Eric Bauza, the Emmy-winning voice actor who gave Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck their modern voices, died Sunday at his Los Angeles home. He was 46. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner attributed his death to hypertensive cardiovascular disease. His family announced the news in an Instagram statement and described the death as sudden. They said more information would follow.
Manager Judy Coppage called him someone “loved by everyone he knew and worked with,” and said his death leaves a profound hole for his family, the animation industry and his fans. Warner Bros. said he brought laughter to millions worldwide through his work on its characters.
Bauza, a Toronto native born December 7, 1979, built a career of more than 400 credits. He started in animation as an intern and worked his way into roles that placed him among the successors to Mel Blanc, the original voice of the Looney Tunes. His list of characters ran deep: Porky Pig, Tweety, Marvin the Martian, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew, Road Runner and others. He also voiced Puss in Boots and Woody Woodpecker.
His most visible recent work came this year in “Coyote vs. Acme,” where he voiced much of the Looney Tunes ensemble. Earlier, he performed Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd and Marvin the Martian in “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” and led the cast of “Looney Tunes Cartoons,” which won him the first Children’s and Family Emmy for outstanding voice performance in an animated program. He later won for “Bugs Bunny Builders” and “Teen Titans Go!,” and earned another nomination this year.
The Hollywood Reporter once observed that he had “quietly become the voice of an entire cartoon universe,” a description that fit a performer whose work reached audiences without his face attached to it. Bauza often said Bugs Bunny was his favorite character to play. As he grew older, he said, he identified more with Daffy Duck, the perpetually flustered foil. His death leaves Warner Bros. without the actor who anchored its flagship animated characters across film, television and preschool programming. The studio has not said who will take over those roles.
