Leo De Lyon

Leo De Lyon, born Irving Levin on April 26, 1925, in Paterson, New Jersey, was an American actor and entertainer whose career spanned stage, television, film, and voice work across several decades. He died on September 18, 2021, at the age of 96.

De Lyon's early career included work in both television and live theater. In 1952, he appeared on Broadway in Wish You Were Here. That same year, he co-starred alongside Bob Haymes and Dorothy Loudon in the DuMont Television Network sitcom It's a Business, which aired from March through May 1952. On that program, De Lyon demonstrated a distinctive musical ability: he could sing and whistle two separate tunes simultaneously, a skill he applied to the Farandole from Georges Bizet's Arlesienne Suite. In 1956, he appeared at the London Palladium alongside the Platters and Lonnie Donegan, and that same year made a guest appearance on Captain Kangaroo as a Moving Man.

His voice work became a defining element of his career. In 1961, he originated the roles of Spook and The Brain in the Hanna-Barbera primetime animated sitcom Top Cat, a role he would reprise in the 1988 television movie Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats. He remained the last surviving cast member of the original Top Cat series at the time of his death. His animated work extended to The Flintstones in 1961, where he voiced multiple characters in the episode "The Beauty Contest," and to Disney's The Jungle Book in 1967, in which he voiced Flunkey the baboon in an uncredited role. He also performed the song "The Happy Sounds of Pareé" in the 1966 animated feature The Man Called Flintstone. During the 1980s, De Lyon returned to Hanna-Barbera to contribute additional voices to series including The Smurfs, Paw Paws, and Foofur, as well as appearing in an episode of The Incredible Hulk in 1981.

In 1962, De Lyon voiced a character on a recording produced for Arwin Records, the label operated by Doris Day and her husband Marty Melcher. The song, written by Al Lerner for a young artist named David Lucas, was performed by Pookie and Hippy of The Soupy Sales Show, and De Lyon contributed a spoken hook described as "guttural." He also recorded a 45 rpm single for Musicor Records, released under the name Leo DeLyon and the Musclemen, featuring two tracks written by Alan Kooper: "Sick Manny's Gym" and "Plunkin," the latter co-written with Eric Krackow. The Musclemen included Al Kooper on guitar and Krackow on bass. In the mid-1990s, De Lyon recorded several songs with Mark Harris, a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show.

During the mid- and late-1970s, De Lyon worked as a pianist, vocal entertainer, and musical director for several artists, including the duo Sandler and Young. In 2004, he appeared as himself in two video shorts documenting the making of Top Cat: Back to Hoagy's Alley: The Making of 'Top Cat' and Cool Cats in Interview Alley. De Lyon retired from performing in 2011.