Walker Edmiston


Walker Edmiston was an American actor and voice actor.

Early years

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Edmiston participated in local theater productions during his high school years. He later studied at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Career

Edmiston appeared on various television programs in character roles during the 1950s-1970s.
Before working on network programs, Edmiston had 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 Pandemonium.
He also appeared on Star Trek, Gunsmoke, , Knots Landing, 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 cartoon character voices, such as "Ernie the Keebler 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 on that studio's 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 the beloved Tom Riley and the infamous Bart Rathbone, for more than twenty years. At times the two characters would argue; however, Edmiston would require little redubbing or editing. He simply switched between the two characters without pause. After his death in 2007, the character of Riley was retired from the show, while Rathbone would make one more appearance before subsequently being written out as well.
Some of his voice credits were under the stage name Walter Edmiston. In 1985, he also 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 Webster Webfoot. Edmiston also appeared in Barnaby Jones; episode titled, "Doomed Alibi".
In 1962, Edmiston and his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he began a daily puppet show on KOOL-TV. He also was a stage director at Children's Theater in Phoenix.

Death

Edmiston died from cancer in Woodland Hills, California on February 15, 2007. He had two daughters, Andria Edmiston and Erin Edmiston.
He is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.

Filmography