Key Takeaways
- Elwood Edwards, famous voice of AOL, passed away at 74, leaving behind a legacy that shaped the early internet.
- AOL began in 1985, and Edwards’ iconic voice led to a historic collaboration with AOL.
- Edwards’ anonymous AOL voice brought him fame, even appearing on TV, but his work has been etched into internet history.
The iconic voice of AOL has passed away. Best known for recording the iconic America Online lines “You’ve Got Mail!” and “Welcome,” Elwood Edwards passed away at the age of 74.
For those who weren’t there, the voice of AOL may not seem all too significant, but it was a big deal for PC users at the time. Having a voice greet and alert users to things was new and fresh, and the excitement over being told that email had arrived was such a big deal that it eventually led to the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film You’ve Got Mail! revolving around it. While the internet and computer technology has progressed dramatically since, the AOL greeter is still remembered by many.
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Elwood Edwards passed away one day before his 75th birthday, according to his former employer, Cleveland’s WKYC Studios. America Online got its start way back in 1985, though it wouldn’t come to be called that until 1989. CEO of AOL, Steve Case, came up with the idea of including a real voice in the software, and Karen Edwards, who was a customer service rep at the time, suggested her husband for the role. Elwood recorded his lines on a cassette tape in his living room, and was given a flat sum of $200, which is roughly $500 now, when converted for inflation.
The Well-Known Voice and Little-Known Face of AOL
Elwood Edwards’ real identity was known to very few people during the height of AOL, despite the frequency with which his voice was heard by internet users all over the planet. However, he did have some glimmers of fame from it. He performed his iconic lines and variations of them for The Simpsons. In his later years, he worked as an Uber driver in Cleveland, where a passenger discovered his identity. After being reported on by Inside Edition, he ended up appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in 2015, where he performed his lines and some suggested by viewers in the audience, as well.
AOL continued to use Edwards’ voice, where he would alert users to email, file completion, and greeted them at the beginning and end of their online sessions. MP3 files wouldn’t reach most internet users until after 1991, and WAV files were notoriously huge with long download times, making Edwards’ voice one of the few that were regularly heard across the early days of the consumer internet. Though AOL is nowhere near the immense popularity it once had, those who got their start on the internet with America Online will likely remember his voice for years to come.
While WKYC didn’t comment on his cause of death, the news post announcing it said he had been struggling with a long illness. His IMDB page indicates that this was due to a stroke he’d previously experienced. Edwards leaves behind two children, having earlier divorced from his wife.