Leo Chaloukian, Emmy-Winning Sound Designer, Dies at 97

Leo Chaloukian, the Emmy- and Oscar-winning sound designer and former chair of the Television Academy, has died. He was 97.

The Television Academy said Chaloukian passed away on July 18 after working in sound design well into his 80s. He first worked at Ryder Sound Service in 1954, becoming an award-winning re-recording mixer and eventually the company’s owner in 1976.

Chaloukian and his staff at Ryder Sound earned four Emmys, including the 1986 Emmy for best achievement in sound for the TV movie Cross of Fire. They worked on sound for National Geographic specials, David Wolper Productions documentaries and classic TV shows like Lassie, Death Valley Days, Sea Hunt, Maverick, Route 66, Gunsmoke and Jacques Cousteau underwater diving specials.

On the movie front, Ryder handled recording, re-recording and mixing for Steve McQueen’s 1968 action thriller Bullitt, and Chaloukian personally oversaw sound design for The Graduate. With his staff of audio engineers, he also created the sound design for Easy Rider. Ryder additionally worked on movies like Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown, Saturday Night Fever and the first Star Trek franchise titles.

In 1986, Ryder won the Oscar for best achievement in sound for Platoon. Chaloukian also identified four gunshots in an audio recording of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and unwittingly supplied President Richard Nixon with the equipment for his infamous Watergate recordings.

In a 2001 Television Academy interview, Chaloukian recalled Ryder having received a call from someone at the White House in Washington, D.C. asking to purchase recording equipment, with no indication of what the technology would be used for. “They were going to hook it up with microphones. I guess they hid the microphones all over the place,” he recounted.

Born June 18, 1927 to parents who came to the U.S. due to the Armenian Genocide, Chaloukian moved with his family from Chicago to a ranch in Agoura Hills, California, in 1939. There he exercised horses for breeders and Hollywood stars, among them Joel McCrea.

His family eventually traded the ranch for Los Angeles, and 17-year-old Chaloukian, after graduating from Belmont High School, enlisted in the Navy during World War II. After his military service, Chaloukian worked as a jeweler and acted in a couple of films but eventually joined a cousin to work as a mixer at Ryder Sound.  

Chaloukian sold Ryder to the Soundelux Entertainment Group in 1997 and became the company’s senior vp. In 2000, Liberty Media Group acquired Soundelux, which became Ascent Media Group, Creative Sound Services and later a division of Discovery Communications known as CSS Studios LLC. Chaloukian continued as the company’s vp of business development, retiring shortly after the company’s 2014 spinoff to become Todd Soundelux.

For his years of service to the Television Academy, Chaloukian was honored with the Syd Cassyd Founder’s Award in 2004.