
Bill Cunningham, who provided the original Ken voice for Mattel in the early 1960s, has passed away. The 96-year-old founder of the talent agency was a vocalist.
According to the CESD Talent Agency, Cunningham passed away on July 15 at his home in West Hollywood. No other information was offered.
Cunningham was “Among the great innovators and gentlemen of the talent representation business,” CESD partners Ken Slevin and Paul Doherty said in a statement to PEOPLE Thursday. “Bill set the template for client and customer service, particularly in commercial, voice-over and print. He was a 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.”
Cunningham, who was raised in San Francisco, relocated to Hollywood to pursue a career in entertainment before joining the U.S. Navy. Throughout his military career, he played with the Fort Emory Drum and Bugle Corps while travelling the Pacific theatre.
Cunningham achieved prominence as a singer following the war. He sang on the movie soundtracks for almost every major Hollywood studio, appeared on NBC’s Voices of Walter Schumann and The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show, and performed live. Years before Ryan Gosling portrayed Barbie’s boyfriend on the big screen, he also provided the voice of Ken in the early Barbie albums produced by Mattel at this time. Dinah Shore and Judy Garland were on Cunningham’s trip as well.
I Wonder What Became of Me, an autobiography written by Cunningham after his retirement in 1989, was released in 2014.
His nieces and nephews Kirk, Kevin, Janet, Barbara, and Debbie are still alive.