Duluth native and voice-over actor Don LaFontaine. (Image: Duluth Public Library.)
On this day in Duluth in 1940, Don Lafontaine was born to Alfred J. and Ruby V. Lafontaine of 2711 West Second Street. A 1958 graduate of Central High, LaFontaine was active in Choir, graphic arts, the Photography Club, the Public Speaking Club, and the Press Club. In his senior year, he and classmate Arlene Galbur were voted “Wittiest.” He spent time working in radio in New York City before moving to Los Angeles in 1982, where he found work as a voiceover acotr for movie trailers. Over the years, Don worked on about 5,000 movie trailers, including Ghostbusters (1984), The Terminator (1984), Field of Dreams (1989), and Home Alone (1990), and voiced nearly 350,000 television and radio spots and performed in a few movies (usually as an unseen announcer), including 1988’s Scrooged with Bill Murray and more recently as a fictional FOX announcer on the animated Seth McFarlane series Family Guy and American Dad. He died on September 1, 2008, at the age of 68, in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Discover more about LaFontaine from the Zenith City Archive here, see his International Movie Database page here, and visit his official website here.
