Lorenzo Music; Voice of Garfield the Cat

He swore he didn’t know Garfield the Cat from Charlie the Tuna. Nevertheless, the former folk singer and comedy writer with the voice once described as “kind of cutely stupid” became television’s animated Garfield.

Lorenzo Music, who was also the voice of Carlton, the unseen drunk doorman of the TV series “Rhoda,” as well as a crash dummy and a pig Latin-spouting tout for the Queen Mary, has died. He was 64.

Music died Saturday of bone cancer at his home in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park.

Garfield creator Jim Davis chose Music as the orange cat’s sardonic voice for the comic strip’s first animated television special in 1982. Building on Garfield and the popularity he had already achieved on “Rhoda” from 1974 to 1978, Music became something of the pet rock of voice advertising.

Music played a crash dummy in a public service ad urging automobile passengers to buckle their seat belts--and collected a settlement from Universal Pictures after the likeness was used without permission in the 1987 film “Harry and the Hendersons.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get so overexposed that no one will want me,” Music told The Times in 1987, a little embarrassed by his newfound success. “But it seems that the more you do in this business, the more people want you.

“Anonymity works for me,” Music said. “That way I never grow old.”

Born Gerald David Music in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised in Duluth, Minn., Music studied at the University of Minnesota. He assumed the name Lorenzo for spiritual reasons.

While in college, he met his wife, Henrietta, and performed with her for several years. In 1976 they had a syndicated variety program, “The Lorenzo and Henrietta Music Show,” which was seen locally on KTTV Channel 11.

Music was a folk singer working in San Francisco when he met Tommy Smothers, to whom his voice has been compared. Smothers hired him to write for his “The Smothers Brothers Show” with brother Dick.

The show earned Music an Emmy in 1969, and he went on to write and work as story editor for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Bob Newhart Show.” Music and his wife also wrote the theme song for the Newhart show.

Working on the Mary Tyler Moore spinoff “Rhoda” with partner David Davis, Music had no intention of acting in the sitcom. But producers who liked his unusual voice asked him to try it, and he became Carlton the Doorman.

After “Rhoda” was canceled, a Paramount executive suggested that Music capitalize on the fondness for the Carlton voice by making radio commercials--a new career that he followed until about a month ago.

Music is survived by his wife and their four children, Roz, Fernando, Sam and Leilani.