Ed Herlihy (1909-1999) possessed one of the most-recognized voices in the nation from his six-decade career as a NBC radio and television announcer, narrator, pitchman, and voice-over artist. He also was one of the most-beloved Lambs of his generation; Herlihy served as the Boy (vice president) for thirteen years.
Herlihy was elected to The Lambs in 1961 as a Professional Member. In 1975, he was the last Lamb in the 44th Street Clubhouse, the member who turned out the lights after the Club lost the building to foreclosure.
Edward Joseph Herlihy was born in Boston on August 14, 1909, to Joseph and Alice (née Hicks) Herlihy. His father was a piano salesman and Ed was raised in Northern Dorchester. His younger brother, Walter Frederick Herlihy (1912-1956) was also blessed with a beautiful voice, and followed Ed into the world of radio broadcasting.
Herlihy was educated at local schools. He was a graduate of Boston College, class of 1932. He gained his first radio job in his hometown, at Boston’s WLOE. With the Depression bringing economic ruin to the nation, Ed lived at home and helped support his family, when the need for home pianos slowed down. In 1935, he was hired by NBC and moved to New York.
As a staff announcer, he worked on numerous shows, including the soap opera “Vic and Sade” (1932-1944) and ”Just Plain Bill” (1936-1954). One of Herlihy’s high-profile roles was the prestige NBC Radio public affairs program “America’s Town Meeting of the Air” that he hosted for more than twenty years, during the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.
Herlihy could be heard on “The Big Show” hosted by Tallulah Bankhead (1950-52), “The Falcon” private eye series with Lamb James Meighan, Jr. (1943-1954) and “Mr. District Attorney” for the pioneer radio producer, Lamb Ed Byron (1939-1952). In 1948 he was the announcer for “The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour” which transferred from radio to TV, taking Herlihy into the new medium.
His TV credits included announcing “Your Show of Shows” with Sid Caesar (1950), “As the World Turns” (1956) and “All My Children” (1970). On the set of “Your Show of Shows” Herlihy met a young writer, Woody Allen. Thirty years later, Allen hired Herlihy for parts in “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Radio Days,” and “Zelig.” His other film credits included Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy” and Tim Burton’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.”
He was nicknamed “The Voice of World War II” for the newsreels he narrated. Universal Newsreel, which employed Herlihy from the 1940s to the 1960s, were produced by Universal Studios and distributed twice weekly to movie theaters. The seven to ten minute shorts were breaking news stories. All of the existing films are now in the U.S. Library of Congress.
In middle age, Herlihy found part-time work on the stage, earning his Equity card and roles in New York and in touring shows. In 1968, his sole Broadway turn was when he stepped in as a replacement in the smash-hit “Mame” as Dwight Babcock opposite Janis Paige as Mame Dennis. He was back as the announcer’s voice in Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” (1986-87).
Kraft Foods employed Herlihy on radio and TV from 1947 to the late 1980s. The company sponsored the Kraft Television Theater in the 1950s, making his voice intimately familiar to millions. His 1999 obituary in the Times said he was “A Voice of Cheer and Cheese.”
Herlihy was married twice. In 1940 he wed a pretty brunette model from Boston, Jeanne Graham. She quit modeling, but the couple could point for years to her portrait by famed magazine illustrator McClelland Barclay on the wall of “21.” They lived in Forest Hills, Queens, and later Sands Point, Long Island, with their three children, Jeanne, Donald, and Stephen. His wife died of cancer in 1970. Herlihy later married Fredi Selden, who joined The Lambs as a Patron member.
Herlihy served as Boy of The Lambs under Shepherd Tom Dillon, beginning in 1972, when the club was in serious financial trouble. Herlihy was among the members who kept the Lambs going, when it nearly went out of business in the 1970s. The club reconstituted in places such as Sardi’s, before finding a new home across the street from Rockefeller Center in 1976, the Women’s National Republican Club. In 1980 there were only thirty paying members. In 1986, when Dillon stepped down to lead the Actors Fund, Herlihy also stepped down, but remained a director on the Lambs’ Council. He was a trustee of the Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, and a member of The Friars.
Ed Herlihy died on Feb. 2, 1999, at his home in Manhattan. He was 89 years old. He is interred next to Jeanne Herlihy and his brother Walter in the Cemetery of the Holy Rood, Westbury, Long Island. Herlihy’s family supported the Actors Home; the foyer, with an oil portrait of Herlihy, is named in his honor.
Researched and written by Shepherd Kevin C. Fitzpatrick (2026).