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Before Ryan Gosling brought Ken to life on the big screen, former Hollywood agent William “Bill” Cunningham gave the Mattel doll a voice. Cunningham, the “original voice and crooner” of Barbie’s boyfriend for Mattel, died on July 15, 2023. He was 96. According to CESD Talent Agency, the company he founded more than five decades ago, he died at his home in West Hollywood.
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Born on Jan. 2, 1927, Cunningham joined the United States Navy after enlisting at the age of 17 and served during World War II. His love for entertaining is said to have begun after finding the Fort Emory Drum and Bugle Corp sign-up sheet. He went on to tour the Pacific with his fellow sailors.
Outside of the service, Cunningham got his start on NBC’s Voices of Walter Schumann and The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.
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The late agent sang on different motion picture soundtracks and commercials, and even toured with Judy Garland. His debut album, I’m Always Chasing Rainbows, was financed by Fred Astaire, who is said to have enjoyed dancing to Cunningham’s voice.
Cunningham was the founder of CESD Talent Agency. CESD, which is described as “one of the nation’s most prestigious commercial, voice-over, print, digital influencer, theatrical/TV-film and young performer talent agencies and a dominant force in our industry,” began as Cunningham & Associates in Hollywood and expanded to include an office in New York City not long after, in 1971. The talent agency is led today by Ken Slevin and Paul Doherty; Cunningham retired in 1989.
In a statement shared with Parade, CESD partners Paul and Ken said that Cunningham “was among the great innovators and gentlemen of the talent representation business. Bill set the template for client and customer service particularly in commercial, voice-over, and print. He was a talented, warm, gregarious, classy man who made a positive impact on all those he represented and employed. It was our honor to know him and to learn from him.”
You can read more about Cunningham’s life in his autobiography, I Wonder What Became of Me, which he published in 2014.
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