His Voice Lures You Into the Darkness

You don’t know the face, but you know the voice. As deep as a lion’s roar, as rich with promise as a fresh pint of Haagen-Dazs, it turns a whisper into thunder and makes a timeworn cliche reverberate with the power of prophecy.

It has summoned Americans to thousands of films, promised joy and terror, laughter and tears. At a time of heightened interest in movie previews, when studios are spending more money to promote blockbusters and fans await key trailers with an eagerness once reserved for finished films, the voice of Don La Fontaine--the best known of a dozen or so specialists who dominate movie preview voice-overs--ushers in the summer as surely as the jingle of ice cream trucks and the blare of beach radios.

“The voices of summer,” says David Sameth, head of creative advertising at DreamWorks. “I’ve always wanted to be one of the voices of summer. From the outside it seems like such a wonderful life just to be trotted from studio to studio, reading the word ‘now’ over and over again.”

The reality is different from the fantasy. For one thing, Sameth points out, trailer narrators are always on call: “There’s always the emergency. You know: ‘We need to change the pronunciation of Charlize Theron’s name. It has to be done in an hour.”’

But in the world of top trailer voices, where the ability to convincingly recite phrases such as “in a world beyond the law” and “on the street, where reputations are made” can help you realize a seven-figure annual income, reality isn’t all that bad. From his five-bedroom home in Los Angeles, La Fontaine, who has done more than 3,000 movie previews and ads over four decades and is sometimes referred to in the industry as the “king of the trailers,” describes his work in a voice that is at once recognizably rich and reassuringly casual.

A simple “uh-huh” resonates like the purr of an 800-pound cat, but the commanding cadences of La Fontaine’s professional delivery are rarely in evidence.

“If I talked like that normally, I’d be in a rubber room somewhere,” he quips.

The life that the 60-year-old voice actor describes is anonymous but luxurious: He is chauffeured from one recording session to another in a white limo, makes millions of dollars a year, and is rarely recognized by non-show-biz strangers.

As a former writer and producer who helped develop some of the first modern movie-trailer copy in the 1960s, he entered the industry on the ground floor--and frequently assigned himself work.

“‘In a world ... ‘ and ‘Now he’s going to do this ... ‘ and ‘One-man army’ and ‘From the bedroom to the boardroom to the ballroom ... ‘--you know, that kind of stuff. I helped write that,” he says.

One of the Busiest Trailer Voices in Hollywood

In the mid-1960s, he did his first movie preview, a radio spot scheduled to be performed by someone else. When the announcer didn’t show up, he stepped in, just wanting to hear what the finished product would sound like. But the movie studio accepted the ad as it was and a star was born. Sort of.

“It was for an epic called ‘Gunfighters of Casa Grande,’ which I know just made your little heart go pitter-patter, right there,” La Fontaine says with a chuckle. “This film is so obscure it doesn’t even appear in Leonard Maltin’s [video guide] book.”

Higher-profile projects slowly followed, and today La Fontaine is consistently one of the busiest trailer voices in Hollywood.

He’s one of about a dozen voice actors who frequently narrate trailers and TV ads for movies. One measure of how small the circle is: This year, La Fontaine has done trailers for four high-profile summer movies: “Shrek,” “Doctor Dolittle 2,” “Scary Movie 2” and “Rush Hour 2.”

One of his busiest competitors, Ashton Smith, has recently worked on trailers for “Jurassic Park III,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” “Atlantis,” “The Mummy Returns,” “Kiss of the Dragon” and “The Score.”

Another measure of how small the world of trailers is: La Fontaine offered early encouragement to Smith, 38, when Smith was still working on the technical side of the business, recording voice auditions.

“He suggested to me that I perhaps should step on the other side of the microphone and give that a whirl,” Smith says. “I don’t know if he regrets that advice or not. But ... “ Smith pauses to humorously clear his throat: “Hmmmmmf! Don’s great. He’s a dear friend.”

The pool of frequently used trailer narrators is small, in part, because the stakes are so high.

“We’re talking about $25 million to [advertise] a movie, so they ain’t going to take a chance on something that’s unproven,” says La Fontaine’s agent Steve Tisherman. “Everybody’s job is on the line when a movie comes out.”

In practice, an established trailer narrator like La Fontaine can serve as a form of professional insurance for executives in a high-powered industry: “No one in the studio will ever get told by their boss, ‘Why the hell did you hire that guy?”’ Tisherman says. “He’s almost foolproof that way.” In 40 years in the business, La Fontaine has done trailers or TV ads for films including “Doctor Zhivago,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “MASH,” “The Untouchables,” “Terminator 2,” “Scream,” “Ghostbusters,” “Field of Dreams,” “Batman” and “There’s Something About Mary.” He also does TV and radio commercials for a wide range of products and promos for TV shows, such as those on the networks’ fall schedules.

The trailer “king” can sometimes sound a bit world-weary: “‘In a deadly game of cat and mouse,”’ he says, quoting a cliche of trailer copy. “C’mon, please. I’ve said that a gazillion times.” But when recording a trailer, he tries to “remember that for somebody in the world, it’s the first time they’ve ever heard this.”

He Aims for Optimum Spontaneity, Veracity

Typically, trailer narrators don’t see the copy they’re going to read ahead of time, and they don’t rehearse much in the recording studio. Smith says that “usually by the time I hit the second take, I’m already giving them stuff they can use.” La Fontaine says that many times his first attempt will become the trailer.

And, in most cases, he says, the first or second take is the best: “A little of the veracity, a little bit of the spontaneity, a little bit of the reality you brought to the first take is ... slowly leached away” by each successive reading, he says. “Familiarity breeds contempt for the copy.”

Asked if he has any advice for those who want to break into the business, La Fontaine says, “Wait ‘til I die.”

But then he launches into an impassioned monologue: “Find out what all your voices are. That’s really important, because so many people get pigeonholed. Read. Read, read, read. Read a lot. Give yourself plenty of time. Get yourself a good tape recorder ... and a good microphone, and start reading into it. Read Edgar Allan Poe. Read ‘The Raven.’ Recite the Declaration of Independence and the in scription at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty until you can bring tears to your own eyes.

“Try and scare yourself. Listen to yourself and give yourself time to develop all your voices. And make sure that it’s true. That you have veracity.

“I think it was Spencer Tracy who said, ‘Acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.’ And it really is [true]. You have to believe what you’re reading.”