David Prince
Born in Dallas and raised in Knoxville, TN, David attended Bearden High School and The University of Tennessee, majoring in Advertising and Drama.
1972-74 UT Theater. Played Gabriel and tap-dancing fool in “Anything Goes”. The singing Young Knight in “The Canterbury Tales”. Advertising Manager, University of Tennessee Dailey Beacon.
1974 Six Flags Over Georgia, Atlanta; Singer/Dancer/MC/Elvis in the Chrystal Pistol live show, “America’s Passing Parade”. There he met his wife, Donna, who did the Dolphin Show there via Quinlan Marine Attractions.
1975 Married Donna and Hired by QMA. They performed dolphin shows together at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City and Marriott’s Great America in Santa Clara, CA until 1979.
1979 Moved to Los Angeles to Pursue acting.
1980 Co-starred in Gospel Films, “Kevin Can Wait” as David the Angel. It was one of the all-time top Christian film rentals and was named Picture of the Year by the Christian Film Distributor’s Association in 1981. David was named Best Supporting Actor.
1980 While taking the typing test at a temporary employment agency, Chiat/Day called and wanted someone to come right over. David spent the next 10 years at Chiat/Day working his way up from Creative Secretary, to Broadcast Secretary, to Broadcast Traffic, to Broadcast Business Manager and finally as Chiat/Day’s Voice-Caster and Radio Commercial Producer.
1985 David started doing significant voice-over work after signing with ICM under the industry leading agent at the time, Jeff Danis, and has been doing voice-overs ever since.
1990 David was stolen away from Chiat/Day to become 2nd Banana at Jim Kirby and Company (of Bert Barz & Kirby fame) and subsequently started his own radio commercial production company, David Prince Productions, inc. Business was booming until the great paradigm shift of 2000.
2000 The industry moved from analog to digital. No longer were advertisers limited to finding voice talent in LA, NY or CHI. With the advent of the mp3, voice tracks could now be emailed from anywhere in the world. Also in 2000, SAG and AFTRA went on a commercial strike to achieve pay per play on Cable TV (like Class A Network usage). As both Producer and Actor David came up with a plan called “C2K” which streamlined the talent payment process based on using a fraction of the media budget to help end the strike. It would have put talent payments in direct proportion to their exposure. Unfortunately C2K was not adopted, pay per play for cable was not achieved and the strike created a rift between the advertising industry and union talent. Overnight, along with many voice talent, he lost 90% of his voice-over work and, as a producer who used union talent, so went his production work as well.
2003 While coaching the church softball team, his second baseman, a master plumber, was complaining about how busy he was and how good help was hard to find. David started plumbing the next day and, after completing an apprenticeship, got his own California contractor’s license and started David Prince Plumbing. The work was physical, dirty and demanding and left little time to audition for voice-over work.
2018 David retired from plumbing and moved to Hickory, NC, where he now does voice-over work from his home studio.
