Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Spaghetti Western English Speaking Voice Actors ~ George Gonneau

 

George Andre Gonneau Jr. was born in New York City on October 31, 1925. He started his career as an actor but turned to voice dubbin in the late 1950s with Titra Studios in New York City. During his long career at the Titra Sound Studios, Gonneau became the regular choice to dub Steve Reeves in the Italian epics. This was because both actors had similar voices, but Gonneau possessed the better dramatic conviction. As with other voice actors at Titra, Gonneau had to sign a secrecy clause since the studios did not want fans to know that their star was speaking with someone else's voice. The Reeves fan club knew the truth, however, and affectionately nicknamed the mystery dubbing artist as "The Consistent Voice." After taking over the dubbing of Reeves on “Hercules” (1958), Gonneau continued to dub him on “Hercules Unchained” (1959), “Goliath and the Barbarians” (1959), “The Giant of Marathon” (1959), “Morgan, the Pirate” (1960), “The Thief of Baghdad” (1961) and “Sandokan the Great” (1963). For reasons best known to Titra, Gonneau was selected to dub friend-of-the-hero Verus in the Reeves epic “The Slave” (1962).

Apart from his visits to Italy, Gonneau and his family lived in Paris from 1965 onwards whilst he worked for Avco Embassy Pictures. They returned to New York in 1975. On one occasion, George's son Daniel Gonneau (born in 1961) was invited to the Titra studios to dub one of the children's parts. However, whilst Daniel went on to do boat building in Maine, his cousin Jackie Gonneau born in 1962 (daughter of George's brother Pierre) became an accomplished voice actress in her own right.

GONNEAU, George [10/31/1925, New York City, New York, U.S.A.- 1/22/1997, New York City, New York, U.S.A.] – director, writer, film, TV, voice actor, dubber.

 George Gonneau’s Euro-western dubbing:

Fistful of Dollars – 1964 [English voice of Antonio Prieto]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – 1966 [English voice of Antonio Casas]

 

Submitted by Mike Ferguson

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