The remarkable artist known to the film industry as the "Voice of God," Don LaFontaine, has died at 68. His signature phrase "In a world where..." and unmistakable intonation made him the undisputed king of movie trailer narration.

Everyone knew his voice, but few people knew what he looked like until a funny, self-mocking commercial for an insurance company showed him narrating an insurance claim, wearing headphones in an average American kitchen.

LaFontaine's strong, deep voice with its slight rasp betrayed no hint of his Duluth, Minnesota roots. He started doing voice over work in the '60s, and he recorded the trailers for more than 5,000 movies, along with thousands of commercials.

LaFontaine died Monday in Los Angeles from complications of a lung condition.

Seems it's the season for stars of a certain age to release memoirs.

Either on the shelf already or headed for bookstores are autobiographies from half a dozen stars, all well into their 70s and even older. And unlike Sean Connery's high-toned Being a Scot, several of these books promise to dish the celebrity dirt, just in time for Christmas!

I'm looking forward to Tony Curtis's American Prince and Roger Moore's My Word is my Bond. (Connery may have been the hottest 007, but Moore was the most amusing.)

Those two and books by Diahann Carroll, Robert Vaughan, Robert Wagner, and Christopher Plummer. Youngster and tanning champ George Hamilton, a mere 69 years old, will also have a book out. Here's a nifty roundup by David Smith of The Observer.

Carroll, still looking fab/Getty Images

If you're looking for a tell-all book about the life and loves of Sean Connery, or you want a whole lot of juicy details about the devastatingly handsome actor who personified James Bond and is the only man who ever stole a movie out from under Harrison Ford's perfect nose, Connery's new autobiography won't do the trick.

But if you want to know everything about Connery's passion for his native land, Being a Scot is probably just your cup of tea.

Connery has famously never let anyone write his biography, but agreed to this book, written with a filmmaker and architectural historian Murray Grigor. While it's full of stories about his life, reviews in the U.K. indicate the book is nothing too gossipy, or too Hollywood. It's all about his passion for his homeland, and it sounds quite entertaining. Let's hope he does the audio book himself, in that accent that can turn a strong woman's knees to water...

Connery at a book launch in Edinburgh, by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images

If you've been meaning to take in the hit Broadway play based on Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, looks like September just might be the month to do it.

The spy thriller is the best of Hitchcock's British-made films, and the play, a quick-change farce, has been a hit on both sides of the pond.

There's a whole slew of fun events connected with the play, including a showing of the newly remastered film and a short film competition cosponsored by the New York film Academy for would-be Hitchcocks to do satires/homages to the great director, entitled: How do You Mock Hitchcock?

And if you got the girth and the jowls, there's a Hitchcock lookalike contest. Send in a photo of yourself as the Master of Suspense. If you make it to the finals, you'll be invited to a performance of the play, and the audience will pick the winner.

BroadwayWorld.com has the details.

'39 Steps' producer Doug Denoff at the Drama Desk awards, by Joe Corrigan/Getty Images