Douglas James Rain (May 9, 1928 â November 11, 2018) was a Canadian actor. Although primarily a stage actor, he is best known for voicing HAL 9000, the supercomputer in the film ' (1968) and its sequel ' (1984). He co-founded the Stratford Festival, and was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway play Vivat! Vivat Regina!.
Rain was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Scottish parents Mary and James Rain. His father was a rail yard switchman and his mother was a nurse. His parents emigrated to Canada from Glasgow, Scotland.
He graduated with a B.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1950, then studied acting at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Banff, Alberta and the Old Vic Theatre School in London, England.
Rain was a founding member of the Stratford Festival of Canada in 1953 and was associated with it as an actor until 1998.
He performed a wide variety of theatrical roles, such as a production of Henry V staged in Stratford, Ontario, that was adapted for television in 1966. In 1972, he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for his performance in Vivat! Vivat Regina!
Stanley Kubrick cast Rain as the voice of the HAL 9000 computer for the film ' (1968) after hearing his narration of a short documentary titled Universe and later chose him as "the creepy voice of HAL". Rain produced all of his lines during the post-production, in a ten-hour recording session over two days with Kubrick in London. He did not think the recording session went well, later saying: "If you could have been a ghost at the recording you would have thought it was a load of rubbish." In the film, his voice was sometimes processed with an electronic device called the Eltro information rate changer. In an interview with the New York Times in 2018, Rain said that he had never seen the movie.
Rain reprised the role for the sequel ' (1984). He also briefly parodied it in a sketch on Second City Television where Merv Griffin (played by Rick Moranis) takes his talk show into outer space.
Rain was married twice, first to Lois Shaw and then to Martha Henry, who was also an actress on stage, film and television, and had three children and a grandchild. He died of natural causes on November 11, 2018, at the age of 90, at St. Mary's Memorial Hospital in St. Marys, Ontario.