The Scream That Hides in 400 Movies

In 1951, on a Warner Bros. soundstage, an unidentified actor screamed into a microphone six times. The reel was labeled "man getting bit by an alligator, and he screams." Take five made the cut: in Distant Drums, a soldier wading the Everglades is dragged under by a gator, and out comes a yelp so theatrical it borders on cartoonish.

The recording got filed in the Warner sound library and forgotten. Two years later, the studio pulled it again for The Charge at Feather River, where a minor character named Private Wilhelm takes an arrow in the thigh and lets out the same yelp. That's the name that stuck.

It would have stayed studio plumbing if not for Ben Burtt. As a USC film student in the early 1970s, Burtt found the scream while digging through Warner's archives, recognized it from movie after movie, and christened it "the Wilhelm." When George Lucas hired him to design the sound of Star Wars, Burtt put it in: a stormtrooper Luke shoots off a Death Star ledge in 1977 yelps with the voice of a 1951 cavalryman being eaten alive.

It became a private joke. Burtt slipped it into the Indiana Jones films. His proteges put it in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Toy Story, Reservoir Dogs, Pirates of the Caribbean. The National Science and Media Museum counts more than 400 appearances.

Researchers think the original screamer was Sheb Wooley — yes, the "Purple People Eater" guy — based on payroll records and his widow's 2005 confirmation. The man whose voice has died on screen more than any actor's in history is best known for a novelty song about a flying alien.