Tuesday, September 2, 2008

King of Voiceovers now a voice of the past

Don LaFontaine, the voice of thousands of commercials and nearly five thousand movie trailers died Monday in Los Angeles at age 68.

He made his first scratch track in 1965, when a mix-up in scheduling prevented an announcer from making a session. To his surprise, the client (MGM) bought his take and he became the VO for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Budweiser, McDonald's, Coke, NBC, CBS and many others. What made his voice so appealing? It was deeply resonant and perfectly modulated to lend authority to whatever he said, even if he was talking about frozen vegetables.



No better illustration of the difference between the voice of a king and that of a commoner than this Geico spot in which LaFontaine made a rare appearance.



A few moments of silence for him today.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

He will be missed, but hopefully we can put "In a world..." to bed now.

I'm a Ken Nordine man, myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBvQ5Eb9oZ8&feature=related

Ad Broad, oldest working writer in advertising said...

Oh! That Levi's trademark spot from 1977! Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Auntie. Remember when a 60 second spot didn't seem so loooooooooong? The animation was pretty advanced for that era, though.