Robert Guillaume, voice of Eli Vance, dies at 89
variety.com/2017/tv/news/robert-guillaume-dea...
variety.comPosted Oct 24, 2017, 8:21 PM UTC
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variety.comYet another piece of half-life history dies..
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Press λ to pay respects.
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Press λ? Where's the λ key?!
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Its next to K are you blind?
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Wait, fuck. My keyboard is broken.
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here, now copy and paste
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Those goddamn Advisors. They’ll pay. They will definitely pay.
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Sad news. It really is over and it's finally sinking in.
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I mean, his character was already killed off.
But yeah it really is over.
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Spoilers, man!!
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Uh, no?
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To a (almost) 10-year old game
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lol, it’s (technically) over 10 years old now
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:^)
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Uh...Eli died in Episode 2 so I don't think this would have impacted anything if development was ongoing for HL3
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He was Rafiki??!!! How did I never make that connection??!! World blown.
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wait, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
next you're going to tell me he was also levar burton. how bad can this news be!
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People here will recognize him most for playing Eli, but seriously, the sitcom Benson was hilarious.
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yup, I grew up watching him on Soap and Benson. he was a great actor, and I loved that he was in the Half Life 2 games. Any time he popped up in other stuff, he was invariably a welcome addition.
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His role on Sports Night will always be what I remember him best for.
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For me Rafiki from Lion King
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Damn. I did a post earlier this year covering the status of the series voice actors, just in case anyone is curious ill post it here too.
Been kinda boring around here lately. So, heres a quick check in on the main characters from Half-Life 2 and the status of their respective voice actors.
Character: Alyx Vance
Played By: Merle Dandridge
Actor Status: Alive, working, age 42.
Recent projects: Greenleaf (TV Series), Various Broadway shows.
Fun fact: Has had some 'recent' (relative to our wait time) interactions with Valve as the voice of both Legion Commander and Winter Wyvern in Dota 2.
Character: Eli Vance
Played By: Robert Guillaume
Actor Status:
Alive, Deceased 2017, age 89. :(Recent projects: Seemingly retired. His latest work was in 2012 as a voice actor.
Fun fact: Was the voice of Rafiki in the Lion King movies.
Character(s): Barney Calhoun / G-Man
Played By: Michael Shapiro
Status: Alive, working, age 51.
Recent projects: 3rd Street Blackout (Film), Voice actor in various projects.
Fun fact: Shapiro, much like Dandridge has also had 'recent' interactions with Valve as a voice actor in Dota 2 for the voice of Oracle. Also the voice of various civilian NPC's in GTAV
Character: Wallace Breen
Played By: Robert Culp
Status: Deceased, 2010 at the age of 79. :(
Recent projects: N/A
Fun fact: The final screenplay Culp wrote before his death was an adaptation of his favorite childhood comic strip 'Terry and the Pirates'.
Character: Issac Kleiner
Played By: Harry S. Robins
Status: Alive, working, age 66.
Recent projects: Radio, Writing
Fun fact: Like Shapiro and Dandridge, Robins has also worked with Valve doing voice work in recent history as the voice of Tinker in Dota 2.
Character: Judith Mossman
Played By: Michelle Forbes
Status: Alive, working, age 52.
Recent projects: True Blood, The Killing
Fun fact: Outside of the Half-Life series, Forbes' only voice acting credits are in DC Universe Online, and The Chronicles of Riddick: AoDA
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Wait, what about Gordon?
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How about Lamar?
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Character: Gordon Freeman
Played By: Ross Scott
Status: Alive, working, age unknown
Recent Projects: Freeman's Mind 2, Ross's Game Dungeon
Fun fact: In addition to his two ongoing web series, Scott is also working on making a feature-length movie using the Unreal game engine.
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Didn't know Breen's VA died. Weird how the 2 characters who died in the series also died in real life...
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Convenient if they ever do make hl3
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Convenient is not an appropriate wording. I would have preferred having them alive..
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Michelle Forbes
Well if I were in her shoes I probably wouldn't be looking forward episode 3 then...
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John Aylward / Dr. Magnusson is still alive.
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First Breen's voice actor, now Eli's.
Well, I guess if HL3 ever does come out, it's lucky the only two voice actors to die so far voiced characters that are dead in the games too. But man, to think HL3 might be taking so long that the voice actors are dying in the wait.
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This breaks my fucking heart, man.
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Sad, he had an amazing unique voice
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If it's any consolation, we've still got Morgan Freeman. And people have been saying for a while that, were there to be a Half-Life movie, Morgan Freeman would be perfect for the role of Eli.
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I’m not crying...it’s just raining on my eyeballs.
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It’s almost amazing how they’ve never mentioned about his voice acting in Half-Life series in a considerably long article about his career.
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omg no.... :(
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The guy had a pretty cool career playing some cult iconic characters. Hard to feel sad that he died at 89, but it doesn't change the amount of respect he deserves. His voice perfectly matched Eli's warm eyes and smile.
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RIP Eli, i enjoyed our time together and those crazy science experiments we did, i hope again to hear your voice and see you in some mod/flash back in a game soon
ty for your work in the half life universe
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Man, that's sad.
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Press E to pay respects.
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This is really sad. IIRC he had a stroke and had to re-learn a lot of stuff. Heck of a guy.
This isn't the first death that has got me down this month. John Dunsworth (Jim Lahey - Trailer Park Boys) also died a few days ago.
:(
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First I was sad that he wouldn’t be able to voice Eli Vance even if HL3 is ever released.
Then I remembered and felt stupid.
RIP
Could have had flashbacks inside the Borealis time waves area, maybe seeing him pickup his daughter from her crib and hugging her before following Gman out the door or something...
I imagine that sort ot thing to be done without much, if any, voice acting to begin with. So could still be done. Especially the scene you described.
I don't think flashbacks fit the HL universe.
Not really flashbacks though, because in the epistle 3 thing, the borealis was suplosed to travel thrligh time and space.
It was stuck between time and space.
Tesseract, a la Interstellar?
Borealis: Source. I pray to the Vortigaunt gods to make this happen.
I thought the same thing lol.
Saddest death I've seen in a video game and I still felt bad that I wouldn't get to hear him speak in a game that might never come out.
I just went through those same emotions, reading your comment and realising.
Same. ;-;
What if he didn't die? What if the entire sequence was a premonition, or Eli has bowels of steel?
hl3 isn't coming out
https://www.reddit.com/r/HalfLife/comments/6vvn00/a_laidlaw_thing_that_you_might_want_to_see/
OMG I just remembered too...
I need to replay the whole series again.