Voices of the Spaghetti Western ~ “The White, the Yellow, the Black”

As we know most of the Euro-westerns were co-productions from Italy, Spain, Germany and France which incorporated British and American actors to gain a worldwide audience. The films were shot silent and then dubbed into the various languages where they were sold for distribution. That means Italian, Spanish, German, French and English voice actors were hired to dub the films. Even actors from the countries where the film was to be shown were often dubbed by voice actors for various reasons such as the actors were already busy making another film, they wanted to paid additional salaries for dubbing their voices, the actor’s voice didn’t fit the character they were playing, accidents to the actors and in some cases even death before the film could be dubbed.

I’ll list a Euro-western and the (I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German and (F) French, (E) English voices that I can find and once in a while a bio on a specific voice actor as in Europe these actors are as well-known as the actors they voiced.

Today we’ll cover “The White, the Yellow, the Black”

[(I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German (F) French, (E) English]

Giuliano Gemma (I) Pino Locchi, (S) Rogelio Hernández, (G) Thomas Danneberg, (F) Dominique Paturel, (E) ?

Tomas Milian (I) Tomas Milian, (S) Alfonso Santigosa, (G) Heinz Drache, (F) Gérard Hernandez, (E) Tomas Milian

Eli Wallach (I) Carlo Romano, (S) Joaquín Diaz, (G) Martin Hirthe, (F) André Valmy, (E) Eli Wallach

Manuel de Blas (I) Sergio Graziani, (S) José María Angelat, (G) Michael Chevalier, (F) Gérard Dessalles, (E) ?

ALFONSO SANTIGOSA [1917-1987]

Costa Rica born Alfonso Manuel Santigosa Serra (1/25/1917) was a classic of the Spanish dubbing the son of Manuel Santigosa and father of voice actors Nellie and Alfonso Santigosa, he made his triumphant entry into the world of Basque dubbing through a company located in Galdácano K2000 in May of 1987. With it came a lot of hours to double for the extinct Channel 10. He began his career in the 1940s at the aforementioned company, Santigosa, which at the time had an age requirement and more than that provided, took a course (mandatory for certain actors hired in June 1987) on adjustment and adaptation of texts, which was truly interesting despite the fact that the guests lost two weeks of their summer holidays in the effort. In that year, the holidays took place in the previously mentioned month.

Subsequently, Santigosa doubled and directed several of the films for the famous channel and when he cracked into the Spanish dubbing he disappeared and he was never seen again.

Santigosa had a special and somewhat outdated way of contemplating dubbing and their ways of leading in a room of veterans did not go over much with the idiosyncrasy of Basque, Madrid and Galician novel actors who swarmed around Euskadi at the time. But without a doubt, Alfonso left his mark and left no one indifferent to cross him.

Alfonso Santiago died in Madrid, Spain in October 25, 1987.