Don LaFontaine died on Monday. Last week, the Daily News ran through some of the upcoming movie trailers for fall movies. One of the criteria we noted was the voiceovers - what was said and when.
What we didn't cover was how some of those voiceovers sounded. And now, there's cause to celebrate that particular art: The passing Monday of 68-year-old Don LaFontaine.
Who was Don LaFontaine? Moviegoers may not know his name, but they know the growly timber of his throat. He was one of the most recognizable voiceover talents in movie trailers, and all you have to say is "In a world..." for most people to place him. (Watch a classic LaFontaine trailer for "Terminator 2" below.)
The details of his life we'll leave for the obits; this is a celebration of how we get excited about movies, and how LaFontaine was an integral part of that. He'd been doing trailer work since the 1960s, and was the voice of the 1974 ad campaign for "The Godfather Part II," and to hear the way LaFontaine turned a simple recitation of that classic film's Oscar wins into a kind of sermon echoes both an earlier Academy Awards era - when the Oscars deserved a voice full of gravitas - and a time when movie advertising had a different standard for intensity.
Throughout the 1980s and '90s, LaFontaine voiced trailers for all genres, but his grilled tonsilled, slightly scary, message-from-beyond kind-of delivery worked best for horror, thrillers and sci-fi. He made counting from one to 12 terrifying in the ad for 1980's original "Friday the 13th"; he added chills to the promos for 1984's "The Terminator" and 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"; he upped the scares in his trailer for "Fatal Attraction," free of the movie's eventual Zeitgeist-catching social thinkery.
LaFontaine's "In a world..." opening was parodied by fellow voiceover artist Hal Douglas in the trailer for Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedian" documentary, but LaFontaine had said that to do what he did, "You have to bring a personal take on horror, love, drama, comedy, to make [a trailer] work." He rose to the top of his profession because even in three minutes or less, audiences could grasp not only what a movie's tone was supposed to be but also what LaFontaine brought to those three minutes. And he brought what we all do when we go to the movies: Anticipation - and excitement - for what happens when the house lights dim.
