Kenny Delmar

Kenneth Howard Delmar, born Kenneth Frederick Fay Howard on September 5, 1910, in Boston, Massachusetts, was an American actor whose career spanned radio, film, television, animation, and Broadway. He died on July 14, 1984, at St. Joseph's Hospital in Stamford, Connecticut, at the age of 73.

Delmar relocated to New York City in infancy following his parents' separation. His mother, Evelyn Delmar, was a vaudevillian who performed alongside her sister on tour. Delmar began appearing on stage at age seven, and his first screen credit came in D. W. Griffith's 1921 film Orphans of the Storm, in which he played the childhood version of the character portrayed by Joseph Schildkraut. During the Depression he stepped away from performing to work in his stepfather's business, and subsequently operated his own dancing school for a year. He married one of his ballet teachers, Alice Cochran, before pursuing a career in radio.

By the late 1930s, Delmar had established himself as an announcer on prominent radio programs including The March of Time and Your Hit Parade. In October 1938 he participated in The Mercury Theatre on the Air's broadcast of The War of the Worlds, playing Captain Lansing of the Signal Corps as his primary role and also voicing a character modeled on President Franklin Roosevelt in the role of the Secretary of the Interior. He appeared in the repertory cast of Cavalcade of America and was heard as Commissioner Weston in early episodes of The Shadow. In 1944 he served as announcer and voice performer on The Alan Young Show, where he played a character named Counselor Cartonbranch whose vocal mannerisms closely resembled a role he would later make famous.

That role debuted on October 7, 1945, when Delmar introduced Senator Beauregard Claghorn on Fred Allen's radio program Allen's Alley, a program on which he also served as the regular announcer. Within six months, Life magazine described the character as unquestionably the most quoted man in the nation. The Senator was a bombastic, hyper-regionalist Southern legislator whose catchphrase, "That's a joke, son," became widely repeated across the country. Delmar credited the character's inspiration to a talkative Texas cattle rancher who had given him a ride while he was hitchhiking. At the peak of the character's popularity, Delmar starred as Claghorn in the 1947 theatrical feature film It's a Joke, Son! Senator Claghorn also served as the primary inspiration for the Warner Bros. animated character Foghorn Leghorn, who first appeared in the Oscar-nominated 1946 cartoon Walky Talky Hawky.

In 1949, Delmar appeared on Broadway in the musical Texas, Li'l Darlin'. That same year he hosted the live-action School House program on WABD-TV in New York. In 1953 he returned to radio, taking over roles on two programs: replacing Hans Conried's character on My Friend Irma as Maestro Wanderkin, and assuming Conried's role of Schultz on Life with Luigi.

Delmar later reached a new generation of audiences through voice work in Saturday morning animation, providing voices for characters including The Hunter, Commander McBragg, and Major Minor on Klondike Kat. His portrayal of The Hunter, a dog detective whose adversary was a criminal fox, drew directly on the Senator Claghorn vocal style, including the signature phrase "That's a joke, son." The Hunter appeared as a segment within the cartoon series King Leonardo and His Short Subjects, produced by Total Television Productions.