Mel Winkler (October 23, 1941 – June 11, 2020) was an American actor, perhaps best known as the voice of Aku Aku in the ''

Crash Bandicoot ''Crash Bandicoot'' is a video game franchise originally developed by Naughty Dog as an exclusive for Sony's PlayStation console. It has seen numerous installments created by various developers and published on multiple platforms. The series c ...

'' video games, from '' Crash Bandicoot: Warped'' to ''

Crash Twinsanity ''Crash Twinsanity'' is a 2004 platform video game for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Mobile. It is the eleventh installment in the ''Crash Bandicoot'' series and the fifth game in the main series. The game's story takes place three years after ...

''.

Early life

Winkler was born to an African-American family in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

on October 23, 1941.

Career

In 1969, Winkler began a

tap dancing Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perfo ...

career in ''

Anything Goes ''Anything Goes'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap ant ...

''. In 1970s and 1980s, He moved to his home town

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Though Winkler mostly appeared in minor live-action roles, such as Melvin in ''

Doc Hollywood ''Doc Hollywood'' is a 1991 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Caton-Jones and written by Daniel Pyne along with Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, based on Neil B. Shulman's book ''What? Dead...Again?'' The film stars Michael J. ...

'', in 1977 and 1978 he appeared in a two-show ''Anything Goes'' (1977) as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh and ''

West Side Story ''West Side Story'' is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Inspired by William Shakespeare's play ''Romeo and Juliet'', the story is set in the mid-1 ...

'' (1978) as Action. He also spent time on Broadway, appearing in ''The Great White Hope'' in 1968, in August Wilson's ''Joe Turner's Come and Gone'' in 1988 and in Neil Simon's ''Proposals'' from 1997 to 1998. He is the voice of the guardian mask Aku Aku in the ''Crash Bandicoot'' series,

Lucius Fox Lucius Fox is a character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with the superhero Bruce Wayne / Batman. He is Bruce Wayne's business manager at Wayne Enterprises who runs the business interests that s ...

in ''

The New Batman Adventures ''The New Batman Adventures'' (often shortened as ''TNBA'') is an American superhero animated television series based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, which aired on Kids' WB from September 13, 1997 to January 16, 1999. Produced by Warner Bro ...

'' and Johnny Snowman in the TV series ''

Oswald Oswald may refer to: People *Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name *Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name Fictional characters *Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbur ...

''. In 2004, he appeared in ''

The Tap Dance Kid ''The Tap Dance Kid'' is a musical based on the novel ''Nobody's Family is Going to Change'' by Louise Fitzhugh. It was written by Charles Blackwell with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics by Robert Lorick. Synopsis Act I William Sheridan, a su ...

'' as Dipsey.

Death

Winkler died in his sleep on June 11, 2020. The cause of his death was not disclosed. The video game '' Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time'' is dedicated to his memory.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

References

External links

* 1941 births 2020 deaths African-American male actors American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American male video game actors American tap dancers Male actors from St. Louis 20th-century American male actors 21st-century American male actors 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people {{US-voice-actor-1940s-stub