Douglas Rain, the Canadian actor behind the voice of computer-gone-rogue HAL 9000 in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” has died. He was 90.
His death was announced Sunday at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, which Rain co-founded in 1952 and where he performed for 32 seasons.
“Canadian theater has lost one of its greatest talents and a guiding light in its development,” the festival’s artistic director, Antoni Cimolino, said in a statement.
Rain spent the bulk of his career as a Shakespearean actor but was best known as the eerily soft voice of HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic classic.
“The voice of HAL in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ Douglas shared many of the same qualities as Kubrick’s iconic creation: precision, strength of steel, enigma and infinite intelligence, as well as a wicked sense of humor,” Cimolino said. “But those of us lucky enough to have worked with Douglas soon solved his riddle and discovered that at the center of his mystery lay warmth and humanity, evidenced in his care for the young members of our profession.”
Rain was born in Winnipeg in 1928 and started off as a child radio actor. His career included more than a hundred television and movie roles, voice work and radio plays, CTV said.
Rain, who studied at the Old Vic theater in London, played Marquis of Dorset and Tyrrell in Shakepseare’s “Richard III” in 1953, the first year of the festival. He was Alec Guinness’ understudy for the title role.
In 1972, Rain received a Tony Award nomination for his role in Robert Bolt’s production of “Vivat! Vivat Regina!”
His final stage appearance at Stratford, a world-renowned repertory theater festival, was in 1998 for “A Man for All Seasons.”
All of Rain’s voiceover work for “Space Odyssey” was done in post-production. He beat out other actors for the gig, including Martin Balsam and Nigel Davenport. Balsam was considered too American, while Davenport was too English.
Kubrick settled on Rain after hearing his voice in the 1960 documentary “Universe,” a film he watched nearly 100 times. The director initially hired Rain to do narration — but then nixed the idea and used him as HAL’s calm drone.
“I think he’s perfect,” Kubrick wrote to a colleague, according to the New York Times. “The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting.”
According to a transcript from one of the recording sessions, Kubrick helped Rain nail the role with directions like, “Sound a little more like it’s a peculiar request,” “Just try it closer and more depressed,” and “Even softer and kind of in the depths,” the Times in the UK reported.
It resulted in one of the most iconic lines from the 1968 movie: “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
But it wasn’t a job Rain particularly loved.
“If you could have been a ghost at the recording you would have thought it was a load of rubbish,” he said in 2014.
With Post wires
