Douglas Rain

Cast

Born

May 9, 1928 · Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Died

November 11, 2018

Birth name

Douglas James Rain

Cinema lovers and sci-fi fans will always remember Douglas Rain not exactly by his face but because of his vocal talents that solidified his spot in the cinema world as the soothing voice of HAL 9000 in the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and its sequel 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984). He was originally hired to provide narration for the film, which was left unused in the finished product, with Rain switching to doing the voice of the HAL 9000 computer at Kubrick's request during the recording session in London. The character had already been voiced by multiple actors at this point - including Martin Balsam - but Kubrick was not satisfied with the resulting performances, and asked Rain to play HAL instead. In front of cameras, the Canadian actor can be found in TV series such as Startime (1959), Quest (1961), Playdate (1961), and Festival (1960); or films like Oedipus Rex (1957), Twelfth Night (1964) and the title role in Henry V (1966). On stage, his career consists of countless productions of plays by William Shakespeare - in fact, Rain was a founding member of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival and can be seen playing Richard III in a rehearsal scene in The Stratford Adventure (1954) - and other authors between the 1950s and 1990s. In 1972, he was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for the play "Vivat! Vivat Regina!". In addition to this, he frequently worked in radio and did narration for documentaries such as the NFB production Universe (1960), Fields of Sacrifice (1963) or the Oscar-winning The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975). He passed away from natural causes at the age of 90 in 2018.