Actor.
Born at Winnipeg on 9 May 1928, son of Scottish immigrants James “Jimmy” Rain (1895-1974) and Mary Nelson Crichton (1894-?), his childhood was spent in the Riverview area of the city. His career as an actor began with radio plays as a child actor on CBC. He later did voice-over work for the National Film Board of Canada. He was a founding member of the Stratford Festival and spent 32 seasons performing there. He is most well known as the voice of the artificially intelligent HAL 9000 computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. He died at St. Marys, Ontario on 11 November 2018.
Marriage registration [James Rain, Mary Nelson Crichton], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
1931 Canada census, Ancestry.
“Deaths,” Winnipeg Free Press, 19 March 1974, page 4.
Obituary, Los Angeles Times, 12 November 2018.
“Douglas Rain, Stratford Festival pioneer and voice of HAL 9000, dies,” CityNews, 11 November 2018.
“R.I.P. HAL: Douglas Rain, voice of computer In '2001,' dies at 90,” NPR, 12 November 2018.
Douglas James Rain, WikiTree.
This page was prepared by James Kostuchuk and Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 3 February 2026
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