Angus Young November 19, 1919 (1919-11-19) (age 90) North Shields, Tyne and Wear, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1944 – present

Alan Young (born November 19, 1919) is an English-born character actor, best known for his television role opposite a talking horse, Mister Ed and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck. During the 1940s and 1950s he starred in his own shows on radio and television.

[edit] Early life

Young was born Angus Young in North Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, to John Cathcart Young, a shipyard worker, and Florence Pinckney, whose ancestors included a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. The family moved to Edinburgh when Young was a toddler, and later to West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada when Young was six years old. He came to love radio when bed-bound as a child because of severe asthma. Near the start of his radio career, during World War II, Young attempted to enlist in the Royal Canadian Navy, then the Royal Canadian Army, but was rejected due to his ill health.^[1]

[edit] Radio

Young was a broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1944, he moved to American radio with The Alan Young Show, NBC's summer replacement for Eddie Cantor. He switched to ABC two years later, but then returned to NBC. Starting in 1995, he has been a part of the popular radio drama Adventures in Odyssey.

[edit] Films and television

Young was featured in the film Chicken Every Sunday in 1949, and the television version of The Alan Young Show began the following year. After its cancellation, Young appeared in films, including Androcles and the Lion (1952) and The Time Machine. He appeared in the episode "Thin Ice" of the NBC espionage drama Five Fingers, starring David Hedison. He is best known, however, for Mister Ed, a CBS television show which ran from 1961 to 1966. He played the owner of a talking horse that would talk to no one but him.

Young's television guest appearances include The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, St. Elsewhere, Coach, Party of Five, The Wayans Bros., Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (Episode: "Sweet Charity", playing Zelda's older love interest), USA High, Hang Time, ER and Maybe It's Me.

In 1993, Young recreated his role as Filby for the mini-sequel to George Pal's classic The Time Machine reuniting him with Rod Taylor, who 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. In 2000, he read H. G. Wells's The Time Machine for 7th Voyage Productions, Inc. In 2002, he had a cameo as the flower store worker in Simon Wells' remake of The Time Machine.

[edit] Animation

In later life, he founded a broadcast division for the Christian Science Church and did voices for animated cartoons. Since 1983, he has provided the voice of Scrooge McDuck for Disney films and on the popular series DuckTales. In Mickey's Christmas Carol, he portrayed the character's miserly namesake. He also provided the voice of Jack Allen on the Focus on the Family radio drama, Adventures in Odyssey and voiced Hiram Flaversham in Disney's The Great Mouse Detective. His other cartoon voice appearances include Camp Lazlo, Megas XLR, Static Shock, House of Mouse, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Duckman, Batman: The Animated Series, TaleSpin, The Smurfs, The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and as 7-Zark-7 and Keyop in Battle of the Planets. In 1997, he did the voice of Haggis McMutton in the PC game, The Curse of Monkey Island.

[edit] Listen to

• Internet Archive: The Alan Young Show (four 1945-46 episodes)

[edit] References

1. ^ YouTube - Alan Young - Archive Interview Part 1 of 6

[edit] External links

• Alan Young at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• Alan Young interview on "The Joe Cook Program" July 2006
• Alan Young's American Archive of American Television Interview
• Alan Young reads HG Wells The Time Machine