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Impressionist Travalena Dead at 66

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 29, 2009 11:58 AM CDT

(Newser) – Fred Travalena, a master impressionist whose catalog of voices ranged from US presidents to Frank Sinatra doing Boy George, has died at 66 of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the Los Angeles Times reports. The actor-singer-mimic, known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces," opened for the likes of Shirley Maclaine and Wayne Newton and was a frequent guest on the Johnny Carson-era Tonight Show.

Travalena also had a lucrative sideline in dubbing over movie obscenities for television broadcast and voiced characters in cartoons. A late career return to his singing roots had “Mr. Everybody” flummoxed. “That really scared me for a while,” he said in 1999. “I asked myself, 'Who is Fred Travalena? Where is that 19-year-old kid who was a singer? What is my sound?' I just had to get used to it.”

[Images (3)]

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Fred Travalena. (Getty Images)

Fred Travalena and his wife Lois. (Getty Images)

Impressionist Fred Travalena. (Getty Images)

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I've known impressionists who have reached a wall where they can't do any more. I don't have that problem, thank God. - Fred Travalena

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