Peter Thomas (announcer)

Peter Addenbrooke Thomas (June 28, 1924 – April 30, 2016) was an American announcer and narrator of television programs and advertisements.

Possessing a "Smooth and silky baritone" voice, Thomas enjoyed a career spanning more than 70 years, and was best known as the narrator of TV shows such as Forensic Files and Nova.

Thomas was born in Pensacola, Florida, to British parents John D. Thomas and Sybil A. Thomas.

John was a Presbyterian minister from Wales, and Sybil a schoolteacher from England.

In 1943, Thomas volunteered for the United States Army and served with the First Infantry Division in five major campaigns of World War II, including the Battle of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.

He was a recipient of the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the French Croix de Guerre, and Belgian Fourragère.

Thomas began his career at 14 as an announcer on a local radio show.

After his World War II army service, Thomas attended college under the G.I. Bill, but left to take a television announcer job in Mobile, Alabama.

The following year, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he was the star of the comedy program The Unhandy Handyman.

Thomas married his high school sweetheart, Stella (née Barrineau) Thomas, on June 29, 1946; she died on June 16, 2014.

In 1951, he took a television job with WCBS in New York, working primarily on newscasts.

In 1962, desiring to work on documentaries and commercials, Thomas left CBS to work as a freelance narrator.

Paul Hardcastle's 1985 song "19" made use of extensive samples of Thomas's voice, taken from the 1982 documentary Vietnam Requiem.

The song topped the charts in twelve countries, and Thomas was paid royalties for the use of his voice.

Of his many awards, Thomas was most proud of his Academy Award for narrating the HBO documentary One Survivor Remembers, chronicling the experience of Gerda Weissmann Klein, who was interned at the Nordhausen concentration camp.

The couple raised three children (Peter Jr., Douglas, and Elizabeth) in Greenwich, Connecticut, and in 1985, they settled in Naples, Florida.

He was heavily involved in work with veterans, having served on the board of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation and in other similar roles.

Having been involved in liberating Nordhausen, Thomas also was a strong supporter of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; he narrated the museum's original audio tour and documentary.

Thomas was best known for narrating all 403 episodes of the series Forensic Files from 1996 to 2011.

He also voiced thirteen episodes of the science documentary series Nova and the underwriting credits of Nature, both for PBS.

Thomas worked extensively in commercials, voicing advertisements for American Express and Cool Whip among countless others.

Thomas died on April 30, 2016, at the age of 91.

He was memorialized at the end of the first episode of Forensic Files II which aired on February 23, 2020.