This is so much better than a complimentary bottle of water. Elwood Edwards, a.k.a. AOL’s “You’ve Got Mail” guy, is now an Ohio-based Uber driver. And Brandee Barker, who was out canvassing for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in Shaker Heights, was lucky enough to be his passenger.
“OMG OMG my @Uber driver in Ohio was the You’ve Got mail voice Elwood Edwards!” the Pramana Collective cofounder tweeted November 5. “I made him say it in this video.” (Watch the clip to hear Edwards utter his famous greeting!)
OMG OMG my @Uber driver in Ohio was the You’ve Got Mail voice Elwood Edwards!!! I made him say it in this video #GOTVforHRC pic.twitter.com/Jgcl7v040D
— Brandee Barker (@brandee) November 5, 2016
Barker dished even more about the $6.21 ride to Us Weekly. “He told me he was a news editor at the NBC affiliate in Cleveland. And then he offered up that I may recognize his voice from the ‘You’ve Got Mail’ [greeting] and that he was paid $200 for the voice-over,” Barker tells Us. “I was immediately starstruck and asked if he would do the video.”
The former head of communications at Facebook adds, “Elwood got a five-star Uber rating from me!”
Edwards, who also recorded the phrases “Welcome” “File’s done” and “Goodbye,” landed the $200 gig in 1989, when his wife was working as a customer service rep for Quantum Computer Services, the company that later became AOL. She overheard the CEO saying he wanted a voice to notify people when they received email and volunteered her husband. “I recorded it on a cassette deck in my living room,” the 67-year-old told the New York Post on November 7. “Most people think I’m retired and own an island.”
Instead, he works at WKYC-TV from 3:30 a.m. to noon and logs hours for Uber from noon to 6 p.m, per the New York Post.
In 2014, Edwards told CNBC that he pranks people by standing behind their computers and booming, “You’ve got mail!” Explained the voice-over actor, “I have fun with it!”
