Lorenzo Music

Lorenzo Music
Born	Gerald David Music

Gerald David Music, (better known as Lorenzo Music (May 2, 1937 – August 4, 2001 in Brooklyn, New York), was an American actor, voice actor, writer, television producer and musician. He may be best known as the original voice of the animated cartoon cat Garfield. Other notable roles includes the voice of Carlton the doorman on the television show Rhoda, Tummi Gummi in Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears and Larry the Crash Test Dummy in a series of 1980's public service announcements about wearing seat belts in vehicles.

Early career

Music was raised in Duluth, Minnesota where he attended Central High School in Duluth and later the University of Minnesota-Duluth. There he met his wife, Henrietta, and they formed a comedy duo Gerald and His Hen. They performed successfully for 8 years.

Music changed his first name to Lorenzo for spiritual reasons after he became a member of the international spiritual association Subud.

1970s success

Music got his first professional job providing various voices to the cartoon The Jetsons in 1962. He became a writer and a regular performer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour during 1968 and 1969. His work as a writer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970 would lead him to his big break.

Music was the creator of The Bob Newhart Show which went on the air in 1972 and ran for six years. He also co-wrote the theme song to the show with his wife Henrietta. He continued writing for the Mary Tyler Moore Show spin-off Rhoda. While casting Rhoda, the producers were looking for a voice actor to play the part of a character that would be heard but never seen: Carlton the doorman. When they heard Music's sleepy, husky voice, they offered him that role, which made his voice recognizable to a worldwide television audience.

In 1976, Lorenzo and Henrietta were given the opportunity to host a television variety show of their own. The Lorenzo and Henrietta Music Show was produced in an era with a glut of television variety shows and did not last.

At the end of Rhoda, Carlton was given his own special. The animated Carlton Your Doorman aired in 1980, winning that year's "Outstanding Animated Program" Emmy.

Garfield

In 1982, Jim Davis's comic strip Garfield was the most popular strip in America. Compilation books of the strip were topping best seller lists, and Davis was negotiating to make an animated television special. Producers needed someone to voice the main character in the strip: Garfield, a lazy, oafish and demanding cat. After one audition, Music was cast as the voice of Garfield (in Davis's words, "I looked at the room full of (voice) actors, and then in the corner I saw Lorenzo, quietly licking himself").

On a 1988 television special celebrating the 10th anniversary of Garfield, Jim Davis remarked, apparently facetiously, that Lorenzo Music was a man "whose face I've never seen." This may have been a tongue-in-cheek joke referring to the fact that Music avoided being photographed, or possibly was in reference to Music's positioning in the voice recording studio, where only the back of his head was visible from the studio's sound engineering booth.

Music's voice became an American staple: no fewer than 12 Garfield television specials were produced and the Garfield and Friends animated television series ran for seven years. Music was called upon to help write and produce the shows as well. Music became a favorite in the animation community voicing characters for shows such as TaleSpin, The Real Ghostbusters, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, and Darkwing Duck. In the mid-1990s, after both Garfield and Friends and Darkwing Duck went off the air, Music retired from cartoon voice over work.

In 1996, Music's voice could be heard on Stan Freberg's Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America Volume Two album, released as a CD by Rhino Records. Music appears on the album as James Madison and Robert E. Lee. He was also rumored to appear on the final album of the series, Volume Three, but the album has not been released, as of 2005.

He later served as the pitchman for Ruggles Ice Cream (a local brand from Cleveland, OH.)

Death and 'afterlife'

In 2001, Music died from complications related to lung and bone cancer. He is survived by his wife, Henrietta; his daughters Roz and Leilani and his sons Fernando and Sam. Daughter Roz is a prominent Hollywood make-up artist (Adaptation, The Virgin Suicides).

In 2004 Bill Murray connected with Lorenzo Music for the second time by voicing Garfield in Garfield: The Movie. Music had voiced Peter Venkman on seasons 1-3 of the TV series The Real Ghostbusters (1986–1991), a reprise of Murray's 1984 film role. A deadpan delivery provided a common link between the two men.

After developing the mystique of the faceless voice, Lorenzo Music made a point of not being photographed. However, an article with a photograph is listed below in the external links along with a link to an autographed photo with Garfield. However, his face was fully visible in a series of television commercials for the Speedy Auto Repair Company.

Trivia

Music's last name is from the Czech language and means, roughly, "little Moses."[1]