‘A voice not unlike that of God’
Danbury actor who voiced ‘Titanic’ trailer dies at 93 years old
DANBURY — Don Morrow had “a voice not unlike that of God.”
At least that’s what his contract said for the Broadway show “Little Shop of Horrors.”
Morrow, a longtime Danbury resident and famed voice over actor, died Oct. 27 at 93.
The World War II veteran announced the news with famed broadcasters like Walter Cronkite and Lowell Thomas. He voiced commercials for companies such as Ford, IBM, Colgate dand Shell Oil, as well as trailers for movies such as “Titanic” and “Saving Private Ryan.”
“He really caught a unique era in this country,” said Kevin Moore, his friend, who co-wrote Morrow’s two self-published books, including his biography. He was married to his wife, Ursula (Ulla) Morrow, for more than 50 years and had six children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Morrow was passionate about his career, working
into his 80s.
“Whatever he did, he loved,” Ursula Morrow said.
‘ Talk from the heart’
Don Morrow felt at home reading a teleprompter or behind a camera.
“To this day, getting up in front of a crowd of real people is as difficult for me as it ever was,” he said during an early 2000s interview with Quin Mathews Films. “But to get in front of a camera was never a problem.”
He said he enjoyed when the writer was in the room during voice over sessions.
“The most important thing about doing voice over is to talk from the heart, to analyze the script, to try to get inside the writer’s head,” Morrow said.
Morrow offered voice over classes, which was how he and Moore met.
“He was sharp and incredibly informed,” Moore said. “I learned a lot of the technique from his instruction.”
Some of Morrow’s best friends were Academy Award winners. He was mentor to Don LaFontaine, who the LA Times called “The Trailer King” and helped comedian Jonathan
Winters get his start in New York City, Moore said.
Morrow remained grounded and “down to earth,” Moore said. He did not get caught up in the glamour of show businesses.
“'It’s all smoke and mirrors, Kev,’ he’d say in that gruff (voice),” Moore said.
Early life, career
Morrow was born in 1927 in Stamford, where his family owned the Lindenhurst Inn. The family bought a farm in Danbury in 1937 to grow food for the inn.
After graduating from Danbury High School, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy at
17 and served in Morocco during World War II from
1944 to 1946.
“Don was very humble about his own military experience because he felt so many others did so much more,” Moore said. “Because of that, he appreciated what his peers and others of that generation truly went through.”
Through the GI Bill, he attended Danbury State Teachers College and then Syracuse University, where he started to pick up local announcing jobs.
“He fell in love immediately with announcing,” Moore said. “He was almost a natural at it.”
He graduated from
Southern Methodist University in Dallas and worked at a local news station in Texas.
“In those days, when you worked at a local station, you pretty much did it all,” Moore said. “He got tremendous experiences at a very early age.”
He started working with Baseball Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean, who wanted Morrow to move to New York to announce with him for the Yankees. But the job fell through.
Yet, going to New York jump started his career in the news business, allowing him to announce with Cronkite, Thomas and others, Moore said.
“It turned out actually to be a blessing for Don,” he said.
Morrow would go onto announce on numerous TV shows, including “Personality Puzzle,” “Pantomime Quiz,” “On Your Way,” “ESP,” “Ethel and Albert,” “Vic Damone Show” and “Quick as a Flash.”
He filled in for regular host Allen Ludden on “College Bowl,” and, in the late 1950s an 1960s, hosted the game shows “Camouflage” and “Let’s Play Post Office.”
Morrow ran from studio to studio between gigs to pick up additional contracts, Moore said.
“It was really this highly competitive era,” he said.
Tragedy and falling in love
Ursula Morrow met Don Morrow in the late 1960s at his Westhampton, N.Y. restaurant. She was from Germany and visiting her sister, while he was raising five young children and grieving the death of his previous wife, who had a brain aneurysm.
“In that time, he was very busy, very hot in New York,” Ursula Morrow said. “When that happened to him, everything stopped.”
The couple—who was
not yet married—and the children moved to Mojácar, Spain, which Ursula Morrow described as a town that seemed 200 years in the past. The electricity went out frequently. There were no grocery stores, only markets. People got their water from a public fountain. The schools didn’t have toilets, she said.
She despised it, but the children loved it and Morrow needed the time to heal, she said.
During the time in Spain, Morrow got telegrams requesting him to return to the United States for work. He started doing commercials for Ford and acted in Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Westerns.
The couple married when they returned to the United States.
“He’s just an incredible man,” Ursula Morrow said.
Commercials, trailers, books
In the 1970s, he became the “Shell Answer Man,” a series of commercials where he answered car questions. Morrow once told Moore that a woman recognized him at the store and pestered him with concerns about her car.
“Finally, he says ‘Ma’am, I don’t know the first thing about automobiles,” Moore recalled Morrow telling him.
LaFontaine encouraged Morrow to return to the movie trailer business.
In the early 2000s interview, Morrow described how his experience voicing the “Titanic” trailer was rare. Usually, voice over actors would change with adjustments to the script.
But director James Cameron wanted Morrow to stay on the account, he said. Due to the various DVD editions and other deals, Morrow said he worked on the film for about 10 years after it was
released.
But Moore said one of Morrow’s proudest accomplishments was the book the two published about Albert Neir “Doc” Brown, a survivor of the Bataan Death March during World War II. Brown was one of Morrow’s friends and at his death at 105 was the oldest survivor of the march.
“We feel his story is so incredible that it needed to be told,” Morrow told The News-Times after the book was published.
Morrow, who got his pilot license at 69, enjoyed flying his plane at Danbury Airport and hosting parties for hundreds of friends and colleagues.
“They all just loved him,” Ursula Morrow said.
“And he loved them,” Moore added. “There was no more sociable person than Don Morrow. He loved his family, his friends.”