Elwood Edwards, the man behind the iconic “You’ve got mail!” greeting on AOL, has died. He was 74.
WKYC-TV Studios in Cleveland, Edwards’ former employer, announced the news of his death, which comes following an undisclosed “long illness.” Edwards had worked at the Ohio station as a “graphics guru, camera operator and general jack-of-all-trades.”
He died just one day before what would have been his 75th birthday.
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More than 30 years ago, Edwards recorded four lines of dialogue for a company called America Online. Edwards’ wife, Karen, worked at the then-small company, which was initially called Quantum Computer Services.
In a Youtube video from 2012, Edwards shared that his wife overheard the former CEO of America Online discussing adding a voice to the then-upcoming AOL software. That was when Karen volunteered her husband for the role.
Edwards ultimately recorded four phrases for the company. Those four phrases delivered with human warmth — “Welcome,” “You’ve got mail,” “File’s done,” and “Goodbye” — would go on to be seared into the brains of an entire generation of early web users.
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“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,’” Edwards said in a 2019 episode of the podcast Silent Giants With Corey Cambridge.
Edwards was born in New Bern, North Carolina, and graduated from high school in the state. His career started when he worked in radio in high school. He later transitioned to working in TV later in his life.
As for his iconic voice recordings for AOL, Edwards only made a flat rate of $200 for recording his four lines for the company.
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