Skip to main content

Alan Young, star of Mister Ed - the talking horse - dies at 96




Alan Young, the star of Mister Ed, the television program about a talking horse, has died. The British-born actor starred as Wilbur Post, an architect with a talking horse. Mister Ed would only talk to Wilbur.

There were six seasons of Mister Ed from 1961-1966. Connie Hines starred as Wilbur’s wife Carol, and Allan Lane provided the voice of Mister Ed. The show included many guest stars, such as Clint Eastwood, Mae West, and baseballer Sandy Koufax.

Mister Ed was real - he was played by the intelligent horse Bamboo Harvester (1949-1970). Mister Ed learned to move his lips on cue when his trainer touched his hoof, but later learned to ‘speak’ whenever Wilbur stopped talking. He was a golden Palomino.

The show was loosely based on the movie Francis the Talking Mule – a series of seven movies from 1950-1956 starring Donald O’Connor (1925-2003). The film ws based on the book Francis by United States army captain David Stern (1909-2003). Chill Wills was the voice of Francis, the military mule.

Alan Young (1919-2016) was born in England (his birth name was Angus Young) and moved to Canada with his family when he was six years old, and began entertaining when he was 13. He worked in radio before moving to America where he became an American citizen. He had his own comedy show, The Alan Young Show, from 1950-1953, and starred in films, such as The Time Machine (1960) with Australian actor Rod Taylor, and the re-make of the movie in 2002 in a small role. Young also provided the voice of Disney’s Scrooge McDuck and characters in The Smurfs and Scooby-Doo movies.

He was married twice: to Mary Anne Grimes from 1941-1947 (they had a son and daughter) and to singer Virginia McCurdy in 1948 (they had a son and daughter). Virginia died in 2011. Young died on 19 May, surrounded by his children, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Los Angeles, where he had been living for the past four years. He was buried at sea.







MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass...

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing...