Voices of the Spaghetti Western “2 RRRingos from Texas”

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 “2 RRRingos from Texas”

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

Franco Caterina – Franco Franchi (I) Franco Franchi, (G) Gerd Duwner

Sergeant Ciccio Stevens – Ciccio Ingrassia (I) Ciccio Ingrassia, (G) Herbert Stass

Bruce - Ennio Girolami (I) Luciano Melani, (G) Rolf Schult

Evelyn – Gloria Paul (I) Michele Kalamera, (G)

Sentenza Jane - Hélène Chanel (I) Gabriella Genta, (G) Brigitte Grothum

Union Captain - Livio Lorenzon (I) Vittorio Sanipoli, (G) Edgar Ott

Gerd Duwner  (1925 – 1996)

Gerhard ‘Gerd’ Duwner was born on November 15, 1925, in Berlin, Germany. He was a German actor, voice actor and radio play speaker.

Duwner completed classical acting training in Berlin. Despite early appearances at the Stralsund Theater, Berlin remained his artistic home, where he received engagements at various theaters. From 1955 onwards, Duwner worked increasingly in the dubbing of foreign-language films and remained one of the most sought-after voice actors until his death. The Deutsche Synchronkartei shows over 2200 dubbing works for Duwner.

With his high-pitched, roughened and slightly squeaky voice, Gerd Duwner became the dubbing actor of numerous comedians. These include Danny DeVito, Oliver Hardy and Chico Marx. Duwner was also the standard voice actor for Mickey Rooney

The plump, stocky Duwner was often used to dub actors who roughly corresponded to this body shape, including Ned Beatty, Charles Durning, M. Emmet Walsh, Peter Butterworth, Dom DeLuise, Burt Young, Kenneth McMillan, Wilford Brimley, Vincent Gardenia, Clifton James, Roy Kinnear, Donald Pleasence and Jack Weston.

His voice became particularly popular through series roles – such as Ernie on ‘Sesame Street’, Barney Geröllheimer in ‘The Flintstones’, as Chef Hop Sing in the Western TV series ‘Bonanza’ or as Deputy Sheriff Festus Haggen on ‘Gunsmoke’. He also voiced the mouse Bernard in ‘Bernard and Bianca – The Mouse Police’. In addition, Duwner worked as an actor in film and television productions, remembered above all as a cozy and epicurean inspector in the Berlin crime series ‘Direktion City’.

Gerd Duwner died of liver cancer on May 10, 1996, at the age of 70 in a hospital in Berlin.