Douglas Rain
Birthday: Born in 1928-03-13 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Deathday: 2018-11-11
Douglas Rain (March 13, 1928 - November 11, 2018) was a Canadian actor and narrator. He was primarily a stage actor, but his best known film role was as the voice of the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and its sequel 2010 (1984). Rain was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He studied acting at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Banff, Alberta as well as in London at the Old Vic School. As a stage actor, his long association with the Stratford Festival of Canada that spans more than four decades. He has performed in many diverse roles on stage, most notably recognized for his performance at Stratford, Ontario in Henry V which was made into a television production in 1966. Rain was also nominated for Broadway's 1972 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for his performance in Vivat! Vivat Regina!
TV Credits
Folio
Character:
Folio, a precursor to CBC's renowned fine-arts series Festival, aired for four years starting in 1956. The series showcased original dramas, music compositions, and ballets, many originating from diverse regions across Canada. Notable episodes featured Barry Morse in a new staging of MacBeth, along with performances by Canadian talents like Robert Goulet and Sharon Acker. One of the highlights included a musical adaptation of the beloved Canadian classic, Anne of Green Gables. Airing without spo...
Folio
Character: Jacob Schunk
Folio, a precursor to CBC's renowned fine-arts series Festival, aired for four years starting in 1956. The series showcased original dramas, music compositions, and ballets, many originating from diverse regions across Canada. Notable episodes featured Barry Morse in a new staging of MacBeth, along with performances by Canadian talents like Robert Goulet and Sharon Acker. One of the highlights included a musical adaptation of the beloved Canadian classic, Anne of Green Gables. Airing without spo...
Folio
Character: Malcom
Folio, a precursor to CBC's renowned fine-arts series Festival, aired for four years starting in 1956. The series showcased original dramas, music compositions, and ballets, many originating from diverse regions across Canada. Notable episodes featured Barry Morse in a new staging of MacBeth, along with performances by Canadian talents like Robert Goulet and Sharon Acker. One of the highlights included a musical adaptation of the beloved Canadian classic, Anne of Green Gables. Airing without spo...
No Price Too High
Character: Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King
The Canadian contribution to World War Two was extraordinary in scale and variety. More than one million people, out of nation of just eleven million, volunteered to serve. To transform a small, virtually unequipped military into a powerful army, navy and air force was a remarkable achievement. No Price Too High traces Canada's involvement from the prewar years through 1945, explaining the events of the war in the context of the political and military realities of the time. There is none of the ...
Movie Credits
2001: A Space Odyssey
Character: HAL 9000 (voice)
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer....
The Man Who Skied Down Everest
Character: Narrator
This Oscar-winning documentary tells the story behind Japanese daredevil Yuichiro Miura's 1970 effort to ski down the world's tallest mountain. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010....
The Stratford Adventure
Character: Self
This short film depicts how a small Canadian city, bearing the name of Stratford and by a river Avon, created its own renowned Shakespearean theatre. The film tells how the idea grew, how a famous British director, international stars and Canadian talent were recruited, and how the Stratford Shakespearean Festival finally became a triumphant reality....
Fields of Sacrifice
Character: Narrator (voice)
This 1964 documentary returns to the battlefields where over 100,000 Canadian soldiers lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars. The film also visits cemeteries where servicemen are buried. Filmed from Hong Kong to Sicily, this documentary is designed to show Canadians places they have reason to know but may not be able to visit. Produced for the Canadian Department of Veteran Affairs by the renowned documentary filmmaker Donald Brittain. (NFB)...
2010
Character: HAL 9000 (voice)
While planet Earth poises on the brink of nuclear self-destruction, a team of Russian and American scientists aboard the Leonov hurtles to a rendezvous with the still-orbiting Discovery spacecraft and its sole known survivor, the homicidal computer HAL....
Oedipus Rex
Character: Messenger
The story of Oedipus' gradual discovery of his primal crime, killing his father and marrying his mother, filmed by the famed British theatrical director Sir Tyrone Guthrie. This elegant version of Sophocles' play adds a brilliant stroke: the actors wear masks just as the Greeks did in the playwright's day....
A Cry of Angels
Character:
Hallmark presents the story of how the greatest oratorio, George Frederic Handel's "The Messiah," came to be written in the English language....
The Russian German War
Character: Narrator (voice)
This is a rare look at one of the worst horror stories in the long infamous history of warfare. This series features captured German and Russian film footage, much of which has never been seen before. For decades the Cold War prevented us from looking closely at what really happened between the Russians and the Germans on the Eastern Front during World War II. More than a struggle between nations, it pitted maniacal tyrant against maniacal tyrant, evil ideology against evil ideology. The lives o...
Universe
Character: Narrator
A triumph of film art, creating on the screen a vast, awe-inspiring picture of the universe as it would appear to a voyager through space, this film was among the sources of inspiration used by Stanley Kubrick for his 2001: A Space Odyssey. Realistic animation takes you into far regions of space, beyond the reach of the strongest telescope, past Moon, Sun, and Milky Way, into galaxies yet unfathomed....
Sleeper
Character: Bio Central Computer 2100, Series G (voice)
Miles Monroe, a clarinet-playing health food store proprietor, is revived out of cryostasis 200 years into a future world in order to help rebels fight an oppressive government regime....
Henry V
Character: King Henry V
Henry, tracing his descent from Edward III, has claimed the French crown. Assured by the Archbishop of Canterbury that right is on his side, and needled by the Dauphin’s insolence, he prepares for war....