Voices of the Spaghetti Western ~ “Bad Man’s River”

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 “Bad Man’s River”

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

Roy King – Lee Van Cleef (I) Giuseppe Rinaldi, (S) José María Cordero, (G) Holger Hagen, (F) Georges Atlas

Francisco Paco Montero – James Mason (I) Sergio Graziano, (S) Félix Acaso, (G) Paul Klinger, (F) William Sabatier

Alicia – Gina Lollobrigida (I) Gina Lollobrigida, (S) María Romero, (G) Marion Degler

Angel Santos – Simón Andreu (I) Angelo Nicotra, (S) Jesús Nieto, (G) Ivar Combrinck

Dolores – Diana Lorys (I) Vittoria Febbi, (S) Diana Lorys, (G) Viktoria Brams

Ed Pace – Gianni Garko (I) Cesare Barbetti, (S) José Martínez Blanco, (G) Berno von Cramm

Tom Odie – Jess Hahn (I) Carlo Romano, (S) Luis María LaSala, (G) Erik Jelde

BERNO VON CRAMM  (1934 -  )

Berno von Cramm was born in Göttingen, Germany on November 28, 1934. The son of Baron Burghard von Cramm and his wife Franziska b. Pulvermann. He is a nephew of the "tennis baron" Gottfried von Cramm. After school, he attended the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna from 1956 to 1959 and began his stage career in 1959 at the Nordmark Theater in Schleswig. As a freelance actor, he has appeared at the Städtische Bühnen Augsburg, at the Kleine Komödie München, at the Deutsches Theater München, Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, Theater am Kurfürstendamm, Berlin Theater an der Wien, at the Vereinigte Städtische Bühnen Krefeld and Mönchengladbach, among others at the State Theater at Gärtnerplatz Munich, State Theater Stuttgart and State Theater Berlin.

His numerous theater roles included Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Cléanthe in The Imaginary Sick , Horatio in Hamlet and Newton in The Physicists. On television he was seen on television game shows and series.

Berno von Cramm is also a busy voice actor who has been heard in the Star Trek series and the cartoon series Biene Maja, The Simpsons, Darkwing Duck and One Piece, among others. He was also the German voice of John Cleese as "The Almost Headless Nick" in the Harry Potter films Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). From 1993 he also lent his voice to "Miss Piggy" on the "Muppet Show".

From 1959 to 1961, Cramm's first wife was Maria-Christine Ptack, the daughter of actress Susi Nicoletti and Ludwig Ptack. In 1965 he married the choreographer and actress Irene Mann (1929-1996).