Bankrate: Is the upper end of the voice-over business very competitive?

Don LaFontaine: Oh, yeah. It's a highly desirable field to get into, and as with all actors, 95 percent of the work is done by 5 percent of the people, and the other 5 percent of the work is spread out over 95 percent of the people. That's the way it is, and that's the way everybody wants it to be, because everyone imagines themselves being part of that upper echelon, the 5 percent. It's a very, very competitive area. But it's not dog-eat-dog. I consider everyone I know in the business to be a friend.

Bankrate: What effect has the GEICO commercial had on your career?

Don LaFontaine: It's raised my visibility a great deal, and I've gotten more work because of that. One fed the other. The GEICO commercial raised my visibility, the visibility caused people like yourself and various television shows to want to talk to me, and that has raised the level of celebrity and notoriety even higher. This in turn was picked up by the producers of the trailers, who want to get the guy who's so important now. It's had a snowball effect.

Bankrate: Considering the level of your success, have you earned on a par with top Hollywood actors?

Don LaFontaine: I earn very well. I'm not making $20 million per year or per picture, but I live very comfortably, certainly.

Bankrate: Does the fact that you started in production mean that you were never a starving artist type, that you always made a living?

Don LaFontaine: When I started off, in 1963, I was making $75 a week in New York, which was not that bad because I think my rent was $90 a month. I never starved. I lived really close to the bone for a while, but I've always been very fortunate to be able to make a good living in this business.

Bankrate: Considering that you come from a business background, did that help you handle your money once you started earning well?

Don LaFontaine: No. I never had that sense, and never will. That's why I have people doing it for me. I have business managers that take care of all that stuff. My wife, thankfully, has a good head on her shoulders. I've always been very casual about it. It just always seemed to be there.

Bankrate: I saw an article a few years ago that said that you had a full-time limo driver.

Don LaFontaine: I've had a couple of limousines, over about a 10-year period, that would take me around all the time. That was the easiest way for me to service all my clients throughout the day. Before that time I was driving myself around L.A., because I was going from studio to studio to do my sessions. Or I was going from one network to another to a studio, and there would be, at one point, 26 different stops in one day. By the end of the day, trying to drive and park and concentrate, I'd be pretty clenched, and I couldn't really service my clients all that well. So in 1991, I think, I decided to get a limousine. I was concerned about what the reaction was going to be, but everyone was absolutely thrilled and delighted that I was showing up in a limousine. I did so for a number of years. I sold the car about three or four years ago.