Don LaFontaine
September 2nd, 2008 Posted in Actor, General InfoThe staff at Voicebank sends its deepest condolences to Nita, their children and the rest of the LaFontaine family. He will be missed, especially by those of us who knew him.
More to be posted later.
Stewart Wilson-Turner
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One Response to “Don LaFontaine”
By Kurt Kelly on Sep 3, 2008
Don LaFontaine
Feel free to post your comments about Don LaFontaine http://blog.myspace.com/kurtkelly & http://blog.myspace.com/livevideoincnews also see http://www.myspace.com/officialdonlafontaine http://www.donlafontaine.com
Biography for Don LaFontaine
Date of Birth August 26, 1940, Duluth, Minnesota, USA
Date of Death September 1, 2008, Los Angeles, California, USA (collapsed lung)
Nickname
King of the Movie Trailers VOg (Voice of god)
The King
AFTRA President Roberta Reardon Remembers Don LaFontaine
“Don LaFontaine, ‘King of Voiceovers,’ passed away on September 1 at the age of 68. A longtime AFTRA member, he was a brilliant artist and the voice of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN, TNT, TBS, and the Cartoon Network. For many years, Don was the in-show announcer for the Academy Awards, and his unmistakable voice has been heard in thousands of radio spots, TV commercials, and Hollywood movie trailers. He will be fondly remembered by all of us who understand and appreciate that performers behind-the-camera give life and color to the stories onscreen. He was both busy and prolific during his 25-year career, but he always had time and a kind word for his fellow union members, and was always a staunch supporter of his union. He will never be forgotten. Our thoughts and prayers are with Don’s family and friends.”
Los Angeles, Sept. 2, 2008 — Screen Actors Guild today released the following statement from President Alan Rosenberg on the passing of Don LaFontaine:
“Don was a phenomenal actor and a prodigious and amazing voice talent who could, like the best voice artists, make any material uniquely his own. His contributions on and off “mic” enriched the profession and Screen Actors Guild. He will be greatly missed by all of us. Our thoughts go out to his loved ones at this difficult time.”
Alan Rosenberg
President, Screen Actors Guild
LaFontaine was a 26-year member of Screen Actors Guild and is perhaps best known for the quality and sheer volume of his voice work. Throughout his career, LaFontaine recorded hundreds of thousands of voiceovers and became known as the “movie” voice through his work on feature film trailers.
to”kurtkelly@gmail.com”
dateMon, Sep 1, 2008 at 9:08 PM
subjectOn voiceover universe presents…: This email comes with great sadness..
hide details 9:08 PM (16 hours ago) Reply
A message to all members of voiceover universe presents…
The email below was sent was to Voiceover Universe from Paul Pape, Don’s best friend and brother.
Rick
It is very hard to write these words. My friend, Don LaFontaine, the
husband of a most beautiful wife, Nita and the father of three
beautiful girls, passed away today at the age of 68. In a quite sudden
reversal of the progress he had been making the last few days, Don
took ill again and passed away at around 1:50PM this afternoon (9/1/08).
Out of respect for Don’s family, more details will be given at a later
time. Nita is a wonderful mother and she is being very strong for her
children at this moment. You would be proud of her. We need to give
her and her family some time to absorb their loss. As for me, thank
you very much. There have been so many spiritual warriors who have
given everything they have for my best friend. I will miss him very
much.
More details to follow…
Paul Pape
Appreciation
In a World of Don LaFontaine, A Reel-Life Figure of Speech
Audio
Voice of Thousands of Movie Trailers; LaFontaine Dies
Don LaFontaine, known for his dramatic voice in movie trailers, has died.
By Hank Stuever
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 3, 2008; Page C01
In a world of people who all coyly say “In a world . . .” and everyone gets the joke . . .
This Story
Appreciation: In a World of Don LaFontaine, A Reel-Life Figure of Speech
Obituaries: In a World Without Don LaFontaine, Film Won’t Be as Much Fun
VIDEO: Post Mortem
Voice of Thousands of Movie Trailers; LaFontaine Dies
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In a world where the trailers are almost always better than the movies . . .
In a world where everything sounds pompous, intense, serious, heart-stopping, but narrated. . .
In a world of people who all have some sort of private omniscient voice-over running things inside their heads, sometimes God, sometimes Mom, and sometimes Don LaFontaine . . .
In a world where marketing is far more important than content . . . came one man . . . with a Voice.
In a world that had outgrown the voices of dictators and newsreels and Walter Cronkite . . .
In a world Don LaFontaine never made, but understood . . .
In a world where the most compelling parts of politics and sports and wars aren’t the speeches anymore but the movies, the clip montage . . .
In a world that believed deeply in the potency of the words Coming Soon. . .
In a world that moved so fast it got ahead of the Voice, and so a lot of movie trailers don’t have voice-overs anymore, not his Voice (or worse, they mock the idea of the Voice by mimicking the Voice.) . . .
In a world where editing is all . . . In a world of jolts (Monster in the bathroom mirror! Horrible screech! Quick cut!) . . .
In a world where the font choice is more important than the Voice, because every moviegoer now has the Voice implanted in his or her head, like standard software, so when we read the type, we read it to ourselves in Don LaFontaine’s Voice . . .
In a world where eyewitnesses describe real things, real events as being “like, in a movie” . . .
In a world where Don LaFontaine could become famous for voicing 5,000 movie trailers and countless other things we heard on television, where he could show up at the Oscars and be known, where he could pop up in car insurance commercials . . . in a world where people looked nothing like they sounded, especially Don LaFontaine . . .
In a world suddenly without Don LaFontaine, who died Monday at 68 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, of lung failure, brought on by undetermined causes . . . (Cedars-Sinai being a world where the famous newly dead go on to other coming attractions).
In a world, in a world.
In a world where we’ll be talking like him forever, to one another, for dramatic effect . . .