"King of Voiceovers" Dies at 68

Don LaFontaine, one of the busiest actors in Hollywood history and a guy most people couldn't pick out of a crowd, has died:

Don LaFontaine, whose voice was on nearly 5,000 movie trailers, died this afternoon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his agent, Vanessa Gilbert, told Entertainment Tonight.

He died of complications from a collapsed lung, ET reported, although the official cause of death was not immediately released.

In addition to being the omnipresent voice on movie trailers, he was also an announcer for Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, as well as CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, UPN, TNT, TBS and the Cartoon Network, according to ET.

His voice is believed to have been used in hundreds of thousands of television and radio spots, including commercials for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Budweiser, McDonalds, Coke and other corporate sponsors, ET reported.

He was also the in-show announcer for the Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards, and recently parodied himself in a Geico insurance commercial -- one of the few times he could be seen as well as heard.

Based on contracts signed, he may have been the single busiest actor in the history of SAG, according to ET.

I think the Geico commercial was the first time I'd ever seen the face behind the voice. Movie trailers will never again sound the same. Here's a good YouTube bio on LaFontaine: