Biography for
Don LaFontaine More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

26 August 1940, Duluth, Minnesota, USA

Date of Death

1 September 2008, Los Angeles, California, USA (collapsed lung)

Birth Name

Donald Leroy La Fontaine

Nickname

King of the Movie Trailers
The King
Thunder Throat
The Voice of God

Height

5' 8½" (1.74 m)

Spouse

Joan Studva	(1967 - 1988) (divorced) 1 child
Nita Whitaker	(? - 1 September 2008) (his death) 2 children

Trade Mark

His booming, powerful voice

Use of the scene-setting phrase "In a world where..." in his voiceovers for movie trailers

Trivia

Claimed that he was able do nearly 80 voice-over jobs in a day.

Did voice-over work for over 40 years.

His is the voice you hear on the majority of the trailers/previews at movie theaters nationwide. His body of work included voice over narrations for at least 5,000 film trailers and possibly as many as half a million TV and radio spots.

Recorded as many as 25 voice-over sessions in a single day and over 100 separate spots in a day.

Was imitated by comedian Pablo Francisco.

In an interview he stated that his favorite voice-over for a film trailer was the one he recorded for David Lynch's "The Elephant Man" (1980).

Said that Peter Thomas influenced his career.

His agent is Vanessa Gilbert.

Father, with Nita Whitaker, of Christine, Skye and Elyse.

In interviews he stated that his voice spontaneously cracked in mid-sentence at the age of 13. He became very self-conscious about his "new" voice until his classmates at school would pay him to speak as their fathers to make "sick calls" on their behalf so they could take a day off from school.

His first professional voice work came while working on the 1964 movie "Gunfighters of Casa Grande". He filled in for a voice actor in a radio promo. This led to more voice work; by the 1970s, he was one of Hollywood's busiest voice talents.

After high school, he enlisted in the Army, and learned about recording engineering. The first promo he engineered was for "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964).

Personal Quotes

It's never too early....for a salad!

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