Voices of the Spaghetti Western - “Dead Men Don’t Count”

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 “Dead Men Don’t Count”

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

Fred Danton – Anthony Steffen (I) Pino Locchi, (S) Claudio Rodríguez, (G) Michael Chevalier 

Johnny – Mark Damon (I) Cesare Barbetti, (S) José Guardiola, (G) Fred Maire

Mrs. Rogers - María Martín (S) Lola Cervantes, (G) ?

Steve Rogers – Luis Induni (I) Manlio Busoni, (S) José María Cordero, (G) Hans Wiegner

Forrest – Barta Barri (S) Pedro Sempson (G) Wolfgang Amerbacher

Sheriff Bob – Piero Lulli (I) Roberto Bertea, (S) José Martínez (G) Edgar Ott

Wolfgang Amerbacher  (1921 – 1970)

Wolfgang Amerbacher  was born in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany on November 2, 1921. He received his artistic training at the State Academy of Art in his hometown and also made his stage debut in Karlsruhe in 1951. Until 1955 he had an engagement at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. The ARD radio play database lists him for the first time in 1952 with a small role in a radio play, then again in 1961. It was not until the mid-1960s until his death that he worked regularly as an actor and speaker, and his dubbing activities were particularly extensive. In 1970 he starred in the play “Das Geld liegt auf der Bank” by Curth Flatow directed by Erik Odes at the Kleine Komödie in München.

Amerbacher made his television debut in 1966 in an episode of the ARD early evening series ‘Förster Horn’, after which he sporadically took on other tasks for television, such as in the series ‘Die Firma Hesselbach’ and ‘Das Kriminalmuseum’.

In addition to a series of radio plays, Amerbacher was a busy dubbing actor with numerous speaking roles since the mid-1960s. He repeatedly lent his voice to foreign colleagues in the series ‘Bonanza’ and ‘Tennis Rackets and Cannons’, and in feature films he was often the German voice of the American actor Jason Wingreen. Amerbacher also dubbed German colleagues several times.

Two days after the completion of the filming of the series Private Detective Frank Kross, on November 30, 1970, Wolfgang Amerbacher passed away by suicide.