Voices of the Spaghetti Westerns ~ “The Big Gundown”

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 Big Gundown”

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

Jonathan Corbett – Lee Van Cleef (I) Renato Turi, (S) Claudio Rodríguez, (G) Christian Marschall, (F) Jacques Deschamps

Manuel ‘Cuchillo’ Sanchez – Tomas Milian (I) Pino Locchi, (S) Juan Logar, (G) Klaus Kindler, (F) Gérard Hernandez

Brokston – Walter Barnes (I) Bruno Persa, (S) Benjamín Domingo, (G) Klaus W. Krause

The Widow – Nieves Navarro (I) Rita Savagnone, (S) Mercedes Mireya, (G) Rosemarie Fendel

Baron von Schulenberg - Gérard Herter (I) ?, (S) Rafael De Penagos, (G) Gérard Herter

Chet Miller – Angel del Pozo (I) Cesare Barbetti (S) Juan Miguel Cuesta, (G) Wolf Rahtjen

RENATO TURI (1920 – 1991)

Reanto Turi was born in Florence, Italy on May 12, 1920. He was considered an important figure in Italian dubbing. At an early age, Turi visited many theatres across Italy with his parents before later moving to Rome. He felt a great desire to perform on stage during those visits. During the outbreak of World War II, Turi served at the airport in Elmas, Sardinia. When it was bombarded by American forces, Turi was seriously injured, resulting in his leg being amputated. As a result, he had to give up his dreams as a theatre actor.

Nevertheless, Turi pursued an acting career in film, television and radio, acting in over six films and starring in many television productions. Despite his inability to make a stage appearance, he served as the voice of God in the 1973 musical comedy Aggiungi un posto a tavola. His voice was then re-recorded for later performances even after his death.

Turi was more successful as a voice dubber. He was the founder of the dubbing society SEDIF and he made frequent collaborations with other dubbers including Giuseppe Rinaldi, Wanda Tettoni, Oreste Lionello, Gianfranco Bellini and Emilio Cigoli. Turi often provided the Italian voices of Walter Matthau, Lee Marvin, Christopher Lee, Telly Savalas, Lee Van Cleef, John Carradine, Lionel Jeffries, Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, Livio Lorenzon and Arthur Kennedy in most of their movies. In Turi's animated roles, he voiced Jasper in the Italian version of One Hundred and One Dalmatians as well as Edgar in the Italian version of The Aristocats.

Turi died in Rome on April 5, 1991 just one month before his 71st birthday. Turi's family members held important positions within the dubbing company which he founded.