Francis Lax (April 16, 1930 - March 13, 2013) was a French actor and voice actor.
He was famous for voicing either rebellious, casual or comical characters. He dubbed a number of actors several times, including Gene Wilder (Blazing Saddles, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother), Gene Hackman (such as Lex Luthor in the Superman film series), Harrison Ford (Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and Indiana Jones in The Temple of Doom), David Soul (Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson in Starsky & Hutch), Tom Selleck (Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I.), Chuck Norris and Gavin MacLeod (Captain Merrill Stubing in The Love Boat). He was also a replacement voice for the Cryptkeeper in Tales from the Crypt.
Animation-wise, his best known role was probably Shaggy Rogers in the various installments of the Scooby-Doo franchise between 1969 and 1997. Others included the first ever French voice for Optimus Prime in Transformers (First Generation series), Klunk in Wacky Races, Brainy Smurf and Clumsy Smurf in The Smurfs, and some supporting characters in the Disney Animated Canon.
Tropes & Trivia in his works:
- The Other Darrin: Lax replaced Claude Giraud (who did Raiders of the Lost Ark) as Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Himself was then replaced by Ford's most prolific dub actor Richard Darbois in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (and Darbois also replaced Lax as Han Solo in The Force Awakens since he'd passed away in 2013).
