Voices of the Spaghetti Western ~ “Ramon the Mexican”

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 “Ramon the Mexican”

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

Ramon Morales - Robert Hunder (I) Glauco Onorato, (S) Antolín García

Esmeralda Baxter - Vilma Lindamar (I) Rita Savagnone, (S) Selica Torcal

Slim Baxter - Jean Louis (I) Cesare Barbetti, (S) Juan Lombardero

Lucas - José Torres (I) Nino Pavese, (S) Antonio Fernández Sánchez

John Baxter - Ferruccio Viotti (I) Arturo Dominici, (S) Víctor Valverde

Selica Torcal  (1932 -     )

Selica was born in Segovia, Spain on February 15, 1932. Torcal is the niece of the mezzo-soprano Selica Pérez Carpio [1900-1984]. She began her acting career in 1942 with Lope de Rueda Children’s Company. Since then, her professional career has focused mainly on dubbing, and she can be considered one of the most notable voice actresses on the Spanish artistic scene. She went through the actors' group of Radio Madrid, and participated in the Cadena SER, Teatro en el aire. Among the most remembered characters to whom she has given her voice, undoubtedly one of the most relevant was that of the girl Heidi in the famous Japanese cartoon series released in Spain in 1975. During this dubbing the actress was left hoarse, by combining it with the dubbing of other series in the same period. She had to be replaced from episode 21 by Marisa Marco. Because of this, it was rumored that she had become obsessed with the character, but the actress denied the rumor.

In cinema she participated in some films such as “Esa voz es una mina” (Luis Lucia, 1955), together with Antonio Molina, and participated in the dubbing of “Abuelo Made in Spain” (Pedro Lazaga, 1969); “Colorín, Colorado” (José Luis García Sánchez, 1976) and “El abuelo” (José Luis Garci, 1998), among others.