Leo Chaloukian, Emmy Award-winning sound designer and former president of the Television Academy |

Diego Ramos Bechara

Angel (type) — Leo Chaloukian, multi-Emmy Award-winning sound designer and former Television Academy president, died July 18. He was 97.

Chaloukian won four national and two regional Emmy Awards during his 60-year sound career — he worked for Ryder Sound Service and later became the sole owner of the company for most of his career.

He has produced sound effects for National Geographic specials, David Wolper Productions documentaries, and Lassie, Death Valley Time, The Big Hunt, The Lone Ranger, Route 66, A Fistful of Dollars, and the Jacques Cousteau special.

Chaloukian also worked on the sound design for the 1967 film The Graduate and, with his team of audio engineers, created the sound design for the 1969 film Easy Rider.

The company also worked on the recording, re-recording and mixing of Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown, Saturday Night Fever and the first Star Trek film, as well as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tootsie and The Killing Fields.

Chalokian led the company to several Emmy Awards, including the Best Sound Emmy for the TV movie Crossfire in 1986. That same year, Ryder won an Academy Award for Best Sound for Platoon.

Chalokian sold Ryder to Soundelux Entertainment Group and became senior vice president of the company in 1997 before becoming a member of the American Film Institute’s board of directors in 1970.

He served as president of the Television Academy from 1989 to 1993 and was awarded the Syd Cassyd Founders Award in 2004 for his many years of service to the Academy.

“My dad was passionate about everything he did,” Chaloukian’s daughter, Kimme Chaloukian Black, said in a statement. “When he graduated from Belmont University with the Class of 2017, he said: ‘Find what’s in your heart and never give up. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t achieve your goals.’”

Born in Chicago on June 18, 1927, Chalokian moved to a ranch in Agoura Hills, California, in 1939. His parents immigrated to the United States to escape the Armenian Genocide. As a child, Chalokian trained horses for breeders and Hollywood stars, including Joel McCrea, and even won a few horse races in Tijuana.

After the Navy, Chalukian worked as a jeweler and acted in a few movies, but a director said he was more suited to working behind the camera. After visiting his cousin who worked as a mixer at Ryder Sound, Chalukian thought “this is a career full of possibilities.”

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