Born: 26 August, 1940 in Duluth, Minnesota.
Died: 1 September, 2008, in Los Angeles, aged 68.
DON LaFontaine brought his sonorous, ominous, melodramatic baritone to so many thousands of film trailers, adve
rts and television promotions that he became known in the industry as "the voice of God" or just "the VOG".
In a 33-year career, LaFontaine did voice-overs for more than 5,000 film trailers, 350,000 commercials and thousands of television promos, including dozens of "Next week on ER" spots.
"Don was an absolute treasure to the voice-over industry," said Joan Baker, the author of Secrets of Voice-Over Success. "He had a unique sound, a voice placed deep in his body that cut through the soundbites and the music."
Ms Baker said LaFontaine "understood the dynamics of each word and gave each word a musical note that was intuitive, which is why he could perform in so many genres – action, drama, comedy, romance, horror films, science fiction."
LaFontaine wrote most of his voice-overs and, sometimes with collaborators, came up with familiar phrases such as "a one-man army", "one man, one destiny", "from the bedroom to the boardroom" and "nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no way out".
But he is best known for "In a world where ... ," which has become overused and the subject of parody. Ms Baker could not say for what production that phrase was first used. But in an interview last year, LaFontaine explained its intent: "We have to very rapidly establish the world we are transporting them to," he said of his viewers. "That's very easily done by saying: 'In a world where ... violence rules,' 'In a world where ... men are slaves and women are the conquerors.' You very rapidly set the scene."
Born in Duluth in 1940, LaFontaine joined the army soon after graduating from high school and was assigned to an army band as a recording engineer. After his discharge, he found a job with National Recording Studios in New York. There he met Floyd Peterson, a producer of radio adverts, and they formed a company to produce film trailers.
In 1965, a scheduling mix-up prevented an announcer from making a session; LaFontaine took over the microphone to read radio spots for Gunfighters of Casa Grande. To his surprise, MGM liked his first personal performance. In 1976, LaFontaine started his own production company. His first assignment was for The Godfather, Part II. Two years later, he became head of the trailer department at Paramount Pictures.
He later returned to independent production. Over the years, he did promos for films including Terminator, Fatal Attraction, Cheaper by the Dozen, Batman Returns and The Elephant Man. He did advertisements for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Budweiser, McDonald's and Coca-Cola, among other companies.
Working from a home studio that his wife dubbed "the hole", LaFontaine remained active until recently, averaging at least seven voice-overs a day. Last year, he did a promotion for the The Simpsons Movie, in which his comments were immediately echoed by characters from the film. At one point he says, "Hey, you're just repeating everything I'm saying!" and Homer responds: "I know. It's weird."
LaFontaine is survived by his wife, the singer-actress Nita Whitaker, and three daughters, Christine, Skye and Elyse.
The full article contains 559 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
