Voices of the Spaghetti Western – “A Man Called Gringo”

 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 “A Man Called Gringo”

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

Mace Carson - Götz George (S) Rafael de Penagos, (G) Götz George

Lucy Walton - Alexandra Stewart (S) Mari Ángeles Herranz, (G) Uta Hallant

Ken Denton - Helmut Schmid (S) Francisco Arenzana, (G) Helmut Schmid

Gringo – Daniel Martin (S) Juan Miguel Cuesta, (G) Rainer Brandt

Reno – Sieghardt Rupp (S) Benjamín Domingo, (G) Lothar Blumhagen

Kate Rowland - Silvia Solar (S) Josefina De Luna, (G) ?

Sam Martin – Pietro Tordi (S) Manuel De Juan, (G) Curt Ackerman

Rafael de Penagos  (1924 – 2010)

Rafael de Penagos was born in Madrid, Spain in 1924. He was a legendary Spanish voice dubber. He was the son of cartoonist Zalabarado Rafael de Penagos [1889-1954]. He made his film and dubbing debut in Barcelon in the early 1940s. He then moved and settled in Santiago, Chile and later Buenos Aires, Argentina where he published his first book of poetry. He returned to Spain in 1945 where he acted, gave poetry recitals and studied university courses. In 1964 he was awarded the National Literature Prize for his work Como pasa el viento. Being very gifted in comedy he was the voice of Stan Laurel for re-releases of Laurel and Hardy films to Spanish TV. He later was the voice of Jeremy Brett in the 1980s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ TV series. Later he would lend his voice to cartoons. Among his Spaghetti Western dubbing he was the Spanish voice of Marco Tulli in 1963's “The Shadow of Zorro”, Joachim Fuschsberger in 1964's “The Last Tomahawk”, Angel Del Pozo in 1967's “Run , Man Run”, Francisco Sanz in 1969's “The Price of Power” and Ezio Marano in 1970's “They Call Me Trinity” among others.

Rafael de Penagos died in Madrid on February 25, 2010, at the age of 85.