New York
CNN
—

Elwood Edwards, a behind-the-scenes graphics and camera operator at local Cleveland television station WKYC whose voice gained worldwide fame after recording AOL’s e-mail greeting, “You’ve Got Mail,” has died, according to his former employer. He was 74.

WKYC said he died after an undisclosed “long illness.”

Any former AOL user can recognize his voice. More than thirty years ago, Edwards recorded four iconic lines for the then little-known company America Online.

His wife, Karen, worked at Quantum Computer Services, which eventually became AOL, Edwards said in an AOL YouTube video in 2012. In 1989, she heard former America Online CEO Steve Case talk about adding a voice to the upcoming AOL software.

She volunteered her husband and Edwards recorded the lines on a tape deck in his living room. These four phrases – “Welcome,” “You’ve got mail,” “Files ready,” and “Goodbye” – would eventually be heard by hundreds of millions of people and become an important part of the AOL experience. AOL and CNN had common ownership for about fifteen years, but are no longer related.

“I had no idea it was going to be what it did, I don’t think anyone did,” Edwards said in a 2019 interview on the podcast “Silent Giants with Corey Cambridge.” “Suddenly AOL left… I remember standing in line at CompUSA and seeing stacks of AOL CDs and thinking, ‘My voice is on all those CDs, and no one has any idea.'”

Edwards worked for years at television station WKYC in Cleveland, Ohio, where the station said he was a jack of all trades, from cameraman to graphic designer.

Frank Macek, senior broadcast director at WKYC, was friends with Edwards for 15 of his 30 years at the station. He said Edwards was generous with his knowledge of the broadcasting industry and willing to guide his colleagues through new systems.

“Every time someone came to WKYC, he would introduce himself and they would recognize him,” Macek said. “There was such a long association between his voice and AOL that it made him an instant celebrity.”

Edwards even appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” where he also said several lines based on suggestions from the audience.

Edwards was born in New Bern, North Carolina, and graduated from high school in the Tar Heel State, he said in an interview on the “Silent Giants with Corey Cambridge” podcast.

He started working in radio in high school and then became a television stand announcer and hosted a radio program.

“I didn’t enjoy being in front of the camera as much as I enjoyed being behind the scenes,” Edwards said on the podcast.