The Canadian actor who was the voice behind the supercomputer HAL 9000, in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has died.Douglas Rain, who was also a pioneer of the Stratford Festival, died of natural causes on Sunday morning at St. Marys Memorial Hospital, the festival announced in a press release.He was 90 years old.In addition to voicing the sly sentient computer, Rain was also a member of the Stratford Festival’s founding company, and spent 32 seasons on its stages.“Canadian theatre has lost one of its greatest talents and a guiding light in its development,” said Stratford Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino in the release. “Douglas Rain was that rare artist: an actor deeply admired by other actors.”Read more:2001: A Space Odyssey stars talk aliens, Christopher Nolan and bad, bad food2001: A Space Odyssey gets a special salute at CannesHe was born in Winnipeg in 1928 and was a child actor on CBC radio, before attending the University of Manitoba and studying at London’s Old Vic theatre school.During the festival’s first season in 1953 Rain played Marquis of Dorset and Tyrrell in Richard III, and went on to play parts such as Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII (1961) and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night (1966).He even played a human Hal, prince Hal that is, in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1958. Although it was voicing the computer in 1968’s sci-fi 2001: A Space Odyssey that made the biggest impression on audiences.The fictional precursor to real-life AI assistants Alexa and Siri, HAL 9000’s, calm, detached presence unsettled generations of moviegoers. The New York Times reported in March 2018 that Kubrick had heard Rain in a 1960 documentary called Universe and thought he was “perfect” for the part.“The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting,” the paper reported Kubrick wrote in a letter ...
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