Caffeinated Clint
Donald LaFontaine has died.
Who?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Nobody else reading the page is familiar with the name either.
You’d all be familiar with his voice though – I guarantee it.
Donald LaFontaine was “The Voice” you hear in all the trailers – the guy you take off when you turn on the “In a world…” voice ( He also parodied this cliché several times, more recently in a commercial for GEICO insurance).
He was the go-to man to voice all the major movie’s trailers. And he’d done thousands (over 5000 to be exact) over the years. Some of the best too – “Terminator 2”, “Independence Day” and “The Simpson’s Movie” are but a few of his vocal highlights. His personal favourite, according to interviews, is the trailer he did for David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man” – though he’s also said to be fond of working on action movie trailers.
I shudder to think who the studios are going to go to now – he was the guy. We all know how important a trailer is in selling a film – LaFontaine was the man behind the marketing plan… he sells the flick. He draws you in. He grabs a comittment from you that you’ll see the movie. Most of all, his voice indicates that you’re about to watch a ‘genuine’ trailer from a ‘genuine’ movie company.
He’ll be sadly missed.
