A sort of actor - heard but not seen......





Don LaFontaine

Voiceover artist known as Thunder Throat whose distinctive tones trailed film and television attractions.



Daily Telegraph

02 Sep 2008



LaFontaine reputedly voiced up to 60 promotions a week, and sometimes 35 in a single day



Don LaFontaine, who died on Monday aged 68, was known as the "King of Voiceovers," recording more than 5,000 film trailers, television commercials, network and video game promotions.



His signature deep voice – sounding as if it had been pickled in whisky and kippered by countless cigarettes – was both ominous and sonorous, becoming identified with the phrase "In a world...", which was used in Hollywood trailers so frequently that it became a cliché. Nicknamed variously "Thunder Throat" and even "the voice of God", LaFontaine was said to have voiced about 60 promotions a week, and sometimes as many as 35 in a single day.



Within the business a LaFontaine voiceover conferred added prestige and excitement to what might otherwise have been a "snoozer" film. Thanks to his golden voice, most studios were willing to pay handsomely for his services, and his income reportedly ran into millions.



Though he was usually driven to voiceover jobs in a personalised limousine with a full-time driver, LaFontaine latterly began recording many promotions from his own palatial estate in the Hollywood Hills to save travelling time.



As well as being the pre-eminent voice in the film trailer industry, LaFontaine also worked as the voice of the main American television and cable networks.



He voiced hundreds of thousands of television and radio spots, including commercials for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Budweiser, McDonalds, Coke, and many other corporate sponsors, and recently parodied himself on a series of national television commercials for an insurance company.



Donald LaFontaine was born on August 26 1940 at Duluth, Minnesota. After graduating from high school, he joined the military and was assigned to the United States Army Band and Chorus as a recording engineer.



After his discharge, he moved to New York where he found work as a sound engineer and editor.



In 1962 he was assigned to a young radio producer called Floyd L Peterson, who was creating radio commercials for the film Dr Strangelove.They worked so well together that, in January 1963, LaFontaine joined Peterson, making it a two-man operation, working out of Peterson's apartment.



Over the next few years, the company rapidly grew to employ 30 people and expanded into its own building. Floyd L Peterson Inc was one of the first companies to work exclusively in film advertising. Hitherto, most film promotion had been done in-house by the studios.



It was during this period that the format for the modern trailer – previewing coming attractions – was developed, and LaFontaine and Peterson were among the first to create the catchphrases that still dominate the genre: "In a world… ", "A one-man army… ", "Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no way out… " and so on.



In 1965 a mix-up in scheduling prevented another announcer from getting to a recording session, and LaFontaine was forced to create a "scratch" narration for radio spots for the film Gunfighters Of Casa Grande in order to present something to the client, Metro Goldwyn Mayer.



To his surprise, they bought his performance, and over the next 16 years he voiced thousands of spots and hundreds of trailers.



LaFontaine spent several years as a head of production for Kaleidoscope Films, one of the main trailer production houses. In 1976 he started his own production company, his first assignment as an independent being The Godfather: Part II.



In 1978 he joined Paramount Pictures as head of the trailer department, and over the next three years became the "voice" of that studio. Leaving in 1981, he moved to Los Angeles, again as an independent producer. One of his first phone calls was from a young agent named Steve Tisherman, who urged LaFontaine to pursue voiceovers more aggressively. Having signed with Tisherman, he never looked back.



LaFontaine worked on nearly 5,000 films, including appearances as the in-show announcer for the Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards. Based on contracts signed, he had the distinction of being perhaps the single busiest actor in the guild's history.



Don LaFontaine was married to the singer and actress Nita Whitaker, who survives him with their two daughters.



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Don LaFontaine, voiceover king, dies

Think of that much-parodied, thunderous "trailer voice" beloved of Hollywood studios and you'll be conjuring up the voice of Don LaFontaine, who died on Monday












Don Lafontaine

The Guardian

Tuesday September 02 2008



Don LaFontaine, the voice of a thousand trailers. Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/AP



You may not know the name, but you'll have heard the voice hundreds, if not thousands of times. Don LaFontaine, king of the movie voiceover, has died at the age of 68.



LaFontaine, who was known for habitually using the words "in a world" to preface his work on trailers, died at Cedar-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles of complications from a collapsed lung on Monday, according to ETonline. However that cause of death was not official at the time of this report.



LaFontaine's powerful tones appeared on more than 5,000 movie trailers and nearly 350,000 commercials. His website lists voiceovers for Terminator II: Judgement Day, Shrek, Minority Report and Dodgeball among his most famous work, and he had also worked as the in-house announcer at the Oscars and the Screen Actors Guild awards. He was credited as being the busiest ever member of the latter, based on the number of contracts signed in his working life.



LaFontaine had recently parodied himself on a series of US TV commercials for Geico. He was referred to as "that announcer guy from the movies" and stood in the background translating in LaFontaine-speak while a customer revealed her wonderful experience at the hands of the insurance company.



LaFontaine, who was born in Duluth, Minnesota, bgan his career as a recording engineer, but got his big break when he filled in for an absentee voice artist on the 1964 western Gunfighters of Casa Grande.



At his peak, he is said to have recorded more than 60 voiceovers in a week, and sometimes as many 35 in a single day. So busy was he that he employed a full-time chauffeur to ferry him from gig to gig. This, he said, saved him time as he didn't have to worry about parking in between jobs.



In latter years, with the advent of ISDN, LaFontaine recorded almost exclusively from a home studio at his estate in the Hollywood hills.



He is survived by his wife, the singer/actor Nita Whitaker and three children, Christine, Skye and Elyse.