Raymond Walter Goulding (March 20, 1922 – March 24, 1990) was an American
comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolish (as in slapstick), or employing prop comedy. A comedian who addresses an audienc ...
, who, together with
Bob Elliott formed the
comedy duo
A double act (also known as a comedy duo) is a form of comedy originating in the British music hall tradition, and American vaudeville, in which two comedians perform together as a single act. Pairings are typically long-term, in some cases fo ...
of
Bob and Ray
Bob and Ray were an American comedy duo whose career spanned five decades, composed of comedians Bob Elliott (1923–2016) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990). The duo's format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such ...
.
He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the fourth of five children of Thomas Goulding, an overseer in a textile mill, and his wife Mary. Upon graduation from high school at age 17, Ray Goulding was hired as a $15-a-week announcer on local station WLLH, using the name 'Dennis Howard' to avoid confusion with his older brother Phil, an announcer in Boston radio at the time. A year later Ray was hired by Boston radio station WEEI under his own name.
His career was interrupted in 1942 by
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. After graduating from US Army
OCS he was posted to
Fort Knox
Fort Knox is a United States Army installation in Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. It is adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the United States' official gold re ...
, Kentucky as an instructor, attaining the rank of captain. While stationed there he met his wife, then-Lt. Mary Elizabeth Leader, likewise attached to the base as a dietitian. They married in 1945 and would eventually have four sons and two daughters.
Bob and Ray
Upon his discharge in 1946, Goulding was hired on at Boston station WHDH, where he served as newsreader for the morning program hosted by
Bob Elliott. The two men soon discovered an extraordinary comedic rapport and found themselves in-demand as a team. Standing six-foot-two, heavyset and possessing a distinctive baritone voice, Goulding made an effective contrast to his partner both physically and vocally, usually taking on similarly outsize roles in their skits. His dead-on impersonation of Senator
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican United States Senate, U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarth ...
inspired a pointed series of Bob & Ray sketches at the height of the
Army-McCarthy hearings. He also played all the female roles (using falsetto), most notably cooking expert "Mary Margaret McGoon." In 1949, Goulding as Mary recorded a novelty cover of "I'd Like to Be a Cow in Switzerland", which became a local hit.
National prominence and television pioneer
In 1951, Elliott and Goulding were hired by NBC Radio, beginning a four-decade-long association with the network. Also in 1951, they began a short-lived but influential television series "Bob and Ray", which featured
Audrey Meadows and
Cloris Leachman. In 1955 the team became resident comedians on NBC's ''Monitor'' radio series. In 1956, he and Elliott won a
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
for broadcast excellence.
For details about Ray Goulding's various characters and voices, see the Wikipedia entry on
Bob and Ray
Bob and Ray were an American comedy duo whose career spanned five decades, composed of comedians Bob Elliott (1923–2016) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990). The duo's format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such ...
.
Personal life
Away from the studio, Goulding's hobbies included photography and sport shooting. Together with Bob Elliott he also wrote a couple of humoristic articles for
Mad Magazine
Mad, mad, or MAD may refer to:
Geography
* Mad (village), a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia
* Mád, a village in Hungary
* Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, by IATA airport code
* Mad River (disambiguation), several ...
in the 1950s. He was a lifelong
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...
fan. Ray Goulding died of
kidney failure
Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...
at his home in
Manhasset on New York's
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
in 1990, four days after his 68th birthday.
References
External links
*
Larry Josephson's official ''Bob and Ray'' site*Bob and Ray for the Truly Desperate collection at the Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/bobandraytoaster
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goulding, Ray
1922 births
1990 deaths
20th-century American male actors
Actors from Lowell, Massachusetts
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male radio actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American radio personalities
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
Burials at Locust Valley Cemetery
United States Army personnel of World War II
Deaths from kidney failure
People from Manhasset, New York
United States Army officers
Comedians from Massachusetts
20th-century American comedians
Mad (magazine) people
Military personnel from Massachusetts