Hal Douglas

Hal Douglas, born Harold Cone on September 1, 1924, in Stamford, Connecticut, was an American performer and voice actor whose career spanned six decades. He was the son of Samuel and Miriam Levenson Cone, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, and was raised primarily by his maternal grandparents, Sarah and Tevya Levenson, after his mother died when he was nine years old. His brother Edwin was raised alongside him. Douglas served in World War II before enrolling at the University of Miami as a drama major.

His professional life began in radio during the 1950s, and by the following decade he had taken on producing roles at several prominent advertising agencies in New York City. In the early 1970s he transitioned into voice-over work for commercials, promotional spots, and film trailers, a pursuit he continued until retiring in 2012. He appeared on Broadway in 1983 in the musical Show Boat. Douglas became one of the most recognizable voices in the trailer industry, and a Miramax publicist described him as perhaps the most recognizable trailer voice in the business. His work was sometimes associated with the phrase "In a world," though Don LaFontaine claimed to have originated that catchphrase.

Douglas served as the promotional voice for several television networks and properties, including The WB, ABC, A&E, The History Channel, and various Disney outlets including Disney Channel's Vault Disney from 1997 to 2002. He provided voiceover narration for championship documentaries covering the 1992, 1993, 1996, and 1997 Chicago Bulls, the 1994 and 1995 Houston Rockets, and the 1997 Detroit Red Wings, as well as other NBA documentaries from that era. He also narrated the trailer for the novel All the Talk Is Dead by Michael Ebner and appeared briefly in the skit 5 Men and a Limo alongside voice artists including Don LaFontaine, John Leader, Nick Tate, Al Chalk, and Mark Elliot. Because the skit was filmed in California and Douglas worked primarily on the East Coast, he contributed only a recorded audio appearance. He can also be heard parodying himself in the trailer for the documentary Comedian, which features Jerry Seinfeld.

Unlike many of his peers in the trailer industry, Douglas was based in Northern Virginia rather than Los Angeles, and his agent operated out of New York City. In 1988 he relocated from Pawling, New York, to a forty-acre farm in Lovettsville, Virginia, where he had a private recording studio constructed on the property. His wife Ruth Francis, whom he married around 1971, took up competitive horse riding there, while Douglas pursued organic gardening. He had previously been married to Lois Barrett, with whom he had two sons. He and Ruth Francis had one daughter. Douglas died at his Lovettsville home on March 7, 2014, of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 89.