Country singer Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeller who sold millions of records through TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s and whose song saved the world in the film comedy Mars Attacks!, has died in Florida aged 90.

Whitman’s tenor falsetto and ebony moustache and sideburns became global trademarks – and an inspiration for countless jokes – thanks to TV commercials that pitched his records.

But he was a serious musical influence on early rock, and in Britain, he was known as a pioneer of country music for popularising the style. Whitman also encouraged a teenage Elvis Presley when he was the headliner on the bill and the young singer was making his professional debut.

Whitman recorded more than 65 albums and sold millions of records, including four million of All My Best that was marketed on TV.

His career spanned six decades, beginning in the late 1940s, but he achieved cult figure status in the 1980s. His visage as an ordinary guy singing romantic ballads struck a responsive chord with the public.

“All of a sudden, here comes a guy in a black and white suit, with a moustache and a receding hairline, playing a guitar and singing ‘Rose Marie,’” Whitman said in 1991. “They hadn’t seen that.”

He yodelled throughout his career and had a three-octave singing range. Whitman said yodelling required rehearsal.

“It’s like a prize fighter. He knows he has a fight coming up, so he gets in the gym and trains. So when I have a show coming up, I practice yodelling.”

Born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. in Tampa on January 23, 1923, he worked as a young man in a meatpacking plant, at a shipyard and as a postman.

He was able to get on radio in Tampa and signed with RCA Records in 1949 with the help of Col. Tom Parker, who later became Presley’s longtime manager. RCA gave Whitman the show business name Slim to replace his uninspiring birth name.

In 1952, Whitman had his first hit record, Love Song of the Waterfall, which 25 years later became part of the soundtrack of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Another Whitman hit from that year, Indian Love Call, was used to humorous effect in the 1996 Mars Attacks! – his yodel causes the Martians’ heads to explode.

He crossed paths with Presley in July 1954 when he starred at a concert in a Memphis park just as Presley – mistakenly billed as “Ellis Presley” in one ad for the show – was launching his career.

According to Peter Guralnick’s book Last Train to Memphis, Presley’s brief, energetic turn on stage caused a wild reaction from the crowd. When Whitman came on for his performance, he told the audience: “You know, I can understand your reaction, cause I was standing backstage and I was enjoying it just as much as you.”

With Whitman’s early hits, he became a star on the Louisiana Hayride radio show.

His version of Rose Marie, the title song from the venerable operetta that spawned Indian Love Call, became a huge hit in England in 1955, staying at No. 1 on the charts for 11 weeks.

Whitman’s other hits included Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, ‘Red River Valley, Danny Boy and I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.

“The material I did was lasting material,” Whitman said in 1991. “A lot of people thought I wasn’t doing anything, but I was in the studio. The biggest factor is the material you choose. You hunt, you cut.”

He was survived by his daughter, Sharon Beagle, and his son, Byron Whitman.

Whitman said that he wanted to be remembered as “a nice guy.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever heard anything bad about me, and I’d like to keep it that way. I’d like my son (Bryon) to remember me as a good dad. I’d like the people to remember me as having a good voice and a clean suit.”

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