Legendary radio, TV personality Gary Owens dies

Gary Owens, the radio, TV and voice-over performer who appeared on the “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” TV series and created the phrase “beautiful downtown Burbank,” died Thursday surrounded by family in his home in Encino. Owens was 80.

Owens started in show business at the age of 16, according to a statement issued by the family Friday, and his career spanned from 1950 until 2015. He was recording TV promotions “right up to the end,” about a month before his passing, according to the statement.

He appeared on nearly every episode of “Laugh-In,” which ran from 1968 to 1974 on NBC, as the announcer with the trademark hand-over-the-ear style and baritone voice.

The show’s production offices were in Burbank, across the street from the Smoke House restaurant and the program was shot at an NBC studio in Burbank.

Owens had originated the phrase “beautiful downtown Burbank” in the early 1960s when he was the morning disc jockey at KFWB-AM (980). In his weather forecasts, he favored alliteration when naming locales, like romantic Reseda and magnificent Monrovia and beautiful downtown Burbank.

It later became a catchphrase on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show,” which came to Burbank — airing from NBC Studios at Alameda and Olive avenues — in 1972, a time when the city’s image was changing from that of an aerospace town to an entertainment capital.

The city of Burbank honored the cast of “Laugh-In” during then-Mayor Bob Kramer’s State of the City address in October 2001.

“When ‘Laugh-In’ began, there was only one theater and one hotel [in Burbank], the Burbank Hotel for Men,” Owens said in an interview at the time. “It has come such a long way since then.”

Owens hosted numerous radio programs, performed voice-over work in thousands of commercials and promotions, and appeared on camera in more than 1,000 network TV episodes and many feature films, according to the family’s statement. He voiced more than 3,000 animated cartoons and appeared as an animated version of himself in several of them.

Owens received numerous honors. Among them, he was named the Top Radio Personality in the world by Billboard Magazine in 1979 and was inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1995. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1981 between Walt Disney and Betty White. He was also named as the Honorary Mayor of both Woodland Hills and Encino.

Owens is survived by his wife of 57 years, Arleta, and his sons, Scott Owens and Chris Dane Owens. A private memorial will be held.

The family requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Children’s Diabetes Foundation — Owens was a diabetic since his childhood.