Biography
Phil Dodds (1951–2007) was an American audio engineer and occasional actor. Working for ARP Instruments, he was on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) to install and manage the ARP 2500 synthesizer used to play the five alien tones. Director Steven Spielberg cast him in the part of Jean Claude after seeing him on set; he is also credited as ARP Musician.
He had previously supplied uncredited synthesizer and electronic sound effects for Logan's Run (1976). Dodds later served as vice president of research and development at Kurzweil Music Systems. His grandfather was Philip Van Horn Weems, founder of the navigational instruments firm Weems and Plath.
