---
name: "Phil Dodds"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/phil-dodds"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "17 May 1951"
died: "6 October 2007"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
updated: "2026-09-16T21:13:12.147684+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Phil Dodds

Actor. Born 17 May 1951 in Coronado, California, USA. Died 6 October 2007.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 17 May 1951, Coronado, California, USA
- **Died:** 6 October 2007

## 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.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Close Encounters of the Third Kind* (1977), Fi1m 85, as ARP Musician — [page](https://film.one/film/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/phil-dodds