Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Voices of the Spaghetti Westerns ~ “John the Bastard”

 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 “John the Bastard”

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

 

John Donald Tenorio – John Richardson (I) Sergio Grazioni, (S) Dionisio Macías

Don Francisco Tenorio – Claudio Camaso (I) Aldo Giuffre, (S) Ernesto Aura

Dona Antonia – Martine Beswick (I) Rita Savagnone, (S) Julia Gallego

Sara – Luisa Della Noce (I) Anna Miserocchi, (S) Carmen Contreras

Papa Buck – Claudio Gora (I) Bruno Persa, (S) Luis Posada Mendoza

Danite – Gordon Mitchell (I) Massimo Foschi, (S) Juan Antonio Fernández Abajo

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ernesto Aura  (1940 – 2008)

Ernesto Aura León was born in Barcelona, Spain on January 28, 1940 and began his career as a radio actor and debuted in the world of dubbing in 1959 at the hands of Felipe Peña for the Barcelona studios, Voz de España (Voice of Spain). In 1970 he moved to Madrid where he also pursued a career as an actor on several television dramatic programs on RTVE. In the mid 70's he returned to Barcelona to focus on his career as a voice actor.

His powerful and very serious voice was ideal to dub many of the "tough guys" who came out on the big screen. His most popular voice acting role was that of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ernesto dubbed several of Schwarzenegger's films for their release in Spain and his voice became easily associated with Schwarzenegger's personalities on the screen

He was also the voice of internationally acclaimed actors such as Martin Sheen, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Plummer, James Coburn, Tommy Lee Jones and Laurence Fishburne. His first major role was dubbing Richard Widmark in “Panic in the Streets”. He dubbed Sheen's character, Roger Strong, in the 2002 film “Catch Me If You Can”, Christopher Plummer's character, Raymond Alden, in “Wolf.” Tommy Lee Jones' character, Harvey Dent in “Batman Forever” and Laurence Fishburne's character, Morpheus in “Matrix” among many other roles. 

On November 4, 2008, Aura died of cancer in Barcelona at the age of 68. With his death, he left a legacy of being one of the greatest masters of interpretation and one of the best dubbing voices in Spain.

 

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