RIP Elwood Edwards, the voice behind AOL's iconic "You've Got Mail" message, died on November 5 after a long illness. He was 74 years old. The news was shared by local Ohio news station WKYC, where Edwards worked for many years as graphics and camera operator before retiring in 2014.
The famous message was recorded in 1989 and went on to become one of the most recognizable soundbites in the early days of the internet. Edwards recorded several more messages for AOL, including "Welcome," "Files done," and "Goodbye." He was reportedly paid $200 for the recordings.
Despite his extensive credentials, the phrase that would ensure Edwards' place in the annals of internet history was "You've Got Mail," which became synonymous with emails during the heyday of AOL. It became a pop culture phenomenon in the nineties and the title of a hit 1998 romantic comedy film starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
Edwards himself attained minor celebrity status and went on to make an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2015. He also featured in an episode of The Simpsons.
Edwards became the voice of the nineties' internet thanks to his wife Karen, who worked at Quantum Computer Services, which later became AOL before being rebranded as AOL Time Warner and then AOL Verizon. When she got to know of an opportunity at her company for a male voice artist in the late eighties, she recommended Edwards because he had been an announcer throughout his broadcasting career.
In a 2016 interview, Edwards revealed that the recordings started off as a test just to see if it would catch on, "and lo and behold, in the mid-90s, it had really caught on." The phrase eventually became a key part of the AOL experience and made Edwards' voice instantly recognizable to millions around the world.
While the halcyon days of AOL are long gone, Edwards' voice lives on: the company's webmail service still plays the iconic phrase to notify users of unread emails in their inbox. It's no longer the default soundbite, but users can choose to play it instead of a more modern chime if they're feeling nostalgic.
Elwood Edwards, the voice behind AOL's iconic "You've Got Mail" message, dies at 74
