Voices of the Spaghetti Westerns ~ “A Train for Durango”

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 “A Train for Durango”

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

El Gringo – Anthony Steffen – (I) Giuseppe Rinaldi, (S) Juan Miguel Cuesta, (G)

 Manfred Schott

Lucas – Enrico Maria Salerno – (I) Enrico Maria Salerno, (S) Claudio Rodríguez, (G)

 Gerd Duwner

Brown/Samuel Lee Barrett/Elias MacPherson – Mark Damon – (I) Massimo Turci,

 (S) Juan Logar, (G) ?

Helena MacPherson – Dominique Boschero – (I) Fiorella Betti, (S) Mercedes Mireya,

 (G) ?

Lobo – Roberto Camardiel – (I) Carlo Romano, (S) Teófilo Martínez, (G) ?

‘The Chief’ – José Bódalo – (I) Corrado Gaipa, (S) José Bódalo, (G) ?

Giuseppe Rinaldi  (1919 – 2007)

Giuseppe Rinaldi was born in Rome, Italy on September 14, 1919. He appeared in over 22 films between 1939 and 1982. During his time, he was considered of be one of the greatest and influential actors and dubbers in Italy. He was the official Italian voice of Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Rock Hudson and Paul Newman. Other actors he voiced include Peter Sellers, Van Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Ford, David Tomlinson, Richard Burton, George Peppard, Burt Lancaster, Charles Bronson, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, Jeffrey Hunter, Max von Sydow, James Dean, Peter O'Toole, William Holden, Christopher Plummer, Michael Caine and Charlton Heston
In Rinaldi's animated film roles, he voiced Pongo in the Italian dub of the 1961 animated film “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” as well as Prince Charming in the Italian version of “Cinderella”. Other animated dubbing roles included Jim Dear in “Lady and the Tramp”, The Great Prince of the Forest in the 1968 redub of “Bambi” and Dallben in “The Black Cauldron”.
Rinaldi was once married to actress Marina Dolfin [1930-2007]. They had two children together; Massimo [1952-    ] and Antonella [1954-    ]. From his second marriage to actress Maria-Pia Casilio [1935-2012], they had one daughter; Francesca [1972-    ]. All three of his children are voice actors.
Giuseppe Rinaldi retired in 1997 and died on December 15, 2007 at the age of 88.