Letterman wants to call sunset for late-night gig
LOS ANGELES - David Letterman wants to stick with CBS' "Late Show" through his contract — and maybe longer — as rival Jay Leno prepares to surrender the "Tonight" reins next year.
"The way I feel now, I would like to go beyond 2010, not much beyond, but you know, enough to go beyond. You always like to be able to excuse yourself on your own terms," Letterman said in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine.
"If the network is happy with that, great. If they wanna make a change in 2010, you know, I'm fine with that, too," Letterman said.
Letterman, along with Chris Rock and Tina Fey, is featured on the comedy-focused cover of the Rolling Stone issue out Friday.
Letterman, 61, questioned why NBC is proceeding with its plan to remove Leno, who consistently tops the late-night ratings. Conan O'Brien will take over "Tonight" in June 2009, with Jimmy Fallon moving into O'Brien's "Late Night" chair.
"Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I don't know why, after the job Jay has done for them, why they would relinquish that," Letterman said, adding, "I have to believe he was not happy about it."
Letterman speculated whether "that's actually what's going to happen," while acknowledging NBC might be too far down the road to retreat.
NBC is angling to keep Leno, 58, with NBC Universal but the late-night king has indicated he's ready to jump ship. Eager NBC competitors, including other networks and syndicators, are prepared to help him make the leap.
Letterman, who called O'Brien "a very funny guy," was asked about facing him as the new "Tonight" host. A cautious Letterman said he couldn't predict the outcome.
"It will be weird to see Conan at 11:30, don't you think? Which is not to say he can't succeed, but, no, I don't know what the competition will be like. I hope we're able to do OK."
In the Rolling Stone article, Letterman discusses guests including Madonna, Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern, with the most moving remarks about musician Warren Zevon, who appeared on "Late Show" shortly before his 2003 death from cancer.
Letterman recalled his "heartbreaking" meeting with Zevon in a dressing room after the show.
"Here's a guy who had months to live and we're making small talk. And as we're talking, he's taking his guitar strap and hooking it, wrapping it around, then he puts the guitar into the case and he flips the snaps on the case and says, `Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it.' And I just started sobbing.
"He was giving me the guitar that he always used on the show. I felt like, `I can't be in this movie, I didn't get my lines.' That was very tough," Letterman said.
'Dean of Canadian film composers' dies at 92
A New Brunswick-born composer who wrote music for hundreds of films while working for the National Film Board in Ottawa died over the weekend at age 92.
Eldon Rathburn became unofficially known as the "dean of Canadian film composers" during his three decades at the NFB and was himself the subject of a 1995 NFB documentary called Eldon Rathburn: They Shoot… He Scores.
Rathburn was born in Queenstown, N.B., and later moved to Saint John, where he played in Don Messer's band before the legendary fiddler became a television folk icon.
Rathburn started working for the National Film Board in 1947 and went on to score 250 short and feature films. He composed the soundtrack for the 1977 film adaptation of W.O. Mitchell's novel Who Has Seen the Wind.
He continued to compose after retiring 30 years later.
Rathburn became a member of the Order of Canada in 1998.
New CD Releases, September 2: New Kids on the Block, Brian Wilson, Young Jeezy
New Kids on the Block "The Block"
The legendary boy band, whose members are now in their 30s, returns with its first batch of new material in 14 years. The first single from "The Block" is the smash hit "Summertime."
The New Kids will support "The Block" with a major North American reunion tour, which kicks off with a two-night stand, Sept. 18-19, in Toronto. Prior to appearing earlier this year on TV, the band hadn't performed together publicly in 15 years.
As teenagers, the New Kids--Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight, Jonathan Knight and Danny Wood--sold more than 70 million records and racked up back-to-back No. 1 albums with 1988's "Hangin' Tough" and 1990's "Step by Step." Following a slew of R&B/pop crossover hits and several world tours, the group quietly disbanded in 1994.
* * *
Brian Wilson "That Lucky Old Sun"
The Beach Boys mastermind, the man responsible for some of the most beloved rock songs of all time, is back with a new solo album. "That Lucky Old Sun," the singer/songwriter's first studio effort since his 2004 re-recording of the Beach Boys' "Smile," marks Wilson's return to Capitol/EMI, the label that launched the Beach Boys' career with the 1962 hit "Surfin' Safari/409."
"I'm thrilled to be back home with Capitol, and I'm looking forward to sharing 'That Lucky Old Sun' with everyone," Wilson said in a press release. "This music is really special to me."
