Don LaFontaine, the movie trailer voice artist that everyone knows, has passed away at 68.
LaFontaine died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, according to ETOnline, “Entertainment Tonight’s” Web site. He died from complications from pneumothorax, a collapsed lung that causes air to build in the pleural cavity, his agent, Vanessa Gilbert, told “ET.”
LaFontaine, who was born in Duluth, Minnesota, began as a voice actor in the mid-1960s while working as a recording engineer, according to his Web site. His strong, slightly gravelly voice was featured on trailers for thousands of films, including “The Godfather,” “Fatal Attraction” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” For a time in the late ’70s, LaFontaine was the official voice of Paramount Pictures.
A man with a simple, but remarkable, talent.
(via J-Walk)
This is odd. I couldn’t play this in Google Chrome. The video screen was black, and there was nothing to click on. But while composing this reply, I noticed that the video screen on this page (the Speak! page) looked like the one in Firefox. So I can play the video only by first clicking on the Comments button. How weird is that?
I have heard there are some odd Flash glitches with Chrome.
Ok, so I may have shared this before (I can’t remember), but it’s worth another look. It includes the very best movie announcers in the biz including the late and very lamented Don LaFontaine. Enjoy!
And yes, that’s the same Nick Tate that was part of Space 1999 (wow, what I crush I had on him).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRtuxdfQHw&eurl=http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2006_03_19.html
Oh, Lord, that’s funny.
And … so that’s what happened to Nick Tate!