Voices of the Spaghetti Western – “Samson and the Slave Queen”

 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 be 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 “Samson and the Slave Queen”

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

Zorro/Ramon – Pierre Brice (I) Cesare Barbetti, (S) Juan Antonio Arroyo, (G) Herbert Stass, (F) Gabriel Cattand

Samson/Maciste – Alan Steel (I) Glauco Onorato, (S) Luis Bajo, (G) Rainer Brandt, (F) Claude Bertrand

Malva – Moira Orfei (I) Rita Savagnone, (S) María Massip, (G) Rosemarie Fendel, (F) Jacqueline Rivière

Isabella de Alazon, von Nogara - Maria Grazia Spina (I) Maria Pia Di Meo, (S) Yolanda Mateos, (G) ?, (F) Anne Carrère

Rabek – Andrea Aureli (I) Sergio Tedesco, (S) Ruperto Ares, (G) Benno Hoffmann, (G) Jean Violette

Garcia de Higuera – Massimo Serato (I) Renato Turi, (S) Antonio Esquivias, (G) Helmo Kindermann, (F) Raymond Loyer

CESARE BARBETTI  (1930 – 2006)

Voice dubber Cesare Barbetti was born on board a ship docked in Palermo, Sicily, Italy on September 29, 1930. He was very active on radio for EIAR and ARI in Rome on a variety of programs for over 70 years. In films he became the official Italian voice of Robert Redford and there-in lies his fame. He was also the Italian voice of such actors as Robert Duvall, Warren Beatty, Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, James Caan, George Peppard, Jon Voight, Roger Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Alain Delon, Paul Newman, Donald Southerland, Michael Caine and Jerry Lewis. He was also the Italian voice of Carl Sagan for the TV series “Cosmos”. Barbetti voiced such Spaghetti western actors as Nazzareno Zamperla in “Blood for a Silver Dollar” (1965), Jordan Christopher in “Return of the Seven” and was the voice of the doctor in “Three Graves for a Winchester” both in 1966, Carlo Gaddi in “The Nephews of Zorro” (1968) and for Gianni Garko in “Bad Man's River” (1972). In 2002 he was awarded the 6th plate Gualtiero De Angelis by the Voices of Dubbing. Cesare died in a car accident on September 13, 2006, in Lucca, Tuscany, Italy at the age of 76.