Obits for Chuck McCann in The New York Times, Newsday and The Hollywood Reporter. I know nothing about funeral or memorial arrangements.
Bob Bergen is one of the top voiceover guys in the business and a former client of Don Pitts. This morning on Facebook, Bob wrote about Don and he gave me permission to share some of it with you here…
Don was my first agent, and signed me when I was 18. At that time he had just left Abrams, Rubaloff and Lawrence and set up shop at Commercials Unlimited. Even though I was a seasoned V.O. student with four years of study behind me, I had no clue how I'd hit the agent jackpot…until one day early on in my representation.
CU had this tiny little V.O. booth. I got a call to come in for an audition. Sunny (Sonny??), the beautiful receptionist, gave me my copy and asked me to have a seat on the couch. In walked a larger than life man, oozing with the essence of cigar and body odor, and sat next to me. He was sweating profusely, which dripped a bit on my arm. I was so deep in thought with my copy, it took me a moment before I realized it was Orson Welles.
Welles looked over my shoulder and said, "Young man, I think you are my partner in this audition. Would you like to step into the hallway and rehearse a bit?" My first thought was, "Orson Welles has to audition???" My second thought was, "Holy crap on the floor, I'm going to rehearse with Citizen Kane!"
We were summoned into the booth by Don, who also played engineer. Again, a tiny booth. Welles and I were stomach to stomach. I had to lean into the mic as there was no way Don could mic me properly. Orson's (may I call him Orson?) shirt was sweat soaked. When we were done, I had a round sweat stain on my shirt where our stomachs met. And I hoped I could somehow absorb his DNA genius. (didn't need the body odor though)
When we walked out, Orson shook my hand and told me I had the best agent in the business.
Almost every male voice talent who was represented by Don — and I suspect, a few of the ladies — could do a great impression of Don. Every once in a while in some cartoon, I've heard an impression of Don coming out of the animated mouth of some bit player. I wonder if Orson did him, too.