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Obituary: Fred Travalena / Impressionist/singer said to have repertoire of over 360 characters
Oct. 6, 1942 - June 28, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Fred Travalena, the master impressionist and singer whose broad repertoire of voices ranged from Jack Nicholson to Sammy Davis Jr. to Bugs Bunny, has died. He was 66.

Mr. Travalena, who began being treated for an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2002 and saw the disease return last July after going into remission in 2003, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, according to his publicist, Roger Neal. Mr. Travalena also was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003 but had been in complete remission since then.

Dubbed "The Man of a Thousand Faces" and "Mr. Everybody," Mr. Travalena emerged on the national stage as an impressionist in the early 1970s.

Over the next three decades, he was a headliner in Las Vegas, Reno, Nev., and Atlantic City, N.J., performed in concerts around the country, appeared on "The Tonight Show" and other television talk shows and starred in his own specials, such as "The Many Faces of Fred Travalena" and "Comedy in the Oval Office."

The boyish-faced entertainer is said to have had a repertoire of more than 360 celebrity, political and cartoon-character voices, including Clint Eastwood, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Johnny Mathis, Bruce Springsteen and Luciano Pavarotti.

"I've known impressionists who have reached a wall where they can't do any more [voices]," Mr. Travalena told the Omaha World Herald in 1996. "I don't have that problem, thank God."

In one part of his act, Mr. Travalena physically and vocally "morphed" into U.S. presidents, from John F. Kennedy up to George W. Bush.

He also was known to sing "Have I Told You Lately" in various voices, including Kermit the Frog, Katharine Hepburn and Frank Sinatra.

The imaginative entertainer even did Sinatra imitating Boy George.

Of Italian and Irish heritage, Mr. Travalena was born Oct. 6, 1942, in New York City and grew up on Long Island.

When it came to impressions, he had an early role model: his father, a onetime entertainer who sang and performed comedy and impressions.

During a stint in the Army's Special Services, Mr. Travalena won the All-Army Entertainment Award for best singer and once impersonated President Lyndon Johnson's voice on the base theater's answering machine to announce the movies and show times.

Although he told The New York Times in 1989 that he was "headed for the commercial art field," Mr. Travalena said: "That wasn't getting me up in the morning, and I couldn't get show business out of my mind."

At one point after launching his career as a singer, he and his singer wife, Lois, were performing together at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C.

As recounted in a 1989 New York Times story, Lois surprised her husband by spontaneously asking the audience, "How'd you like to hear Fred do impressions?"

He went on to impersonate Dean Martin, Paul Lynde, Jim Nabors and Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

"People liked it," he later said.

Mr. Travalena reportedly was performing at a resort hotel in the Catskills when impressionist Rich Little was in the audience. After the show, Mr. Little congratulated Mr. Travalena and later recommended him for a spot in British celebrity journalist David Frost's show at the Riviera in Las Vegas.

Mr. Travalena joined Mr. Little, Pittsburgh native Frank Gorshin and other impressionists as a regular on the "ABC Comedy Hour," the 1972 comedy-variety show, which was known in reruns as the "ABC Comedy Hour Presents the Kopycats."

Mr. Travalena made occasional guest appearances on TV series such as "The Love Boat" and "Murphy Brown," as well as on "Hollywood Squares" and other game shows. He also did voices on a number of TV cartoon series and appeared in the 1978 movie "The Buddy Holly Story."

In more recent years, he turned to songwriting and singing and released CDs including "We All Need Love Today" and "The Spirit of America."

Mr. Travalena received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005.

First published on June 30, 2009 at 12:00 am
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