ANSWER
"I'm sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service."
"At the tone the time will be..."
"Press 9 for more options."
For 40 years now, Jane Barbe has been the voice telling you the correct time and temperature, that you call could not be completed as dialed, or asking you to press 2 to listen to your voicemail. She began her unique career recording automated telephone messages for the Audichron company (now ETC) in 1963. Her voice has been used for "automated intercept" phone system messages, time and weather announcements (including the National Bureau of Standards' Time Signal), hotel wake-up systems, and voice-mail systems in the US and around the world. It is estimated that during the 1980's, her voice was heard 40 million times a day.
In a 1987 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she described how she began doing vocal work:
"Here I am, writing copy as a college graduate, but my spelling is atrocious. The first copy I wrote, a commercial for Big Apple [grocery stores], I took into my boss' office and asked, 'Since this is for radio, may I read it?' so he wouldn't see my spelling. So I read it. He liked it and asked me to do the voice work for it. That was my first radio commercial."
Jane Barbe, a lifelong resident of Atlanta, Georgia passed away July 18, 2003 at the age of 74.
WHO GOT IT RIGHT: JP Weigt, Pete Daggett, Andie J, Bob Milligan, Robin Campbell, Justin Maloska, Cindi Lou, Marika Thiessen, Scott Flaxman, Suellen Toudt, Kati Williams, Marc Quinlivan, Amelia Johnson, Steve Shuba, and Drew Sonetirot.