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer will back "That Lucky Old Sun" on the road. His trek begins with a Sept. 5 date in Oakland, CA.
* * *
Young Jeezy "The Recession"
The hip-hop star is set to drop his third major-label studio release, which follows 2006's platinum-plus-selling "The Inspiration." Two singles from the album are making their rounds at radio: "Put On," featuring production work from Kanye West, and "Crazy World."
The rapper has already made news this year, but not for musical reasons. Back in June, Young Jeezy was arrested in Atlanta and charged with speeding, no proof of insurance, open container, reckless driving and driving while impaired by alcohol/drugs, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
* * *
Terrence Howard "Shine Through It"
The acclaimed actor takes a break from the big screen and focuses his attention on his musical career. "Shine Through It," which reportedly can be categorized as a neo-soul offering, features 11 original tracks, all written, produced and arranged by Howard.
* * *
Rodney Crowell "Sex and Gasoline"
The acclaimed singer/songwriter, who became a country superstar with 1988's "Diamonds and Dirt," returns with a new studio offering, produced by Joe Henry. Crowell's studio band on "Sex and Gasoline" is loaded with studs, including guitarists Doyle Bramhall II and Greg Leisz.
* * *
More new releases:
Joshua Bell, "Vivaldi: The Four Seasons" (Sony)
Elvin Bishop, "The Blues Rolls On" (Delta Groove)
Lila Downs, "Shake Away" (Manhattan)
Michael Feinstein, "The Sinatra Project" (Concord)
Deitrick Haddon, "Revealed" (Verity)
Hollywood Undead, "Swan Songs" (A&M)
Jefferson Airplane, "At the Family Dog Ballroom" (Snapper)
Jefferson Starship, "Jefferson's Tree of Liberty" (The Lab)
Sonya Kitchell, "This Storm" (Decca)
Southside Johnny with La Bamba's Big Band, "Grapefruit Moon: The Songs Of Tom Waits" (Redeye)
The Smithereens, "B-Sides the Beatles" (Koch)
Chris Tomlin, "Hello Love" (Sixstepsrecords)
Underoath, "Lost in the Sound of Separation" (Tooth and Nail)
Soundtracks and scores:
"Bones" (Nettwerk)
'Flight of the Conchords' may ground itself after season two
Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, the New Zealand duo whose HBO comedy became a cult favorite last year, say the show's second season will likely be its last. The duo are still working on songs for season two and say they've had some struggles in putting the music and the narratives that build from them together.
"We've got a lot of half-songs. We've got an album's worth of beginnings of songs," Clement tells the British music magazine Q. McKenzie adds that the second season "seems to me like it would be a good end to the show."
Flight of the Conchords was not a huge hit for HBO last summer -- it hovered around the million-viewer mark for most of its run. It did, however, attract a devoted cult of fans and a good chunk of critical praise. It's also up for four Emmys, one each for writing and directing for a comedy series and two in the original music category for the songs "The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)" and "Inner City Pressure."
The show also helped raise Clement and McKenzie's profile as they toured and propelled their first full-length album to a top-five debut on the Billboard charts earlier this year.
There's no word yet on when the show's second season will premiere.
Bruce Springsteen's Song in Darren Aronofsky's Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky has confirmed via his blog that Bruce Springsteen has written a song specifically for his upcoming film The Wrestler.
I first saw this news in Anne Thompson's update today, where she mentions that the film is debuting concurrently in both Venice and Toronto because they're waiting for Springsteen to finish up the song.
Although it's odd to say this, I think this news definitely kicks The Wrestler up another notch. Awards Daily is even claiming that this "will be one of the surefire Best Song nominees" in next year's Oscar.
Aronofsky says on his blog that the song is titled "The Wrestler" and is a wonderful acoustic piece. It makes him "choke up every time" because "he really captured the spirit of the film and Mickey's character."
I've been excited to see The Wrestler already, but now I can safely say I'm even more excited because of Bruce Springsteen's song!
Vampire novels adapted for HBO's 'True Blood'
CALABASAS, Calif. - As fictional lovers go, bubbly blond Sookie Stackhouse and tall, pale Bill Compton are as massively mismatched as they come. After all, Sookie (Anna Paquin) is exuberantly human and Bill (Stephen Moyer) is, well, totally undead in HBO's flamboyant new vampire saga, "True Blood."
