Ray Dolby, the sound pioneer whose systems changed moviegoing and music, died on Thursday in San Francisco. He was 80-years-old.
According to The New York Times, the company he founded, Dolby Laboratories, issued a statement confirming his death. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease several years ago and was diagnosed with acute leukemia last July.
On its Facebook page, the company said that his family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Alzheimer’s Association or the Brain Health Center.
SFGate.com notes that Dolby’s name became well known at first in the music industry, since he created a system that got rid of the static noise heard on tapes when copying music from vinyl. In the film industry, he is credited with allowing directors to envelop their audiences in sounds, making seeing Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind unique experiences for moviegoers in 1977.
His surround sound system was used for Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film A Clockwork Orange and became the industry standard. In the ‘80s, Dolby Labs introduced the system for home use.
“Dolby's work changed the way movies were made, because sound became a powerful artistic element, and you could do things with sound that had never been done before,” The Right Stuff director Philip Kaufman said.
The Portland, Oregon-born Dolby won an Oscar, a Grammy and several Emmys. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences also named the Dolby Theater, where the Oscars are handed out, after him.
image: Wikimedia Commons
