Voices of the Spaghetti Western ~ “Vengeance is Mine”

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 “Vengeance is Mine’ – 1967 (Johnny Forest) [as Gary Hudson]

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

Johnny Forest – Gianni Garko (I) Sergio Graziani, (S) Carlos López Benedí, (G) Horst Naumann

Clint Forest – Claudio Camasso (I) Pino Locchi, (S) Enrique Santarén (G) Fred Maire

Jurago – Piero Lulli (I) Bruno Persa, (S) Salvador Serrano, (G) Wolf Rahtjen

Jack – Carlo Gaddi (I) Luciano De Ambrosis, (S) Miguel Campos, (G) Wolfgang Weiser

Concalves – Fernando Sancho (S) Luigi Pavese, (S) Miguel Campos, (G) Bum Krüger

Anne – Claudie Lange (I) Rita Savagnone, (S) Milagros Fernández, (G) ?

Gary - Bruno Corazzari (I) Gianfranco Bellini, (S) Iñaki Alonso, (G) ?

Bruno Persa (1905 – 1983)

Bruno Persa was born in Gorizia, Italy on May 19, 1905 in Gorizia, which was then under Austrian domination. At nine years old, together with his mother and older brother Renato, he moved to Graz, where his father was imprisoned for his irredentist ideas, and lived in this city for the duration of the First World War. At the end of the conflict, in November 1918, Gorizia became part of the Italian territory and the complete Persa family was able to return to the city of its origin. Here Bruno resumed his studies and, after graduating from the physical-mathematical high school, he left for military service in Milan, where he heard the first calls of the stage and took an acting course, but did not complete it. Discharged with the rank of second lieutenant, he returned to Gorizia and found work, alongside his brother, in the family shipping company. At the same time, despite his shy and reserved character, he accepted the request of a local company and began his career as a theater actor between afternoon and evening performances in small towns.

After appearing in a few films, Persa was chosen by Nicola Fausto Neroni, dubbing director for the Warner Bros. film, to dub Humphrey Bogart in the film The Petrified Forest of. He again used his intense and velvety timbre for Bogart in The Man of Bronze by and The Oklahoma Kid, in the meantime came the Second World War. During the conflict, while Persa with the rank of captain, thanks to his knowledge of German, in the military foreign post office. At the end of the war, after marrying Isae Zamboni in 1942 and overcoming the death of his brother, Persa returned to dub Bogart in Casablanca, next to Giovanna Scotto, who did the voice to Ingrid Bergman. Between 1947 and 1949 he doubled the American actor in the films The Great Sleep, The Escape, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Dead End, The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, High Sierra, Key largo, The Enforcer, In a Lonely Place, Persa voiced the part of the character of Frank Lovejoy instead , while to lend the voice to Bogart was Emilio Cigoli, who had already had the opportunity to dub him in Dead Reckoning (he would have voiced it in almost all subsequent films).

He also doubled characters from the isney Classics, such as King Stephen in Sleeping Beauty and the Wizard Merlin in The Sword in the Stone. This activity gave him, in February 1970, a dutiful recognition by the International Animated Film Ceneter, which was followed in 1973 by a medal given to him by the CDC, the cooperative of which he had been one of the founders and to whom he had dedicated almost thirty ' years of his life.

Bruno Persa died on April 20, 1983.