"Bill is really genteel but that doesn't stop him from being blood-hungry," Moyer says of his menacing 173-year-old character in "True Blood," adapted for television by Alan Ball ("Six Feet Under") from the popular series of Southern vampire novels by Charlaine Harris.
"The tension between Bill and Sookie is quite palpable," Moyer says in between scenes in which the courtly vampire, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, escorts his lady friend Sookie, a telepathic roadhouse waitress, home on a dark and eerie night.
That sexually suggestive tension is key to "True Blood," premiering 9 p.m. EDT Sunday. Set in a small Louisiana town (actually the Santa Monica Mountains northwest of Los Angeles), the edgy series chronicles a time when synthetic blood supplies enable Bill and other vampires to live openly among humans, without necessarily feeding on them.
Like Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) in the classic vampire soap opera "Dark Shadows" (1966-1971), Bill has returned to his ancestral home, where he woos Sookie and tries to fit into human society. Like Frid's Barnabas, Moyer's Bill is an unresolved paradox — part seductive protagonist, part menacing monster.
"He's not typically vampiric," says Moyer, who played a vampire in the Brit miniseries "Ultraviolet." No long black cape and ghoulish grin for Bill, who dresses yuppie-casual. "But we do get to see him sort of sex-starved at one point," Moyer says. "And there are moments when he is quite confrontational with other vampires, when other people are predatory with Sookie."
"True Blood" also pushes the content boundaries of premium cable, with plenty of extravagantly gushing arteries and over-the-top bedroom antics to rival Showtime's "Californication" — all mixed with a good dose of Southern gothic goofiness.
Ball was looking to produce "lighter" fare after the life-and-death introspection of critically acclaimed "Six Feet Under."
"Charlaine has just created this amazing world that's funny and vibrant and scary and also a sort of social treatise, you know what I mean?" Ball says.
"The books are violent and that's part of the appeal," he says. "It's visceral and predatory and unapologetically sexual. And it's unapologetically romantic in the sense of an old-fashioned romance novel."
The centuries-old vampire metaphor is "also about the terrors of intimacy, and about any kind of misunderstood, hated, feared minority — homosexuals, other cultures," Ball says. "When I first pitched 'True Blood' to HBO, I called it 'popcorn TV for smart people.' "
Still, vampire series are not always surefire. Last season, CBS spiked "Moonlight," despite its loyal following for undead hero Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin).
Like "Moonlight," "True Blood" plays on the thrill of a vampire-human hookup. But the mechanics of Bill and Sookie's romance proved tricky for Moyer and Paquin during filming.
"You do get fangs caught in places," Paquin says, remembering her first lip lock with Bill's lethal teeth, which pop down when he's lost in bloodlust. "Perhaps it's like people with braces trying to make it work. Puncture wounds aside, one gets used to it," she teases.
Although Ball says his series "is true to the spirit of the novels," there are differences. "True Blood" takes the powerful and ruthless nature of vampire clans a little further than the novels do, he says. Sookie narrates the Harris books but not "True Blood." Instead, Ball has given Sookie a female best friend and confidante named Tara (Rutina Wesley).
The events in the 12 episodes play out over a fast and furious two-week period, like they do in Harris' first vampire novel, "Dead Until Dark." As in the novels, Sookie's mysterious boss Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) is very much in evidence, keeping close to Sookie.
But Ball has greatly expanded the characters of the roadhouse's gay short-order cook, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), and Sookie's bumbling and sexually indefatigable brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten).
"They've given me some really outrageous story lines," Kwanten says. "Jason just jumps into things before he thinks about them. He thinks he's Louisiana's answer to Casanova. Any reservations or inhibitions I had before starting the show have well and truly gone now in a good way," he says of his sex scenes. Then he laughs. "One of the grips jokes that he sees me naked more than he does his girlfriend."
What the `frak'? Faux curse seeping into language
NEW YORK - Lee Goldberg thinks Glen A. Larson is a genius, and not because the prolific television writer and producer gave us "Knight Rider" and "B.J. and the Bear."
It was Larson who first used the faux curse word "frak" in the original "Battlestar Galactica." The word was mostly overlooked back in the '70s series but is working its way into popular vocabulary as SciFi's modern update winds down production.
"All joking aside, say what you will about what you might call the lowbrow nature of many of his shows, he did something truly amazing and subversive, up there with what Steven Bochco gets credit for, with 'frak,'" Goldberg said.
There's no question what the word stands for and it's used gleefully, as many as 20 times in some episodes.
