Harold Gans, a longtime Santa Fe resident who was the moaning voice of Zozobra for 40 years, died Saturday in Norman, Okla., at the age of 85, The New Mexican reported today on its Web site.

"He loved being the voice of Zozobra," his daughter Lindy Gans Ritz told The New Mexican in a telephone interview from Norman. "He only stopped within the last 10 years."

Gans, who was born in New York City but was adopted by Santa Fe residents Julius and Elsie Gans, attended Santa Fe public schools, the New Mexico Military Institute and the University of Southern California before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, The New Mexican reported.

He took over the Gans family-owned Santa Fe Arts and Crafts business after his parents died, the paper said.

Gans was a friend of artist Will Shuster, who created the giant effigy of Old Man Gloom for the 1924 Fiestas de Santa Fe and has been burned each year since to dispel the gloom of countless fiestagoers.

Gans began helping Shuster build the 49-foot-tall marionette in 1938 and actually became the voice of Zozobra in 1951, moaning and howling through a microphone until the 1990s, The New Mexican said.

In all that time, he missed just one year -- in 1982 -- after suffering a heart attack, the paper reported.

Gans and his wife, Sonia Seabrook Gans, moved to Norman two years ago to be near his daughter, according to The New Mexican.

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