Sorry to have to report the passing of another great voice…and I wish I could find an audio of Norman Rose to link to, because a lot of you would go, "Oh, that guy!" Mr. Rose had one of the richest, most magnificent sounds of any actor who plied that trade. The obits — like this one [Los Angeles Times, registration required] are noting that he did the voiceovers in the Juan Valdez coffee commercials, and supplied the voice of God in Woody Allen's film, Love and Death. Actually, I think he spoke for God more often than Pat Robertson and I remember him from a couple of memorable jobs, on-camera and off.
One was the National Lampoon record, "Deteriorata," which parodied the treacly "Desiderata" poem/song. Another was his role as Woody Allen's lawyer in the closing scenes of The Front. I seem to also recall him doing a number of great voiceovers for commercial parodies on Saturday Night Live. I never met him but I always thought he did splendid work, and it's nice to think that right about now, God is telling him, "Thanks for making me sound good."
While we're at it: Though we told you here several days ago that the very funny Mr. Dayton Allen had passed away, it took 'til last night for this sad news to make it to the wire services and newspapers. Here's a report in The Los Angeles Times and here's one from The New York Times. One other great moment of Dayton's career I recall was the time Groucho Marx was the celebrity guest on the game show, I've Got A Secret. The panel was blindfolded and Groucho's "secret" was that he wasn't answering their questions. Dayton Allen, who did a great Groucho impersonation and who was also a first-rate ad-libber, was speaking for him.
It was a very funny spot. Maybe someone at Game Show Network will think to haul that one out and air it soon as a tribute to Mr. Allen. And I imagine Dr. Demento will be playing "Deteriorata" this weekend on his show that I can't seem to find on my radio dial.