"And he was saying it 30 years ago in the original goofy, god-awful 'Battlestar Galactica,'" said Goldberg, a television writer and novelist whose credits include "Monk" and "Diagnosis Murder."
The word is showing up everywhere — on T-shirts, in sit-coms, best-selling novels and regular conversation.
"I have to start by saying that I'm drinking coffee out of a mug that says 'frak off' on the side of it, so much has it seeped into my life," "Galactica" star Jamie Bamber said.
The word is insinuating its way into popular vocabulary for a simple reason.
You can't get in trouble. It's a made-up word.
"It may have been the great George Carlin who talked about these things so cleverly," Larson said. "He'd say, 'Mother would say shoot, but she meant ... when she reached in and burned her fingers on the crocker.' And the child says, 'I know what you meant mom.'"
The word has slipped the bonds that tethered other pretenders like Mork's "shazbot" in "Mork & Mindy" or Col. Sherman T. Potter's "horse hockey" in "M.A.S.H." Its usage has moved from the small but fervent group of "Galactica" fans into everyday language. It's shown up in very mainstream shows like "The Office," "Gossip Girl" and "Scrubs." One YouTube posting has 2 minutes of sound bites that cover the gamut.
"I'm in my own little cocoon of science fictiondom, but it is certainly used around here and amongst the people I know," said Irene Gallo, art director at the sci-fi imprint Tor Books where employees held a "frak party" to watch the season premiere. "It's sort of a way to be able to use a four-letter word without really getting into any kind of HR trouble or with people you're really not quite comfortable being yourself with."
The word has even appeared in the funny pages where Dilbert muttered a disconsolate "frack" — the original spelling before producers of the current show changed it to a four-letter word — after a particularly dumb order from his evil twit of a boss.
"Dilbert" creator Scott Adams calls the word "pure genius."
"At first I thought 'frak' was too contrived and it bothered me to hear it," Adams said. "Over time it merged in my mind with its coarser cousin and totally worked. The creators ingeniously found a way to make viewers curse in their own heads — you tend to translate the word — and yet the show is not profane."
Best-selling novelist Robert Crais slips the word into the prologue of his latest Elvis Cole mystery, "Chasing Darkness." He did it because "Galactica" is his favorite show, like calling out in the wilderness to his fellow fans. But he sees the word popping up everywhere, even among those who have never watched the show.
"It's viral, it spreads like a virus," Crais said. "That first wave of people who use it are all fans. They use it because they're tickled by it and like me they're paying an homage to the show. When they're using it, they're probably doing it with a sly wink. But as it gets heard and people use it, it spreads."
The re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" tells the story of the human survivors of a war with a robotic race known as the Cylons. Fewer than 40,000 humans remain in a ragtag fleet being pursued across space by the Cylons, who wiped out the 12 colonies in a surprise nuclear holocaust.
Their destination is the mythical planet Earth, a legend passed down in religious texts. Shooting wrapped in July and the final 10 episodes will appear beginning in January.
Larson, one of television's most prolific and successful writers, doesn't much care for the new series. He used "frack" and its cousin "feldergarb" as alternates for curse words because the original "Battlestar" was family friendly and appeared on Sunday nights. The words fit in with his philosophy that while the show was about humans, it shouldn't have an Earthly feel.
In what he said was his first interview about the series, Larson says there were no red fire extinguishers on his Battlestar Galactica and characters wore original costumes, not suits and ties.
"Our point was to whenever possible make it a departure like you're visiting somewhere else," Larson said. "And we did coin certain phrases for use in expletive situations, but we tried to carry that over into a lot of other stuff, even push brooms and the coin of the realm."
When new series producer Ron Moore first introduced "frak" in early scripts, Bamber said the actors were dubious. But as writers expanded its use, they caught on to the possibilities.
"I mean why are we not offended by `frak' because it means exactly the same thing as the other thing?" said Bamber, who plays fighter pilot-turned-president Lee "Apollo" Adama. "So it raises questions about language and why certain words are offensive. Is it their meaning? ... Clearly it's not their meaning. Clearly it's literally their sound."
Co-executive producer and writer Michael Angeli, an Emmy nominee for the episode "Six of One," said using the word in scripts is satisfying for anyone who's been censored over the years.
"It's a great way to do something naughty and get away with it," Angeli said. "One of the things that television shows do constantly is they battle with Standards and Practices over what can be seen and what can't be seen, what can be said and what can't be said.
