Carolyn Lila De Fonseca was born on June 25, 1929 in San Francisco, California. She was an American actress based in Ro Rome, Italy. She worked extensively as a voice actress for the English-language dubbing of several hundred foreign (mostly Italian) films from the early 1960s and onwards. She was also the wife of actor/voice dubber Ted Rusoff, [1939-2013] with whom she frequently worked.
De Fonseca first came to Rome in the early 1960s and tried to make a career for herself as an actress. She played a small role in the acclaimed “A Difficult Life” (1961), directed by Dino Risi, and had a supporting role as Chloe, the love potion maker, in the sword and sandal film “Damon and Pythias” (1962). She also had bit part roles in some big productions that did shooting in Italy, such as “Barabbas” (1961) and “The Pink Panther” (1963). She never really found much success as an actress, but she quickly became a prolific and successful voice dubbing artist.
Some of her earliest dubbing work was in the peplum films “Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules” (1961) and “Ursus in the Valley of the Lions” (1961), in which she provided the voice of actress Moira Orfei in the English dubbed versions of the film. Subsequently, De Fonseca dubbed a series of further peplum films, and she was also given the chance to dub the voice of American actress Jayne Mansfield in two of her European films which were post-synchronized without Mansfield's involvement: “Primitive Love” (1964) and “Dog Eat Dog” (1964). She also provided Mansfield's voice in the infamous quasi-documentary “The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield” (1968) which was released after Mansfield's death.
In the 1960s, De Fonseca dubbed many leading ladies into English, but eventually became more prolific in dubbing villainesses in various sword and sandal and horror films. After a supporting role in the caper film “Midas Run” (1969) with Fred Astaire and Richard Crenna, she would give up her acting career and focus solely on dubbing films into English. She specialized in voicing femme fatale characters such as the evil queen (played by Jany Clair) in “Hercules vs. the Moon Men” (1964), a bitchy tourist (played by Silvia Solar) in “Eyeball” (1975) and the deranged inmate Albina in “Women's Prison Massacre” (1983). She would also typically dub exotic figures or upper-class nymphomaniacs, such as a sex-hungry asylum patient (played by Rosalba Neri) in “Slaughter Hotel” (1971), and a sassy, black nightclub performer (played by Carla Brait) in “The Case of the Bloody Iris” (1972). De Fonseca would also sometimes deliver very over the top performances; dubbing the voices of sobbing and hysterical figures such as a paranoid asylum patient (played by Rossella Falk) in “Seven Blood-Stained Orchids” (1972), a sexually frustrated housewife (played by Carroll Baker) in “My Father's Wife” (1976), and a drug-addicted nun (played by Anita Ekberg) in “The Killer Nun” (1978).
As the Italian film industry was slowing down somewhat in the 1980s, De Fonseca resumed her career as a film actress in various American films that were shot in Rome, while still continuing to work with dubbing. On screen she played Christopher Reeve's secretary in “Monsignor” (1982), had a supporting role in the Pia Zadora film “The Lonely Lady” (1983), played a comedic role as an American tourist in “Detective School Dropouts” (1986) and finally appeared in Bernardo Bertolucci's “The Sheltering Sky” (1990). On television, she appeared in the highly acclaimed miniseries “The Winds of War” (1983). She also appeared alongside her real-life husband Ted Rusoff in the miniseries “Mussolini and I” (1985), in which they play the parents of Mussolini's mistress, Claretta Petacci, and played a supporting part in the TV movie thriller “The Fifth Missile” (1986).
Carolyn died in Rome in May of 2009.
De Fonseca, Carolyn [6/25/1929, San Francisco, California, U.S.A. – 5/?/2009, Rome, Lazio, Italy] – film, TV, voice actress, married to director, writer, actor, voice actor Ted Rusoff [1939-2013] (196?-2009).
