Hal Douglas dies at 89: Watch his classic movie trailers

In a world where movie trailers plunge you into drama, and narrators chill you with a single phrase, a memorable voice has been lost.

Voice-over artist Hal Douglas died Friday at 89. You know who he was. He began many film trailers with a booming voice and a dramatic line. Usually, dire.

“In a world where ...” is among those famous lines, although Don LaFontaine, another voice-over great, claimed he coined that catchphrase. Regardless, Douglas was a classic.

He told the Los Angeles Times back in 2006 that he let intuition guide his voice-over work.

“I get direction, but for the most part it is kind of working in the dark to an extent, particularly for movies. You get the description of the movie, the contexts of the lines that you are doing, and the rest of it is intuitive. It comes as a result from a long history of doing this stuff. Movies, particularly, fall into departments. You have an action film, you have a romantic film, you have the dark films. They all suggest an attitude and a voice quality. I don’t do character voices per se, but depending upon the emotion, try to approach it as an actor.”

We’ve pulled together some of his videos below. Included is the voice actor discussing his craft during a 2009 interview.