Voices of the Spaghetti western – “7 Magnificent Pistols”

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 “7 Magnificent Pistols”

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

Timothy Hollister Benson – Sean Flynn (S) Manuel Cano, (G) Randolf Kronberg, (F) Pierre Vaneck)

Sancho Rodrigo Rodriguez – Fernando Sancho (S) Fernando Sancho, (G) Bum Krüger, (F) Jacques Hilling)

Coralie - Evelyn Stewart (S) María Luisa Solá, (G) ?, (F) Martine Sarcey

Slim – Daniel Martin (S) Daniel Martin, (G) Claus Jurichs, (F) ?

Bert – Frank Oliveras (S) Rogelio Hernández, (G) Rolf Schult, (F) Michel Gatineau

Corky – Poldo Bendandi (S) Estanis González, (G)            Martin Hirthe, (F) Georges Aminel

Abel – Tito García (S) José María Caffarel (G) Hans Walter Clasen, (F) Albert Augier

Brett Colton – Spartaco Conversi (S) Miguel Alonso, (G) Arnold Marquis, (F) Serge Nadaud

Grey Eagle – Rafel Albaicin (S) José María Caffarel, (G) Klaus Miedel, (F) Jacques Deschamps

Sheriff Coleman - Antonio Almorós (S) Antonio Almorós, (G) Siegfried Dornbusch, (F) Roger Rudel

Randolf Kronberg  (1942  2007)

Randolf Kronberg was born on September 23, 1942, in Breslau, Poland. Kronberg trained as an actor with Herbert Maisch in Frankfurt am Main and at the Actors Studio New York. From 1964 onwards, engagements took him to the Schiller and Schlosspark Theatre in Berlin. From 1974 to 1981 he was also active at Kurt Hübner's Freie Volksbühne.

Kronberg appeared in front of the camera in “Die Versöhnung” (ZDF, 1971) by Jochen Ziem, in “Der aufrechte Gang” (1976) by Christian Ziewer, in the literary adaptation “Stern ohne Himmel” (1980) by Ottokar Runze and as a guest actor in the ZDF series “Derrick, Siska and Der Alte” (The Old One).

Kronberg entered the dubbing business in 1965. He played his first leading roles as the German voice of Bruce Dern in the youth film “The Wild Angels” (1966), Humphrey Bogart in the gangster film “Who Owns the City?” (1936, dubbed 1967), John Phillip Law in the Italo western “Death Rides a Horse” (1967), John Lennon in the animated musical film “Yellow Submarine” (1968) and Ryan O'Neal in the melodrama “Love Story” (1970) and in the road movie “Paper Moon” (1973). At the beginning of the 1980s, he made recurring appearances for Oscar winner William Hurt, including in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1985), “God's Forgotten Children” (1986) and “The Good Shepherd” (2006). In cinema productions such as “Mississippi Burning” (1988), “Tom & Viv” (1994) or in his Oscar-nominated role as Max Schreck in “Shadow of the Vampire” (2000), he also translated Willem Dafoe into German several times.

In 1982, Kronberg dubbed the American actor Eddie Murphy for the first time in the action comedy “Only 48 Hours”. The dubbing director Jürgen Clausen cast him after Kronberg had proven his talent for fast-talking in the Munich artists' pub Simpl. Due to his ability to over-the-top his otherwise deeper and more mature sounding voice and adapt to Murphy's fast flow of speech, Kronberg remained his regular German voice actor until his death in 2007. He dubbed Murphy over a period of 25 years in more than 30 cinema productions, most recently in the slapstick comedy “Norbit”. In a radio interview from 2002, Kronberg explained that he was not particularly happy with his signature role. The necessary charging had increasingly put a strain on his voice as he got older, and he had not been able to identify with Murphy's films for a long time.

Kronberg died in Munich on March 2, 2007, before the start of the voice recordings for “Shrek the Third”, in which he was intended for the dubbing of the donkey, as in the previous films “Shrek” (2001) and “Shrek 2” (2004).