Harry von Zell
Learn more about Harry von Zell
Harry von Zell (July 11, 1906 - November 21, 1981) was a U.S. radio announcer and a film and television actor, best remembered for a verbal slip he made as a young announcer, when he referred to U.S. President Herbert Hoover as "Hoobert Heever".
This Spoonerism was made in 1931, as part of a live tribute on Hoover's birthday. It came at the end of a long reading of Hoover's career, during which von Zell had correctly pronounced the president's name several times. The accident did not occur during a broadcast at Hoover's presidential inauguration, as is often believed: That version was fabricated by Kermit Schaefer for an album titled Pardon My Blooper.
His greatest fame came on the The Burns & Allen Show of the 1950s, wherein he played the befuddled friend of the Burns family, and their show within a show's announcer.
In his later years he was a commercial spokesperson for Los Angeles based savings & loan Home Savings of America.
He died of cancer at the age of 75 in Los Angeles.
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