Ross Bagdasarian, Creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks

Ross Bagdasarian was an American actor, singer and music producer, the creator of the fictional music group Alvin and the Chipmunks. He sang for all three chipmunks himself, recording the voices and then speeding up the recording, and used puppets in performances. The characters were named after the heads of their record label at the time, Liberty Records: director Alvin Bennett, founder and owner Simon Waronker, and chief engineer Theodore Keep. In the later animated series he also voiced the dialogue himself.

Bagdasarian died in 1972, but in the 1980s his son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., revived the idea. In 2007 the film Alvin and the Chipmunks, produced by his son, was released.

The photograph shows a smiling man embracing a large picture of three cartoon chipmunks labelled “Simon”, “Alvin” and “Theodore”.