On December 30, 2017 Civil War Token Society President Susan Trask wrote:

CWTS Past President Scott A. Blickensderfer wrote:

From Wikipedia:

To read the complete article, see:
Alan Bleviss (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bleviss)

From a University of Alberta profile:

To read the complete article, see:
The Voice (https://www.ualberta.ca/giving/giving-news/2015/january/the-voice)

How do you capture the essence of a man of seventy-six in just a few moments? Especially when that man is your father?

My father lived a full and remarkable life, overcoming tremendous adversity time and time again. Many of you know my father as the voice of a generation, a mentor to young artists, a generousphilanthropist, phenomenal bridge player, Joan Jett fan and a lover of jokes. I know my father as the son of Joe Bleviss, a cigar-shop owner and entrepreneur and Lee Bleviss, a doting and supportivemother. I also know him as a fellow leo: strong, passionate, loyal and wildly determined.

He taught me to have a strong sense of self and an even stronger moral compass. A proud union man, he put me on the picket lines with him as a kid and encouraged me to pursue my passions fully, nomatter what they were. He told me to figure out what I love doing and make a living doing it. I am proud to say I have achieved that goal with his blessing.

Above all else, my father was a fighter. He didn't let his physical impairments hold him back, fought not once but twice to regain his paralyzed vocal chords, achieved his dreams as a stage actorand voice over and traveled the world with his children.

Without my brother's devotion and courageous care for our father in the year before he moved to New York, and without the tremendous research skills of his partner Tessa and my sister Lisa, Icould not have been prepared to provide the care for my father over last sixteen months of his life. We spent long evenings together eating takeout and talking about his childhood and my own. Wetalked about his adventures in theatre school, his connection to Judaism and his lifelong friendships with people like my Uncle Augie. We went to see jazz, to a Chapel Hill game and spent hours inWashington Square Park people watching.

The last sixteen months has been the most humbling and also the most profound gift of my life. It has been nothing short of an honor to support my father, to be his witness, his confidant and toshower him with the love and care he deserved.

The night before my father died, he said:

"Tomorrow I will go. I'm going to go for a short trip. We'll go on a star."
I responded, "When you see the stars at night will you think of me Dad? I will think of you."
To which he replied: "When it gets dark then I will think of you. Of all of you."

My father passed on December 30th, the sabbath. It is said that only tzadikkim, the righteous holy people, leave their bodies on Shabes. He was able to say goodbye to his partner, Tessa, hisbeloved children Joshua and Lisa and I held his hand and told him we would be okay and love him always. He told me he would love us always, too.

His last wishes were that his children get along, take care of one another and live their lives as authentically as possible. I ask that we all leave today working towards tikkun olam, repairingthe world, by caring for one another and living as authentically as possible. Dad, your memory will forever be a blessing.

Call it MSI - Mass Subliminal Infiltration. It booms from speaker banks at movie theaters, from TVs and Walkmans, from cars and kitchen radios across the land - everywhere there is That Voice.

Sonorous and sincere, it can be heard hawking everything from abortion rights to disposable diapers, from presidential candidates to the American Express Gold Card, from Truth or Dare tosex, lies, and videotape.

The assured, honeyed vocal cords belong to one Alan Bleviss, a lapsed Canadian who makes his home in North Jersey and his living in New York. Bleviss, whose voice radiates conviction, confidenceand confection in equal amounts, narrates movie trailers and commercials.

Chances are you've heard him: "From the director of last year's most beloved movie . . . comes a magical new tale," he oozed of Everybody's Fine, the art-housefollowup to Academy Award-winner Cinema Paradiso.

Bleviss first deployed his sexiness, authority, warmth and confidence-that- you-can-trust as an actor north of the border. But the '60s graduate of the National Theater School of Canada foundit hard to make ends meet. "I found it very difficult to live on $75 a week, maintaining two apartments - one where I lived and one that I had to rent on the road."

One day, his agent suggested an audition for a voice-over job.

"My first audition was for McDonald's," Bleviss recalls. "I looked at the script and thought, 'What a piece of junk,' and I walked out. I was a proud actor.

"And there are still actors who feel that commercials are beneath them. But I treat each commercial as an acting job."

Bleviss never did do anything for McDonald's. But his next audition was for Canada Dry ginger ale, and he landed the job. The soda spot turned into a series of commercials ("They wanted agreat big bold sound, almost like you were the entire country"), and soon Bleviss was working his way through recording studios and sound labs, script in hand and mouth at the ready.

Through the mid-'70s, Bleviss mixed his voice work with an acting career, but before long the former took precedent. And then came the movie trailers.

"The first one I ever did was for Emerson, Lake and Palmer's concert film Pictures at an Exhibition . . . And the next trailer I did was for Richard Gere's movie, Days ofHeaven - the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. Then Ragtime, and then I can't even tell you because they just sort of flew."

In 1976, the Big Apple beckoned. While most of his narrating colleagues - Don LaFontaine, Brian Cummin, Chuck Riley and Gene McGarr are some of the biz's top names - are based in Los Angeles,Bleviss opted to remain in New York, which is another reason he's found himself so busy with Miramax, a Manhattan-based independent.

Bleviss sees his work as an extension of his acting career. And sometimes he's so convincing in his two-minute spiels that he'll go see the film he's just talked up. "Sometimes Isell myself," he admits, "though really the writer has sold me."

Doing trailers, he explains, "is really a team effort, because someone has to write the script, someone has to edit the film, they have to pick the shots - and I don't think that's soeasy."

"I could never edit, and I could never write the words, but once they give me the words, I love to create with them. I like doing trailers best - even though I do more commercials - becausethey give me a great deal of freedom to create. . . .

"A lot of people think that anybody can do it, but really you have to have a concept of English, and you have to be able to communicate. You have to understand what the words mean. What theideas are. And then you have to communicate it to millions of people, but on a one-to-one basis.