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visual_effects · Actor

1926-02-06 · St. Louis, Missouri, USA · Male

47 series in the catalog

Walker Robert Edmiston (February 6, 1926 – February 15, 2007) was an American actor and puppeteer.

Early years

Walker Edmiston was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 6, 1926, to William Sherman Edmiston (1894–1976) and Anna Edmiston (née Anderson, 1887–1967). Edmiston participated in local theater productions during his high school years. He later studied at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Career

In the 1950s, Edmiston worked on puppet shows on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. His voice was heard on the puppet programs The Buffalo Billy Show and Time for Beany and on Dumbo's Circus, which included live action and animation. He was also a member of the cast of Lidsville and voiced characters on Pandamonium. He appeared in character roles on several TV programs during the 1950s through the '70s, including the Star Trek episode “The Corbomite Maneuver” as the voice of Balok. He also appeared in Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Knots Landing, Adam-12, The Bob Newhart Show and The Dukes of Hazzard. He also played a character based on "Chester" in "Gun-Shy," the Maverick parody of Gunsmoke starring James Garner. In 1966, Edmiston had a recurring role as Regan in the short-lived ABC comedy western series The Rounders with co-stars Ron Hayes, Patrick Wayne, and Chill Wills.

Edmiston also did many television commercials and animated character voices, such as Ernie the elf in hundreds of commercials for the cookie products of the Keebler Company, and voices for characters on H.R. Pufnstuf and The Bugaloos from the studios of Sid and Marty Krofft, as well as a recurring role as Enik the Altrusian in Land of the Lost. He also did many character voices on the Focus on the Family radio program, Adventures in Odyssey, in which he played Tom Riley, Bart Rathbone, and numerous other one-shot characters for more than twenty years. Following Edmiston's death, both characters were retired from the show.

Some of his voice credits were under the stage name Walter Edmiston. In 1985, he voiced the Autobot Inferno in The Transformers.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, he hosted The Walker Edmiston Show, a children's television program in Los Angeles, California. The program featured puppets of his own creation including Kingsley the Lion, Ravenswood the Buzzard, and Callie the Cat.

In 1962, Edmiston and his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he began a daily puppet show on KOOL-TV. He was also a stage director at Children's Theater in Phoenix.

Personal life and death

Edmiston married Evelyn in 1950, and together they had two children, daughters Andria and Erin. Evelyn died in 1998.

Edmiston died from cancer in Woodland Hills, California on February 15, 2007. He was cremated at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. His urn was entombed in a columbarium within the Abbey of Psalms Mausoleum afterwards.

Walker Edmiston at Memory Alpha

CONELRAD Appreciation (archived)

Walker Edmiston at Mark Evanier's News From Me (14 articles, from 1996 through to 2007 obituary)

Walker Edmiston at the Adventures in Odyssey Wiki