The Canadian actor who was the voice behind the supercomputer HAL 9000, in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has died.

Douglas Rain, who was also a pioneer of the Stratford Festival, died of natural causes on Sunday morning at St. Marys Memorial Hospital, the festival announced in a press release.

He was 90 years old.

In addition to voicing the sly sentient computer, Rain was also a member of the Stratford Festival’s founding company, and spent 32 seasons on its stages.

“Canadian theatre has lost one of its greatest talents and a guiding light in its development,” said Stratford Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino in the release.

“Douglas Rain was that rare artist: an actor deeply admired by other actors.”

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He was born in Winnipeg in 1928 and was a child actor on CBC radio, before attending the University of Manitoba and studying at London’s Old Vic theatre school.

During the festival’s first season in 1953 Rain played Marquis of Dorset and Tyrrell in Richard III, and went on to play parts such as Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII (1961) and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night (1966).

He even played a human Hal, prince Hal that is, in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1958. Although it was voicing the computer in 1968’s sci-fi 2001: A Space Odyssey that made the biggest impression on audiences.

The fictional precursor to real-life AI assistants Alexa and Siri, HAL 9000’s, calm, detached presence unsettled generations of moviegoers. The New York Times reported in March 2018 that Kubrick had heard Rain in a 1960 documentary called Universe and thought he was “perfect” for the part.

“The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting,” the paper reported Kubrick wrote in a letter now in his archives.

The director had already tried out an actor from the Bronx but found he sounded “a little bit too colloquially American,” according to the Times.

The Hal 9000 computer refuses to obey an order from Bowman (Keir Dullea) by simply responding in monotone, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Rain, with his Canadian accent that Kubrick thought sounded “bland mid-Atlantic,” was just right.

HAL made his stamp on popular culture, versions of him have appeared on everything from the Simpsons to South Park.

But Rain had a deep respect for director Stanley Kubrick and actively protected the computer character’s legacy from exploitation, turning down many commercial requests to do the voice, according to his colleagues at the Stratford Festival.

“Douglas shared many of the same qualities as Kubrick’s iconic creation: precision, strength of steel, enigma and infinite intelligence, as well as a wicked sense of humour,” said Cimolino in the release.

“But those of us lucky enough to have worked with Douglas soon solved his riddle and discovered that at the centre of his mystery lay warmth and humanity, evidenced in his care for the young members of our profession.”

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Rain performed on Stratford stages until 1998, cast in roles including Macbeth (1978) with Maggie Smith as Lady Macbeth, and Humpty Dumpty in Alice Through the Looking Glass (1994), with Sarah Polley.

He also had more than a hundred film and TV credits to his name, and was nominated for a Tony Award for his role as William Cecil in Vivat! Vivat! Regina! in 1972, the release said.

The actor is survived by his two sons, David and Adam (with first wife Lois Shaw), his daughter Emma (with second wife Martha Henry), granddaughter, Salima, and daughter-in-law, Asira, according to the release.

The festival will dedicate the coming season’s production of Othello to his memory.