Actor who voiced Fred Flintstone dies

LOS ANGELES – Henry Corden, a veteran character actor and voice-over artist who in the late 1970s became the voice of Fred Flintstone – “Yabba-dabba doo!” – has died. He was 85.

Corden died of complications from emphysema Thursday in a hospital in the San Fernando Valley, said his agent, Don Pitts.

The Montreal-born Corden, who moved to New York as a child, was a radio actor when he arrived in Hollywood in the 1940s. He made his screen debut playing a menacing character in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” the classic 1947 comedy starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo.

With his flair for dialects, Corden moved into voice-acting in the 1960s, supplying a variety of voices on cartoons such as “Jonny Quest” and “The New Tom &Jerry Show.” He also was the voice of Paw Rugg on “The Atom Ant Show,” and he did voice-overs in a string of commercials, including a bit as a fish for StarKist tuna.