Michelangelo
‘Michele’ Malaspina was born on August 16, 1908 in Genova Bolzaneto, Liguria,
Italy. His family were merchants and he came to acting at a young age, joining
an amateur dramatics troupe run by Alfredo Sainati. Before he was eighteen he
became a professional actor with the
company.Malaspina then became a radio actor with EIAR in Turin. Starting in the mid-1930s he became a character actor used in supporting roles. His popularity grew in the 1950s and 1960s by his performances in several RAI productions such as ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy (1960).
Equipped with a voice that sat well with a deep tone, Malaspina became a highly sought after voice actor dubbing for ODI, CID, ARS / Roman synchronizers and SAS, among others, he was the Italian voice for the following actors: Abraham Sofaer (“Quo vadis”), Bartlett Mullins (Peeping Tom), Fernando Villena (Planet of the Vampires), Geoffrey Weeks (Enter the Dragon), George Kennedy (The Tin Star), John Crawford (Sky Enforcer), Nerio Bernardi (Fanfan la Tulipe), Robert Coote (Theatre of Blood), Ronald Fraser (Jungle Fighters) and Shogo Shimada (Tora! Tora! Tora !).
Malaspina appeared in over 80 films and TV appearances but only two Euro-westerns: “The Dream of Zorro” (1951) as Perez and “The Two Sergeants of General Custer” (1965) as General Lee. As a voice actor he can be heard as the Italian voice of Frank Wolff in “The Great Silence” (1968), Last of the Badmen” (1967) and “Sartana the Gravedigger” (1969).
Malaspina died in Rome on January 13, 1979. Today we remember him on what would have been his 105th birthday.
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