Voices of the Spaghetti Western ~ “The Price of Death”

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 Price of Death”

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

Mr. Silver – Gianni Garko (I) Giancarlo Maestri, (S) Francisco Valladares, (G) Manfred Schott, (F) Michel Barbey

Chester Conway – Klaus Kinski (I) Virgilio Gazzolo, (S) Ramiro Oliveras, (G) Werner Uschkurat, (F) ?

Judge Atwell – Alfredo Rizzo (I) Roberto Villa, (S) Rafael Torres, (G) Leo Bardischewski, (F) ?

Reverend Tiller – Giancarlo Prete (I) Rino Bolognesi, (S) Ángel Rodríguez, (G) ?. (F) ?

Banker Randall – Luigi Casellato (I) ?, (S) Antonio Requena, (G) ?, (F) Alain Dorval

Doc Rosencrantz – Alan Collins (I) ?, (S) Manuel Bellido, (G) Manfred Lichtenfeld, (F) ?

VIRGILIO GAZZOLO  (1936-    )

Virgilio Gazzolo was born in Rome, Italy on September 7, 1936. He is the son of actor Lauro Gazzolo [1900-1970] and the brother of actor Nando Gazzolo [1928-2015]. After abandoning his medical studies, he made his theater debut in 1960 and began his career playing the title role in Dalton Trumbo's " Il più gran ladro della città" at the Manzoni Theater in Milan, directed by Gianfranco De Bosio. Subsequently he contributed to founding the first historical Roman theater "cellar" (The Teatro dei 101), preferring avant-garde works and authors such as Arrabal and Pinter, Corrado Augias, Giorgio Manganelli. Immediately after the experience of the 101 he returns to the official theater interpreting for the first time in Italy a text by Samuel Beckett "Tutti quelli che cadono", starring with Paola Borboni, under the direction of Beppe Menegatti, at the Teatro Stabile in Florence and at the Milan's Odeon Theater. In 1967 he played Osborne's "Luther", under the direction of Menegatti, which earned him the most prestigious recognition of theatrical criticism of those years, the San Genesio Award for best leading actor, attributed to him in competition with Vittorio Gassman and Tino Buazzelli.

On television he played the role of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1975 miniseries The War at the Peace Table.  In 1973 Roberto Rossellini entrusted him with the leading role in the film "Leon Battista Alberti".

He is still active with carefully chosen and masterfully interpreted roles (recently in Dante told by Boccaccio, or in Ecclesiastes).

As far as dubbing he can be heard as the voice of Robert Woods, Klaus Kinski, Eduardo Fajardo, Gene Hackman and Dan Vadis in various films.