Voices of the Spaghetti Western “The Man Who Came to Kill”

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 “The Man Who Came to Kill”

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

Doc MacGregor - Karl Möhner (S) Rogelio Hernández, (G) Carl Möhner

Slade Carroll - Luis Dávila (S) Manuel Cano, (G) Günter Strack

Pablo Reyes – Fernando Sancho (S) Fernando Sancho, (G) Stanislav Ledinek

Norma O'Connor – Gloria Milland (S) María Luisa Solá, (G) Renate Schmidt

Brogas Nephew - Óscar Pellicer (S) Miguel Ángel Valdivieso

Mayor Brogas – Umberto Raho (S) Miguel Alonso, (G) Günther Ungeheuer

Günter Strack  (1929 – 1999)

Günter Strack was born on June 4, 1929. After graduating from high school, Strack studied at the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart with Paul Riedy and Lilly Ackermann. In 1949 he made his debut as Ferdinand in Schiller's Kabale und Liebe at the Theater Oberhausen, followed by engagements in Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, Nuremberg and Hanover, among others.

By the time of his death, he had appeared in over 400 different roles in theatre, film and television. One of the highlights of his career was working with Alfred Hitchcock on the feature film “The Torn Curtain”. He gained great popularity through television series such as ‘A Case for Two’, ‘These Drombuschs’, ‘With Body and Soul’ and ‘The King’. He also took part in the episode series ‘Hessische Geschichten’.

Furthermore, Günter Strack was active as a dubbing actor and lent his voice to internationally known colleagues such as Edward G. Robinson, Spencer Tracy and Orson Welles. He voiced William Conrad in the US television series ‘Cannon’ and ‘Nero Wolfe’ and Obelix in the Asterix film “Operation Hinkelstein”. Not only because of his penchant for Hessian dialect roles, Strack also became a popular folk actor.

On June 28, 1996, Strack suffered a stroke, followed shortly afterwards by an enterococcal infection. After his recovery, he made the film “Dr. med. Murder”, the last film in the series “The King”. On the evening of January 18, 1999, Günter Strack died of heart failure at the age of 69.

From 1958 until his death, Strack was married to Lore Hennig [1936–2014], a daughter of Arno Hennig, who brought a son Michael [1956- ] into the marriage. From his marriage to Lore Strack, they had a daughter, Susanne Dorothea Titze [1959- ].