Allan Melvin

Allan John Melvin (February 18, 1923 – January 17, 2008) was an American actor and impressionist, who was cast in hundreds of television episodes from the 1950s to the early 1990s, often appearing in recurring roles on various series. Some of those roles and series include portraying various characters on: The Andy Griffith Show, as real estate salesman Pete Dudley in My Favorite Martian, as Corporal Henshaw on The Phil Silvers Show, Sergeant Hacker on Gomer Pyle, USMC, Alice's boyfriend Sam the Butcher on The Brady Bunch, and as Archie Bunker's friend Barney Hefner on both All in the Family and Archie Bunker's Place. He has also voiced Tyrone the Bulldog, an archvillain (with his aliases The Jester, The Puzzler, Poochquin, Sheriff of Sherwood, and many others) in the live-action/animated series The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty and was Magilla Gorilla on The Magilla Gorilla Show, as well as Drooper on The Banana Splits.

Life and career Melvin served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during WWII. While working at a job in the sound effects department of NBC Radio, he did a nightclub act and appeared in and won on the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts radio show. While appearing on Broadway in Stalag 17, he got his break into television by getting the role of Corporal Steve Henshaw on the popular The Phil Silvers Show program. "I think the camaraderie of all those guys made it such a pleasant way to work. They were so relaxed."

From 1979 to 1983, Melvin appeared as a regular in Archie Bunker's Place, in which he reprised the now more important role of Barney Hefner. After the series ended in 1983, Melvin's work was exclusively devoted to cartoon voice-overs. His voice acting career continued until 1994, with Scooby-Doo! in Arabian Nights being his final voice work (again as Magilla Gorilla) before retiring.

Death Melvin died of cancer on January 17, 2008, aged 84, and was buried at Westwood Memorial Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Filmography