Paul Harvey Aurandt
CHICAGO (AP) — Paul Harvey, the news commentator and talk-radio pioneer whose staccato style made him one of the nation’s most familiar voices, died Saturday in Arizona, according to ABC Radio Networks. He was 90.
Harvey died surrounded by family at a hospital in Phoenix, where he had a winter home, said Louis Adams, a spokesman for ABC Radio Networks, where Harvey worked for more than 50 years. No cause of death was immediately available.
Mr. McButterpants
I was out and about today and snapped this picture on my iPhone at a local restaurant. Does this man really need a salad this big?
Christmas tree ’08
Donald LaFontaine
Don LaFontaine, the voiceover king whose “In a world …” phrase on movie trailers was much copied — and much parodied — has died, according to media reports. He was 68.
LaFontaine died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, according to ETOnline, “Entertainment Tonight’s” Web site. He died from complications from pneumothorax, a collapsed lung that causes air to build in the pleural cavity, his agent, Vanessa Gilbert, told “ET.”
LaFontaine, who was born in Duluth, Minnesota, began as a voice actor in the mid-1960s while working as a recording engineer, according to his Web site. His strong, slightly gravelly voice was featured on trailers for thousands of films, including “The Godfather,” “Fatal Attraction” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” For a time in the late ’70s, LaFontaine was the official voice of Paramount Pictures.
His favorite work was one he did for the 1980 film “The Elephant Man,” he said in interviews, but whether the film was Oscar-caliber or a bomb waiting to blow, he handled every assignment equally. Watch LaFontaine at work »
No final frontier for Scotty
A rocket carrying the ashes of actor James Doohan, who played the part of Scotty on Star Trek, was lost during launch yesterday. The remains of 207 other people, including Mercury 7 astronaut Gordon Cooper, and three satellites were also destroyed.