Mel Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian with an estimated net worth of $25 million. He was born Melvin Jerome Blank on May 30, 1908 in San Francisco, California, USA. While growing up, he was interested in voices and dialect, and began voicing at the age of ten. He attended Lincoln High School, and claimed that he changed his name to Blanc at the age of sixteen.
Blanc enjoyed an almost six-decade-long career as voice specialist from radio, movies and television. He began with radio commercials, but is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros. He supplied the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, the Tasmanian Devil and many of the other characters from Looney Tunes and the Merrie Melodies theatrical short films during the “Golden age of American animation.”
Blanc later worked for Hanna-Barbera’s television productions, and supplied the voices of Barney Rubble on The Flintstones and Mr. Spacely on The Jetsons. He also became a regular performer on The Jack Benny Program, both in its radio and television formats. He was the original voice of Woody Woodpecker for Universal Pictures. Through his voice work, he earned the nickname ”The Man of a Thousand Voices,” and is regarded as one of the most influential people in the voice acting industry.