The Voice of 'HAL' From Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Has Died

Canadian actor Douglas Rain, who will be best remembered for playing the computer voice HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died at the grand old age of 90.

2001 celebrated its 50 anniversary back in April of this year. HAL 9000 is listed as number 13 on the American Film Institute's America's Greatest Villians. It was "one of the best performances in film, with just his voice", said Baby Driver director Edgar Wright.

Douglas Rain was born on March 13, 1928 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He trained for acting at the Banff School of Fine Arts and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Rain then attended the University of Manitoba, worked in radio dramas and studied acting at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta. In 1950, he left for a two-year apprenticeship at the Old Vic.

Rain founded the Stratford Festival back in 1952. "Canadian theatre has lost one of its greatest talents and a guiding light in its development,” the festival’s artistic director Antoni Cimolino, said in a press statement. “Douglas Rain was that rare artist: an actor deeply admired by other actors.”

He said that like the voice of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, "Douglas shared many of the same qualities as Kubrick's iconic creation: precision, strength of steel, enigma and infinite intelligence, as well as a wicked sense of humor".

Cimolino added: "But those of us lucky enough to have worked with Douglas soon solved his riddle and discovered that at the center of his mystery lay warmth and humanity, evidenced in his care for the young members of our profession.

"Douglas dedicated his talent to the stages of his native land, and we are proud in return to dedicate the coming season's production of 'Othello' to his memory. We owe him so much."

Rain was primarily a stage actor and in 1972 he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for his performance in Vivat! Vivat Regina!

In the movie world, Rai was best known as the voice of the computer, HAL 9000, in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was released in 1968, and 2010: The Year We Made Contact, which was released in 1984. Along with Keir Dullea, he is one of only two actors to appear in both films.

Rain was handpicked for 2001 after Kubrick heard his narration of the documentary Universe, released by the National Film Board of Canada in 1960. Kubrick opted for Rain because he didn't sound American.

"The thing that captured the audience's imagination back then more even than a chatty computer decades before Siri and Alexa was that unnervingly, HAL had a mind of his own," stated the NPR critic Bob Mondello wrote for the 50th anniversary of the film's release earlier this year.

Today we lost Douglas Rain, a member of our founding company and a hugely esteemed presence on our stages for 32 seasons. He will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. pic.twitter.com/dxcffgGEiA

— Stratford Festival (@stratfest) November 12, 2018

He appeared in over 35 movies, including playing an evil computer and robot butlers in Woody Allen's Sleepers.

Rain died on November 11, 2018, at the age of 90 at St. Marys Memorial Hospital in St. Marys, Ontario, of natural causes.

Douglas Rain, aka HAL from 2001