He was the man of a thousand voices, best known for his beloved characters during the Golden Age of American Animation. But did you know that before he became the voice of Bugs Bunny, Mel Blanc’s first voice impersonation was of an elderly Jewish couple? The Yiddish-speaking pair ran a grocery store in Portland, where Blanc would practice imitating their distinctive way of speaking.
Melvin Jerome Blank was born in 1908 to Russian Jewish immigrants in San Francisco before the family moved to Portland, Oregon in 1915. Blanc’s ability for mimicking accents and dialects, including Yiddish, highlighted his versatility as a voice actor.
Blanc’s career spanned decades, voicing countless classic cartoon characters such as Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Elmer Fudd, as well as Woody Woodpecker, Tweety Bird, and Mr. Spacely from “The Jetsons.” Blanc passed away 35 years ago in 1989 and is buried in the Beth Olam section at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. His headstone includes one of Porky Pigs’s most well-known show-ending phrases: “That’s All Folks!”