"A lot of our characters are soldiers. That whole sort of view and that subculture, that's how they speak. They're rough and tumble, and they're bawdy and they swear."
He said producers have gotten no complaints from SciFi owner NBC Universal or the Federal Communications Commission.
Goldberg believes Larson should get more credit for "frak" and has posted an appreciation on his Web site. He even sought out Larson to let him know how he feels: "I told him, 'Frak is fraking brilliant, Glen.'"
Rock Hall will honor music innovator Les Paul
CLEVELAND - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will pay tribute to the "father of the electric guitar" this fall.
Les Paul will be honored at the annual American Music Masters series, a weeklong event that begins Nov. 10, Rock Hall officials said Tuesday. A tribute concert — artists will be named later — is scheduled Nov. 15 at Cleveland's State Theater.
Paul, 93, is hoping to attend, said Rock Hall President and CEO Terry Stewart.
"You have an inductee who in some ways maybe has had one of the biggest influences of all our inductees with the creation of his solid-body guitar, overdubbing ... not to mention his musical styling and his ability to play," Stewart said. "He's become an idol and an icon to people in the rock world, as well as people in jazz and popular music."
Paul began playing guitar as a child and by 13 was performing semiprofessionally as a country-music guitarist. He later made his mark as a jazz-pop musician, recording hits like "How High the Moon" with his wife, singer Colleen Summers, better known as Mary Ford. They divorced in 1964.
He built a solid-body electric guitar in 1941 — an invention born from his frustration that audiences were unable to hear him play.
In 1952, Gibson introduced the Les Paul model, which became the instrument of choice for musicians such as Duane Allman, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.
"It's not just his innovation and his musical playing, but sort of the residual effects of that guitar," Stewart said. "It's become the beginning point for so many people in music, particularly rock music."
Paul still performs weekly at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City. He was inducted into the early influence category of the Rock Hall in 1988.
Paul is only the second living recipient of the annual American Music Masters award, which began in 1996 to pay tribute to artists who helped change American culture. Jerry Lee Lewis was the first living recipient in 2007. Past recipients include Woody Guthrie, Muddy Waters and Sam Cooke.
Toronto film festival set to kick off Oscar season
TORONTO (Reuters) - The Toronto film festival will provide the unofficial kick start to Oscar season this week, with distributors keen to give an early look at possible awards contenders and perhaps uncover this year's sleeper hit.
The 33rd version of the festival opens on Thursday with the gala presentation of "Passchendaele," Canadian director Paul Gross's take on the catastrophic World War I battle.
While many of the 249 features to be screened were also shown earlier this year at festivals such as Cannes and Venice, Toronto is seen as the key launching point for North American premieres and for films vying for Oscars.
"This is the one film festival that's a grab-bag of movies that the studios consider award-season contenders," said film critic Pete Hammond.
"The mind-set of the industry is that if it plays well in Toronto, that can launch it pretty favorably into the awards season."
This year, the festival will screen 312 features and short films from 64 countries over 10 days, a slightly smaller schedule than last year, but with a more international flavor, particularly from South America.
Often called the "people's festival" because of the relative ease for the public to get tickets, Toronto has no formal competition but awards the "People's Choice" prize, voted on by the film-going public.
Among the 116 world premieres will be Spike Lee's "Miracle at St. Anna" about a group of African-American U.S. soldiers in Italy in World War II, and "The Lucky Ones," about returning Iraq War veterans on a road trip home starring Tim Robbins.
But distributors will also be looking to sign deals with unknown movies that have the potential to be sleeper hits, such as last year's "Juno," a TIFF film that came out of nowhere to win an Oscar for best original screenplay and gain three other nominations.
FEWER OSCAR CONTENDERS?
While it's too early to get a strong sense of the overall quality of this year's slate, Hammond said there are some notable potential Oscar contenders due for late-season release that won't be at this year's festival.
"Overall, I don't think Toronto, in terms of this year's awards season, is going to be as big a player when we look at what finally winds up with nominations," he said.
"I think this is the early part of the (Oscar) season, and I think it's a little weaker than normal and a little smaller than normal."
Other notable premieres include the documentary "Religulous," a tongue-in-cheek look at organized religion by humorist Ball Maher and "Seinfeld" producer Larry Charles, and "The Secret Life of Bees," which stars Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah in an adaptation of the Sue Monk Kidd best seller.
