George O'Hanlon
About
Biography
Biography
A veteran actor, writer, and voice performer, George O'Hanlon broke into show business during the Great Depression of the 1930s, appearing in uncredited roles in a variety of films and shorts. The following decade, O'Hanlon found huge success as the co-writer and star of the "So You Think" series, a set of some 60 farcical how-to shorts in which O'Hanlon portrayed the comedically put-upon Joe McDoakes. As television became an increasingly more popular medium for scripted entertainment, the charmingly inflected O'Hanlon auditioned for the voice role of Fred Flintstone on Hanna-Barbera's animated Stone-Age comedy series "The Flintstones." Although he narrowly lost the part to his fellow voice actor Alan Reed, O'Hanlon made enough of an impression to garner the role of George Jetson on the companion series "The Jetsons," vocally portraying a family man with modern problems despite living in a postmodern world. After importing his writing abilities to the small-screen and scripting episodes of such series "Gilligan's Island," "77 Sunset Strip," and even "The Flintstones" (in addition to appearing on shows such as "Mister Ed" and "The Partridge Family"), O'Hanlon returned to his celebrated role as George Jetson in a 1985 revival of the eponymous series. Having suffered a stroke, the actor had to have his lines read back to him one at time so he could repeat them back while performing. O'Hanlon died while recording his part for "Jetsons: The Movie" (1990), which was dedicated to his memory.