The sound of Robert A. Heinlein’s voice

Jesse Willis Commentary

SFFaudio Commentary

Something has been bothering me. It’s been bothering me for years actually.

One commenter, a long time ago, brought it to my attention, wondered if there was a recording of Robert A. Heinlein’s voice out there, somewhere.

I’m thinking Heinlein on tape is just incredibly rare.

I actually have a lot of H.G. Wells’ voice on audio. Why do we have so little Heinlein?

I’ve heard a couple of very brief clips of Heinlein speaking, but honestly they are really just pathetic.

Apparently, Heinlein did commentary during the Apollo 11 landing. I can’t find that online.

Here’s all the online audio of Heinlein that I know about so far:

Robert Heinlein comments on the political motives behind his stories. |Zipped WAV File|

13 Seconds of Robert A. Heinlein speaking about the Apollo 11 moon landing. |Zipped WAV File|

Two sentences of Robert A. Heinlein on Stranger In A Strange Land |FLASH|

Here’s a YouTube biography of RAH (set to the tune of Battlefield 1942):

And while we wait for your replies, (my flimsy excuse), I present the Battlefield 2 intro sequence:

Satellite coming down in 3, 2, 1…

UPDATE:

Check out this wonderful video a 1949 group interview from the set of Destination Moon! Robert A. Heinlein is there, on set, as he served as a technical adviser.

Heinlein appears at about 5 minutes into Part 1. He reappears again, briefly, at the end of Part 3.

Update II:

Robert A. Heinlein’s “This I Believe” |MP3|

[immeasurable thanks to Bill Mullins, Robert, Bill Higgins and CrowTRobot1313]

Posted by Jesse Willis

9 thoughts to “The sound of Robert A. Heinlein’s voice”

  1. You may not be using the right search terms. When I used “heinlein” and “recording”, this CD on Amazon came right up.

    But I agree that those fans with audiotapes, etc., of oldtime science fiction events seem not to be making them known to the rest of us. I had no idea the Forrestal Lecture had been recorded, much less that I ought to go looking for it sometime.

  3. Thanks for the clips. I was looking for any sort of interview or voice-recording from him a few weeks ago and was shocked and confused as to why I couldn’t find any. Is there any known reason for this, or was he just a hermit (not that there’s anything wrong with that)?

  4. I have a couple of clips you don’t — one of him speaking about Kansas City, and another with him saying he was flabbergasted. Do you want them? I made them MP3’s.

  6. Over here:

    http://www.heinleinsociety.org/thsnexus/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=438

    I saw this:

    “Some kind bootlegger known as CrowTRobot1313 has uploaded this 1949 interview to Youtube in three parts:

    Part 1: http://youtu.be/wwidtTnlGJA
    Part 2: http://youtu.be/R_7VrcG6naM
    Part 3: http://youtu.be/vz94nrnunVw

    Heinlein himself appears about 5 minutes into Part 1 to answer a few questions. He reappears briefly at the end of Part 3, but doesn’t really say anything interesting. However, I find the whole tour of the set fascinating.

    (Apparently Youtube has purchased a Belgian domain, in order to shorten their URLs. Cute trick. Alas, no country has an ISO abbreviation of “NS,” so I will not be buying the “higgi” subdomain.)
    _________________
    Bill Higgins
    [email protected]
    http://beamjockey.livejournal.com“

  8. Thank you for posting Heinlein’s voice! I really wanted to hear it, and there it is. Maybe that’s what a Missourian accent is like. (I’m on the East Coast, so wouldn’t know.) Thanks again.

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