Elwood Edwards, voice of the ‘You’ve got mail’ AOL email greeting, dies at 74

Elwood Edwards, a media multihyphenate who voiced AOL’s iconic greeting “You’ve got mail,” has died. During his decade-long stint at WKYC, Edwards worked as a “graphics guru, camera operator, and general jack-of-all-trades,” the station said, “yet it was a somewhat random opportunity in 1989 that earned him international fame.” That year, Edwards recorded the four short phrases — including “You’ve got mail” — that he had “a certain amount of trouble trying to escape” for the rest of his life, he joked in 2012. Edwards went on to lend his voice to other projects, including promotions for the 1998 romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail” and a 2000 episode of “The Simpsons.” In 2015, he appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” and after he recited his signature phrase, Fallon told the audience, “That’s worth the price of admission, right there. He wasn’t able to find much voiceover work after the gig either, he told Culture Honey later that year, because he was “pigeonholed as the ‘You’ve got’ guy, and nothing ever really came of that.” Still, he said on “Twenty Thousand Hertz,” being the voice of AOL was immensely gratifying, as was being recognized for it over the years.