Jim Thornton is an American radio and television announcer and
voice actor
Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talent ...
. He is known for his voiceover work in video games, movies and television shows. Since 2011, he is best known for being the announcer of ''
Wheel of Fortune'' following the death of longtime announcer
Charlie O'Donnell.
Early life and education
Born in
Huntington, West Virginia, Thornton graduated from
Huntington High School in 1983 and then moved to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
in 1984 where he started his broadcasting career a year later. He also has a degree in linguistics from
Marshall University
Marshall University is a public research university in Huntington, West Virginia. It was founded in 1837 and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States.
The university is currently composed of nine colleges: ...
.
Career
Radio
Thornton is best known as the afternoon anchor on all-news radio
KNX 1070 in Los Angeles, having been promoted from traffic reporting. He has also announced on ''
Celebrity Deathmatch
''Celebrity Deathmatch'' is an adult stop-motion claymated series created by Eric Fogel and produced by John Worth Lynn Jr. for MTV. A parody of sports entertainment programs, ''Celebrity Deathmatch'' depicted various celebrities engaging in ...
'' and narrated a portion of ''
Monsters, Inc.''
Game show announcer
Thornton did substitute announcing work on ''
The Price Is Right
''The Price Is Right'' is a television game show franchise created by Bob Stewart, originally produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman; currently it is produced and owned by Fremantle. The franchise centers on television game shows, but also inc ...
'' following the death of former announcer
Rod Roddy
Robert Ray Roddy (September 28, 1937 – October 27, 2003) was an American radio and television announcer
An announcer is a voice artist who relays information to the audience of a broadcast media programme or live event.
Television and ...
. In December 2010, he auditioned for the same role on ''
Wheel of Fortune'' following the death of the show's announcer
Charlie O'Donnell, and was confirmed as the show's new announcer on June 13, 2011.
[Episode #5336, original air date December 20, 2010] Because of this job, Thornton has scaled back from his job at KNX.
Voiceover work
Thornton provided the voice of Johnny Gomez in ''Celebrity Deathmatch'' and the announcer in ''
The Cleveland Show
''The Cleveland Show'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Richard Appel, and Mike Henry for the Fox Broadcasting Company. A spin-off of ''Family Guy'', the series centers on Cleveland Brown, his new wife Donna Tubbs, and ...
''. He also appeared in video games, where he provided additional voice-over work for ''
Hitman: Blood Money'' and as a DJ in ''
Mafia II
''Mafia II'' is a 2010 action-adventure game developed by 2K Czech and published by 2K Games. It was released in August 24 2010 for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360. The game is a standalone sequel to 2002's ''Mafia'', and the second insta ...
''.
Filmography
TV series
Shorts
Movies
Video games
References
External links
More info on Jim Thornton*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thornton, Jim
American radio personalities
Game show announcers
Marshall University alumni
Wheel of Fortune (franchise)
Living people
People from Los Angeles
Actors from Huntington, West Virginia
Year of birth missing (living people)
Huntington High School (West Virginia) alumni