| Danny Dark | |
|---|---|
| Born | Daniel Melville Croskery December 19, 1938 Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Died | June 13, 2004 (aged 65) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Voice actor, voiceover performer |
Danny Dark (December 19, 1938 – June 13, 2004) was widely acknowledged in the commercial industry as the voice-over king. For nearly four decades, he embedded pop culture with memorable lines in advertisements for Budweiser ("This Bud's for you"), Raid Ant & Roach Killer ("Raid- Kills Bugs Dead") and StarKist Tuna ("Sorry, Charlie"). The trade paper Radio & Records said, "Dark's distinctive voice has been heard in more award-winning commercials than any announcer in broadcast history."
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Danny Dark was born born Daniel Melville Croskery in Tulsa. He started as a radio D.J. there as a teenager, but quickly advanced to stations in Cleveland, Miami, New Orleans, St. Louis, finally landing a 1963-66 stint as the evening DJ for KLAC in Los Angeles.
Over the course of his career, Dark was the spokesman for Keebler Cookies, Camaro, AT&T, K-Mart, Texaco, Armor-All, Whitman's Chocolates, Dreyer's Ice Cream, and many other Blue Chip companies. Dark was the voice of the long-running TV western Bonanza, voicing their intermission commercials for the program's sponsor, Chevrolet. Dark was an announcer who came to be known as the "voice" of the CBS television network during the 1970s and the NBC television network during the 1980s and early 1990s, doing promo advertisements for night-time programming, as well as an announcer for NBC's flagship station, WNBC-TV, and the imaging voice for many of the network's affiliates and O&O stations for their local newscasts.
Danny Dark voiced the role of Superman/Clark Kent for thirteen years in each of the various incarnations of Hanna-Barbera's animated series Super Friends. He also narrated historical documentaries for the Biography series on the History Channel, including Johnny Cash: The Man in Black, and General Robert E. Lee.
Dark's only movie roles came in the 1976 film Tunnel Vision and as an announcer in 1980's Melvin and Howard starring Jason Robards.
Dark died in Los Angeles of a pulmonary hemorrhage and was interred in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.[1]