Eagerly-anticipated films that have already been screened at other festivals include Steven Soderbergh's "Che," a 4-1/2 hour biopic on revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and the Coen brothers' "Burn after Reading," a spy satire starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
Pitt headlines the list of hundreds of film stars and celebrities descending on Canada's largest city before the festival wraps up on September 13.
Singer-actor Jerry Reed dies at the age of 71
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol' boy actor in car chase movies like "Smokey and the Bandit," has died of complications from emphysema at 71.
His longtime booking agent, Carrie Moore-Reed, no relation to the star, said Reed died early Monday.
"He's one of the greatest entertainers in the world. That's the way I feel about him," Moore-Reed said.
Reed was a gifted guitarist who later became a songwriter, singer and actor.
As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, he had a string of hits that included "Amos Moses," "When You're Hot, You're Hot," "East Bound and Down" and "The Bird."
In the mid-1970s, he began acting in movies such as "Smokey and the Bandit" with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol' boy. But he was an ornery heavy in "Gator," directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998's "The Waterboy," starring Adam Sandler.
Reynolds gave him a shiny black 1980 Trans Am like the one they used in "Smokey and the Bandit."
Reed and Kris Kristofferson paved the way for Nashville music personalities to make inroads into films. Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers (TV movies) followed their lead.
"I went around the corner to motion pictures," he said in a 1992 AP interview.
Reed had quadruple bypass surgery in June 1999.
Born in Atlanta, Reed learned to play guitar at age 8 when his mother bought him a $2 guitar and showed him how to play a G-chord.
He dropped out of high school to tour with Ernest Tubb and Faron Young.
At 17, he signed his first recording contract, with Capitol Records.
He moved to Nashville in the mid-1960s where he caught the eye of Chet Atkins.
He first established himself as a songwriter. Elvis Presley recorded two of his songs, "U.S. Male" and "Guitar Man" (both in 1968). He also wrote the hit "A Thing Called Love," which was recorded in 1972 by Johnny Cash. He also wrote songs for Brenda Lee, Tom Jones, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole and the Oak Ridge Boys.
Reed was voted instrumentalist of the year in 1970 by the Country Music Association.
He won a Grammy Award for "When You're Hot, You're Hot" in 1971. A year earlier, he shared a Grammy with Chet Atkins for their collaboration, "Me and Jerry." In 1992, Atkins and Reed won a Grammy for "Sneakin' Around."
Reed continued performing on the road into the late 1990s, doing about 80 shows a year.
"I'm proud of the songs, I'm proud of things that I did with Chet (Atkins), I'm proud that I played guitar and was accepted by musicians and guitar players," he told the AP in 1992.
In a 1998 interview with The Tennessean, he admitted that his acting ability was questionable.
"I used to watch people like Richard Burton and Mel Gibson and think, `I could never do that.'
"When people ask me what my motivation is, I have a simple answer: Money."
Don LaFontaine, voice of movie trailers, dies
LOS ANGELES - Don LaFontaine, the man who popularized the now loved-catch phrase, "in a world where..." and lent his voice to thousands of movie trailers, has died. He was 68.
LaFontaine died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center from complications in the treatment of an ongoing illness, said Vanessa Gilbert, his agent.
LaFontaine made more than 5,000 trailers in his 33-year career while working for the top studios and television networks.
In a rare on-screen appearance in 2006, he parodied himself on a series of national television commercials for a car insurance company where he played himself telling a customer, "In a world where both of our cars were totally under water..."
In an interview last year, LaFontaine explained the strategy behind the phrase.
"We have to very rapidly establish the world we are transporting them to," he said of his viewers. "That's very easily done by saying, `In a world where ... violence rules.' `In a world where ... men are slaves and women are the conquerors.' You very rapidly set the scene."
LaFontaine insisted he never cared that no one knew his name or his face, though everyone knew his voice.
LaFontaine went on to work in the promo industry in the early 1960s. As an audio engineer, he produced radio spots for movies with producer Floyd Peterson.
When an announcer didn't show up for a recording session in 1965, LaFontaine voiced his first narration, a promo for the film, "Gunfighters of Casa Grande." The client, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, liked his performance.
LaFontaine remained active until recently, averaging seven to 10 voiceover sessions a day. He worked from a home studio his wife nicknamed "The Hole," where his fax machine delivered scripts.
LaFontaine is survived by his wife, the singer and actress Nita Whitaker, and three daughters.
His funeral arrangements were pending.