| Alan Young  AKA Angus Young
Born: 19-Nov-1919
Birthplace: North Shields, Northumberland, England
Died: 19-May-2016
Location of death: Woodland Hills, CA
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Religion: Christian Science
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: Canada
Executive summary: Wilbur Post on Mister Ed Military service: Canadian Navy Alan Young was born in England, and raised in Canada. In his early teens he began working as a stand-up comedian, and by his late teens he was hosting a radio program on Canada's CBC. He later worked as a cartoonist, and briefly formed a comedy act with his sister Harriet. After coming to America, he starred in his own Alan Young Show on NBC radio in the mid-1940s, and on CBS television in the early 1950s. He won an Emmy for the show in 1950.
Young broke into movies in the 1940s, but most of his films were flops or now forgotten. His best films include The Time Machine with Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux, Mr. Belvedere Goes to College with Clifton Webb and Shirley Temple, tom thumb with Russ Tamblyn, and Androcles and the Lion with Jean Simmons and Victor Mature.
In 1960 Young found his most memorable role, playing straight man to a talking horse on TV's Mister Ed. The program was a blatant rip-off of the popular Francis the Talking Mule series of movies, but Young and the horse had a certain charm and the audience loved it. Mister Ed ran for six seasons in first run, and has never stopped airing in perpetual reruns.
When Mister Ed was cancelled, Young took the starring role in a slapstick superhero sitcom called Mr. Terrific, playing a nerdy scientist who accidentally invents a pill that gives him super strength. But to everyone's surprise, Young quit as soon as the pilot episode was sold, and took a job with his church, starting a broadcasting department for radiocasts of sermons. Mr. Terrific was re-cast with an unknown actor in the lead, and Young completely disappeared from Hollywood for a decade.
When he returned in the mid-1970s, he appeared in such innocuous movie comedies as The Cat from Outer Space with Ken Berry and Sandy Duncan, and started doing voice work in cartoons. In 1983 he co-wrote a Disney short, Mickey's Christmas Carol, and voiced Scrooge McDuck. He has been the voice of McDuck in numerous Disney projects ever since. He also voiced Haggis on The Ren & Stimpy Show and several characters on The Smurfs.
He says Mister Ed was a success because it was "gentle and clean and funny", and the same could be said of Young. His autobiography is titled Me and Mister Ed, and he says he and the horse, whose actual name was Bamboo Harvester, were friends. Even after the show was cancelled, during the years nobody in Hollywood saw Young, he often visited and rode Bamboo. The horse died in 1970.
Sister: Harriet Young (comedian)
Wife: Mary Anne Grimes (m. 1941, sep. 1946, div. 1947, two children)
Girlfriend: Marilyn Monroe (dated briefly in 1946)
Wife: Virginia McCurdy (singer, m. 1948, d. 2011, two children)
Hollywood Walk of Fame 6927 Hollywood Blvd
Naturalized US Citizen
Scottish Ancestry Paternal side
Risk Factors: Asthma
TELEVISION
Mister Ed Wilbur Post (Ed's owner, 1961-66)
Coming of Age Ed Pepper (1988-89)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas (9-Nov-2004) [VOICE]
The Time Machine (4-Mar-2002)
Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (7-Dec-1999) [VOICE]
Beverly Hills Cop III (25-May-1994) · Uncle Dave Thornton
DuckTales: The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (3-Aug-1990) [VOICE]
Alice Through the Looking Glass (1987) [VOICE]
The Great Mouse Detective (2-Jul-1986) [VOICE]
The Cat from Outer Space (9-Jun-1978)
Baker's Hawk (1976)
The Time Machine (17-Aug-1960) · David and James Filby
Tom Thumb (22-Dec-1958) · Woody
Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (29-Oct-1955) · Charlie Biddle
Androcles and the Lion (Dec-1952)
Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick (1-Apr-1952)
Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (15-Apr-1949)
Chicken Every Sunday (18-Jan-1949)
Margie (16-Oct-1946) · Roy Hornsdale
Official Website:
http://www.mister-ed.tv/
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