Sad, sad news today. Don LaFontaine, king of the voiceover and famous for his movie trailer voiceovers that often started with the phrase “in a world…”, died today at age 68.
Here’s a YouTube clip featuring Don. He was so good one of his trailers could convince me to give a movie I wouldn’t normally watch the benefit of the doubt. He was truly a voice master and things will not be the same with him gone. Every time I hear or see a movie trailer without his voice, I am going to think “man, it’s just not the same” no matter how good the new guy is.
2 responses so far ↓
1 John Turner // Oct 21, 2008 at 6:09 am
Yes, but other announcers are already imitating his delivery. The voiceovers on the new car ads are almost certainly impersonations, and I’ve heard movie ads he likely did not record as well. He’s going to be one of those voices that outlives its master, like the Groucho Marx voice currently featured in the Clausen pickles ads.
I remember that in the 1990s NBC DateLine followed Don around for a day. He commuted all over Los Angeles hitting at least one sound studio an hour, whisked along in his personal limousine. At the time he actually made more money than any A-list movie star, yet the public didn’t know his face and seldom connected his many vocal deliveries to one man. All this from a guy whose first career was developing film stock at a lab for a few hundred bucks a month.
2 Longfield // Dec 18, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Don LaFontaine, count me in as an admirer but one of his fans.
Myspace has a memorial web page in his memory.
In memory.
Regards,
Longfield
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