Ken Hiller was the warm, inviting voice of radio’s ‘Star Wars’ and much more

By the time Ken Hiller was asked to narrate George Lucas’ “Star Wars” trilogy for National Public Radio in 1981, he had already voiced hundreds of commercials across the country. But the broadcast, which set listening records for the network — 750,000 people tuned in — cemented his national profile.

“People in the industry wanted him to move to L.A., but he wanted to raise his children in the Twin Cities,” said Marge Morton Hiller, his widow.

A voice-over artist who worked as a disc jockey, studio engineer, radio narrator and in-demand adman from the 1970s through the 1990s, Hiller died July 13 in Gulf Breeze, Fla. He was 77.

“His voice was stunning,” said Shirley Venard, veteran voice-over artist, actor and teacher who worked with Hiller. “He smoked, as we all did in those years, so there was a tiny raspiness in his sound, which was rich, warm and inviting.”

Hiller used his bass-baritone to sell products for a raft of companies, including General Mills, 3M and Montgomery Ward. He also did voice-overs for industrial films.

The second of two boys born to engineer Fritz Hiller and municipal employee Lily Hiller, he graduated from Stratford (Conn.) High School in 1956, then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. After his discharge, he visited his older brother, Wayne, a serviceman stationed in Hawaii.

“Hawaii had only recently become a state, and things were open and wild there,” said Marge Hiller. “Ken answered an ad and became a radio disc jockey for a sister station of KDWB,” the longtime Twin Cities pop radio station. He also started a production company, hosted a local TV game show (“Hiller’s Chiller”) and appeared in the 1960s action series “Hawaii Five-O.”

The family ended up in Milwaukee, where he had relatives. “Someone suggested he visit Minneapolis,” said Marge Hiller. “He looked up ‘recording studios’ in the Yellow Pages, then walked into one and was hired on the spot.”

In Minnesota, Hiller joined Lipservice, the Minneapolis talent guild whose founders included Venard, Peter Michael Goetz, James Lawless and Allen Hamilton. He also divorced, with primary custody of his children.

Hiller remarried in 1974. “I was working as a community service officer in city hall in Mound and he came in to pay his water bill,” said Marge Hiller. “I knew he was trouble.”

His interests included cutting gemstones, brewing craft ales and spending time on his boat near his home on Lake Minnetonka’s Tonka Bay, where he lived for three decades before moving to Florida in 1998.

Over the years he suffered periodic strokes — 16 in all, according to his wife. The last, in 2013, robbed him of his ability to speak, though his sonorous voice lingers on in YouTube-archived tracks such as “The Immortal Kiss of the Vampire.”

Venard, who was often paired with Hiller for readings in the studio, said work sometimes was unglamorous. She recalled recording test lectures for a CPA exam.

“If you want to read something that could make you put a gun to your head, that was it,” she said. “But I took Ken’s lead and we found ways to make it interesting and inviting. He was the voice-over king.”

A private memorial will be held later in Minneapolis.