Kenny Delmar

I'm doing some reading on him and have developed a new appreciation for his work. Not only was his Senator Beauregard Claghorn ("Allen's Alley") the prototype of Foghorn Leghorn, but he voiced other toons that I grew up with, such as "The Hunter" and "Commander McBragg."

Despite portraying the stereotype Southern senator, who drank only from Dixie cups and refused to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel, he was born in Boston and died in Stamford Connecticut, where he was buried in Long Ridge Union Cemetery.

Delmar was also a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre radio company in the late thirties -- he played the "Secretary of the Interior" in the famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast. Welles had wanted to use the President as a character in this production, but was forbidden to do so by CBS censors. But Delmar played the "Secretary" with an extremely FDR-esque accent.

The Claghorn character was originally heard under the name of "Counselor Cartenbranch" on the Alan Young Show in 1944, but the sponsor of that program highly disliked the character and had Delmar fired. Fred Allen scooped him up immediately after and made him the sensation of the 1945-46 season.