Elwood Edwards, an announcer and local TV staffer who became internationally famous as the voice of AOL’s “You’ve got mail!” prompt to millions at the dawn of the internet era, has died, AOL announced. He was 74.
He died Tuesday at his home in New Bern, North Carolina. His daughter Sallie Edwards said the cause of death was complications from a stroke, the New York Times reported.
Back in 1989, Quantum Computer Services — which would rename itself AOL — hired Edwards to record a series of alerts for the online service, including “You’ve got mail!,” “Welcome,” “Files done” and “Goodbye.” He earned $200 for the gig.
“Edwards’s voice made AOL feel a little friendlier, a little more welcoming at a time when the internet was a big, new world for most people,” AOL said in a statement. AOL is now part of Yahoo, which is 90% owned by Apollo Global Management and 10% by Verizon.
In a 2016 interview with CNN’s Great Big Story, Edwards talked about his iconic AOL voice-over work. “It started off as a test, just to see if it would catch on,” Edwards said. “At one point, they said my voice was heard more than 35 million times a day.”
Edwards had worked at WKYC’s 3News, at the NBC-affiliated TV station in Cleveland, for 14 years as “a graphics guru, camera operator and general jack-of-all-trades,” the station said in a post on its website Thursday. Edwards retired in 2016. He died the day before his 75th birthday, according to WKYC.
For years after he recorded the AOL prompts, Edwards’ voice continued to be a cultural touchstone, most notably the 1998 rom-com “You’ve Got Mail,” directed by Nora Ephron and starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks as two Manhattanites who first connect on AOL. In a 2000 episode of “The Simpsons,” Edwards provided the voice of an online doctor delivering some bad news: “You’ve got leprosy!”
His wife, Karen Edwards, worked as a customer service rep at Quantum Computer Services when she overheard then-CEO Steve Case talking about adding a voice to the upcoming AOL software, Edwards said in a video AOL shared on YouTube in 2012. He noted good-naturedly that “You’ve got mail!” became a catchphrase that “I have a certain amount of trouble trying to escape.”