By Mark Bennett
Everybody’s got their favorite Morgan Freeman movie line.
Some hear his coal-cellar baritone muttering “get busy living, or get busy dying” in “Shawshank Redemption.” Or his rumination in “The Bucket List” that “you measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.”
Some Wabash Valley folks may swear they’ve heard that voice say “Pleased to bring you a new direction in health care” at the end of recent TV and radio commercials for the new Union Hospital East project.
I can hear Morgan chuckling.
Actually, the voice on those ads belongs to Larry Davis, a Los Angeles man who lends his voice to numerous radio and TV commercials.
As Union Hospital prepared to unveil its new $185-million expansion, Lorrie Heber — the system director of marketing for Union Hospital Health Group — began envisioning a certain sound in the broadcast advertising for the facility. After the ad copy was complete, that sound got more specific in Heber’s imagination.
“It’s a dramatic kind of script, a dramatic message,” Heber said, “and I thought, in my head, ‘This needs to be somebody other than your average DJ. It needs to be somebody’s grandfather, somebody like Morgan Freeman.’”
Of course, Freeman’s kind of in high demand right now. The venerable actor currently stars in “Invictus,” with critics gushing that “Morgan Freeman was born to play Nelson Mandela.” Maybe so. Impressive as the hospital’s 500,000-square-foot expansion is, Freeman probably wasn’t destined to record the radio and TV spots for its promotional campaign.
So the advertising firm Miller White LLC tapped its talent resources. Heber’s vision of a Morgan Freeman-style voice sparked an idea in Linda Dockery, audiovisual producer at Miller White. “I said, ‘Well, I have someone who sounds just like Morgan Freeman.’” That man was Larry Davis, a voiceover veteran.
The ad doesn’t imply the voice belongs to Freeman. “Of course, because we admit that it’s not Morgan Freeman, it’s acceptable,” Dockery said.
But Davis has that similar soothing sound. “Morgan Freeman has got just a certain cadence and inflection in his voice,” Dockery said, “a weight that’s very comforting and warm. But I’m sure Lorrie didn’t expect me to find someone who sounded so much like him.” (Thank goodness Heber wasn’t thinking of Gilbert Gottfried — the AFLAC guy.)
The ads began running in October and will continue through the facility’s official opening next month. Today, the hospital conducts a community open house for the structure, which boasts 236 private-room beds, state-of-the-art equipment and a 220-space parking lot.
Lots of people will attend, but, alas, Morgan Freeman probably won’t be one of them.
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
