‘Voices: The Danny Gans Story’ captures the life of the Cal Poly alumni through his son’s eyes

Danny Gans spent his life honing his voice as a tool to bring joy and entertainment into other people’s lives.

Five nights a week, he headlined the Las Vegas Strip, transforming into an array of different icons through his spot-on vocal impressions. More than a decade after his death, his son, Andrew Gans, used  his own voice to tell his fathers story.

“Voices: The Danny Gans Story,” written and directed by Andrew Gans, tells the story of Danny’s rise to fame while simultaneously exploring his ambitions as an entertainer and the raw emotions surrounding his  death in 2009. 

The San Luis Obispo International Film Festival will be showing the intimate documentary on April 25, 26 and 27. 

Bringing “Voices: The Danny Gans Story” to San Luis Obispo was important to Andrew, as his father was an alumni of Cal Poly, and the school played a large role in his father’s life. 

“That’s where my dad really started to work on his voices and his comedy. He would perform, get up on a table, and sing and do some impressions for his friends and get the whole dining hall laughing and cheering along with him,” said Andrew Gans. 

Both Andrew and his mother, Julie Gans, will be attending the festival screenings, which happen to be at the end of the film’s tour, “It’s just very fitting.”

Through his wide range of vocal impressions and strict dedication to his craft as an entertainer, Danny Gans had climbed his way up to a spot as a Las Vegas headliner.

At the end of Danny’s life, ads for his show were inescapable on the strip, and it was not uncommon for his performances to sell out or for the audiences to give a standing ovation. 

Andrew Gans unfolds his father’s story using a collection of personal interviews he conducted himself. Through these interviews, Andrew learned more and more about his father’s legacy and eventually uncovered hard truths concerning the performer’s death.

Andrew decided to include his confrontation of these “unprocessed emotions” and tough realities as a part of the documentary. The intense emotions on display bring another level of intimacy into an already incredibly personal project.

But why is “Voices: The Danny Gans Story” worth watching?

According to Andrew, “The film makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you think, it’s very entertaining. You get to see one of the greatest Las Vegas entertainers that ever lived at the height of his career and you get to learn a lot about life, about legacy. I think anybody can relate to this story and the fact that we’ve all lost someone and we’ve all tried to navigate how to grieve and how to process loss. But we’ve all strived to do things in our lives that are very challenging as well.”