_{Hal Douglas, a leading voice-over artist for films, commercials and TV shows, died March 7 at 89. Photograph: MEGALOMEDIA}

Hal Douglas, whose gravelly tones graced famous trailers for films such as Forrest Gump, Philadelphia and Lethal Weapon, has died. He was 89.

Douglas’s daughter Sarah told the New York Times her father passed away following complications from pancreatic cancer. He was known as one of a top trio of trailer voiceover artists – the late Don LaFontaine and Don Morrow, voice of the Titanic trailer were the others – who came close to monopolising the industry for decades with catchphrases such as “In a world…”.

“The fact is, my voice has been out there,” Douglas told the Times in 2009. “And it hangs out there. You sit down in the theatre and sometimes in three out of four trailers I’d be on them.”

While Douglas was well known for the “in a world” phrase, there was some disagreement over whether he originated it, with LaFontaine claiming to have used it first. Unlike his late contemporary, who hired his own driver to take him from Hollywood studio to Hollywood studio at the height of his career in order to avoid wasting time on parking, Douglas worked mainly in New York studios.

The voiceover artist’s only known on-screen role came in the trailer for a 2002 documentary from Jerry Seinfeld, titled Comedian. While the film itself did not perform particularly well, Douglas’s segment was viewed more than 700,000 times on YouTube. If features him repeatedly attempting to launch into the trailer with phrases such as “In a world…”, “In a land…” and “In a land before time…” while being unceremoniously interrupted (and eventually fired) by a producer determined to avoid such cliched phrases.

Born Harold Cone in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1924, Douglas flew as a US navy pilot in the second world war for three years before enrolling at the University of Miami via the GI bill to study acting. He began doing voiceover work to supplement his income from acting in New York during the late 1940s, and soon became much sought-after.

Douglas’s story is told in the 2013 short film A Great Voice, in which he decried suggestions that his deep baritone was anything special. “I never thought of it as a great voice,” he said, suggesting it was in fact “throaty, chesty, a voice in need of clearing”.

Douglas died on 7 March at his home in Lovettsville, north Virginia. He leaves behind his wife Ruth, a daughter and two sons from a previous marriage, Jeremy and Jon.