Carolyn
De Fonseca’s Euro-western dubbing:
The Last Gun – 1964 [English voice of Lina Alberti]
The Lost Treasure of the Aztecs 1964 [English voice of
Dada Gallotti]
A Coffin for the Sheriff – 1965 [English voice of Fulvia
Franco]
A Place Called Glory – 1965 [English voice of Marianne
Koch]
$100,000 for Lassiter – 1966 [English voice of Pamela
Tudor]
Djurado – 1966 [English voice of Margaret Lee]
Ringo and His Golden Pistol – 1966 [English voice of Valeria
Fabrizi]
Sugar Colt – 1966 [English voice of Gina Rovere]
A Taste for Killing – 1966 [English voice of Rada
Rassimov]
Born to Kill – 1967 [English voice of Femi Benussi]
The Dirty Outlaws – 1967 [English voice of Dana Ghia]
Face to Face – 1967 [English voice of Lidia Aldonsi]
Killer Caliber .32 – 1967 [English voice of Hélène
Chanel]
God Forgives, I Don’t – 1967 [English voice of Gina
Rovere]
The Greatest Robbery in the West – 1967 [English voice
of Sarah Ross]
Kill the Wicked – 1967 [English voice of Maria Silva]
Black Tigress – 1967 [English voice of Lola Falana]
Turn I’ll Kill You – 1967 [English voice of Eleonora
Bianchi]
Two Faces of the Dollar – 1967 [English voice of Gabriella
Giorgelli]
Dead Men Don’t Count – 1968 [English voice of Maria
Martin]
Full House for the Devil – 1968 [English voice of Claudie
Lange]
God Made Them, I Kill Them – 1968 [English voice of Agnes
Spaak]
The Great Silence – 1968 [English voice of Marisa
Merlini]
Run, Man, Run – 1968 [English voice of Linda Veras]
The Great Silence – 1968 [English voice of Marisa Merlini]
The Man Who Cried for Revenge – 1968 [English voice of Evelyn
Stewart]
Once Upon a Time in the West – 1968 [English voice of Claudia
Cardinale]
Stranger Say Your Prayers – 1968 [English voice of
Cristina Penz]
Vengeance is My Forgiveness – 1968 [English voice of
Erika Blanc]
Viva Django – 1968 [English voice of Bruna Simionato]
Death on High Mountain – 1969 [English voice of Barbara
Carroll]
The Law of Violence – 1969 [English voice of Igli
Villani]
Night of the Serpent – 1969 [English voice of Chelo
Alonso]
The Wild and the Dirty – 1968 [English voice of Stefania
Careddu]
Sahdow of Sartana… Shadow of Your Death! – 1969 [English
voice of Franca Licastro]
Chapaqua’s Gold – 1970 [English voice of Linda Veras]
Sartana in the Valley of Death – 1970 [English voice of Pamela
Tudor]
Sartana’s Here, Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin – 1970 [English
voice of Erika Blanc]
The Crows and Buzzards Will Dig Your Grave – 1971 [English
voice of Maria Pia
Conte]
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Colt – 1971 [English
voice of Nuccia
Cardinali]
Kill Django… Kill First – 1971 [English voice of Diana
Lorys]
The Last Traitor – 1971 [English voice of Maily Doria]
Shoot Joe and Shoot Again – 1971 [English voice of Franca
Polesello]
Deadly Trackers – 1972 [English voice of Anita Ekberg]
Death is Sweet from the Soldier of God – 1972 [English voice
of Matilde Antonelli
Too Much Gold for One Gringo – 1972 [English voice of Irene
D’Astrea]
You’re Jinxed Friend, You’ve Met Sacramento – 1972 [English
voice of Krista Nell]
Behold the Strange, Stimulating Smell of Dollars – 1973 [English
voice of Rosalba Neri]
Karate, Fists and Beans – 1973 [English voice of Francesca
Romana Coluzzi]
Son of Zorro – 1973 [English voice of Dada Gallotti]
Tequila – 1973 [English voice of Agata Lys]
The Stranger and the Gunfighter – 1974 [English voice of
Patty Shepard]
White Fang to the Rescue – 1974 [English voice of Gisela
Hahn]
Get Mean – 1975 [English voice of Diana Lorys]
Apache Woman – 1976 [English voice of Ely Galleani]
Keoma – 1976 [English voice of Olga Karlatos]
California – 1977 [English voice of Paola Bose]
El Macho – 1977 [English voice of Malisa Longo]
Buddy Goes West – 1981 [English voice of Alessandra
Vazzoler]
Mexico in Flames – 1982 [English voice of Ursula
Andress]
Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold – 1983 [English voice
of Concha Marquez Piquer]
White Apache – 1986 [English voice of Beni Cardoso]
Scalps – 1987 [English voice of Beni Cardoso]
[submitted by Mike Ferguson]
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