My talks with Roger Browne [Part 2 of 12]

 

Dubbing in Rome

By Johan Melle

May 29, 2026

JM: Can you do a little rundown of the many great dubbers who were active on the Roman scene during the 1960s and 70s?

RB: So many people from that era have passed on. One director was Ted Rusoff, who always used his favorite dubber on leads… himself! Sometimes I got a bone. But we were friends. He was married to Carolyn de Fonseca, good actress, dubber and sala assistant.

Frank Latimore did a lot of leads in the early 1960s; I last saw him on Patton (1970), which I was also in uncredited along with Mel Gaines, another actor dubber. Dan Sturkie was good and worked a lot after we got him off pills. Ed Mannix, a writer, and Bob Sommer, opera singer, were both good dubbers. Mike Forest was a good friend, actor and dubber. We played a lot of tennis together, as did I with Frank Wolff, and with Larry Dolgin. Tony Russo was president of ELDA for a while and was often busy filming.

The busiest female dubber was probably Susan Mueller, actress who did not act. May have had a fling with Ugo Tognazzi. Other leading female dubbers were Linda Gary; Jodean Russo, Tony’s wife; and Peggy Nelson. Sally Amarù was another girl who was good, pushed by John Fonseca, writer and sala assistant. Another was Joan Rowe, who Ted Rusoff had a fling with before marrying Carolyn, or maybe even after. Silvia Faver was English and good. Uti Hof was German, accented. I used her when I translated, wrote and directed many episodes of the cartoon Calimero (1970) for a fellow from Milano.

English actors who worked for us were John Stacy, Roland Bartrop, John Steiner, even Edmund Purdom a bit. And Charles Borromel, who was Scottish – good actor, bit of a flake.

Meyer Glickman directed the dubbing of Dustin Hoffman’s Alfredo, Alfredo (1972). Other directors were Gino Bardi, Lew Ciannelli, Bob Spafford (who married Susan Mueller), Dick McNamara and Gene Luotto, one of the best – did all the Terence Hill and Bud Spencer films. Gene and Lew cast honestly and that’s why they got the best films.

Gene did his funny little accented characters and he was good. Mel Welles did older guys. Curt Lowens did Nazis. Nona Medici did older women… maybe in more ways than one. Other older femmes who dubbed were Gisella Mathews, Cicely Browne, Louise Lambert and Irene Guest, a singer.

Some others were Jay Riley, wild man entertainer – Afro. Chrystel Dane was on the fringe. Also Shirley Herbert – tiny voice. Yvonne Pizzini was a young voice. Chuck Howerton dubbed me in The Black Hand (1973) with Lionel Stander, with whom I beat Ty Hardin and his partner at tennis. Ty was an asshole. No extra charge for that.

Carol Danell is another name I remember. Which reminds me of Sylvia Daneel, a Polish actress who worked at the Polish embassy in Rome and did some dubbing.

Frank Gregory, writer, was a nice man – roomed with Frank Latimore. Camilla Trinchieri was a good sala assistant, worked with Lew Ciannelli. Gene’s little cousin, Clementina, was the sala assistant on his films.

I left Rome in July 1980, so anything after that I know nothing. The market for English dubbed films dwindled in the 1980s and I think ARA closed the office and was handled at home by Frank von Kuegelgen and Leslie La Penna.

JM: How did you first end up working with dubbing? Was there an auditioning process to go through for roles?

RB: When I first got to Rome, I found The Daily American, local rag. The paper had an article about dubbing and ELDA and a number to call. Spoke with Rhoda Billingsley, after filming It Happened in Athens [shot in 1960; released in 1962], and she put me in Two Women (1960) for crowd noises – a group of American soldiers marching and singing. Sophia Loren won the Oscar for that film in 1961.

Directors sometimes auditioned for roles if they weren’t sure who to use, or if there were new people they hadn’t heard.

JM: I realize that most of these films were dubbed fairly quickly one after another, but do you have any specific memories of other films or actors that you dubbed?

RB: My first real dubbing job was a Hercules film with Reg Park [Hercules Conquers Atlantis (1961)]. Bill Kiehl with the six-ball voice dubbed Reg, Frank Latimore did the second lead, and then I did Luciano Marin.

George Higgins gave me my first lead, dubbing Guy Stockwell, brother of the more famous Dean.

I usually did actors around my age, 30 to 40-45. I did Giuliano Gemma once. I did Tom Skerritt. Brad Harris. Richard Harrison.

Rodd Dana and I dubbed a film for Mark Savage [One Night at Dinner, a.k.a. Love Circle (1969)]. Rodd did Jean-Louis Trintignant and I did Lino Capolicchio with sort of an androgynous accent. Fun stuff. Johan, the things you are making me remember!

I also did quite a bit of Italian dubbing when they needed foreigners speaking Italian. One nice gig was dubbing John Phillip Law in the Nino Manfredi episode in Alta infedeltà (1964). I played him as being a little light in the loafers. They seemed to like it and I realized I was speaking Italian quite well if I could speak, act, and sync in it.

[Roger got his first dubbing break as the voice of Luciano Marin in Hercules Conquers Atlantis (1961).]

[Lino Capolicchio in One Night at Dinner (1969), one of the few individual roles Roger remembered having dubbed, but unfortunately, the English dub is currently not available anywhere.]

[Roger dubbed John Phillip Law in Italian (but with an American accent) in Alta infedeltà (1964). The film was also released in English under the title High Infidelity.]

JM: Guy Stockwell was the first lead you dubbed? In Three Swords for Zorro (1963), I presume?

RB: Johan, you are a font of information! Of course, Three Swords for Zorro! I have these things written down someplace, but since my wife died my interest in things has waned. Interestingly enough I had Guy Stockwell as a patient years later while working as a physical therapist right here in Burbank. He didn’t like to hear that I had dubbed him. They never do. Terence Hill was offended that he had to be dubbed, but he would have sounded funny with his Peter Lorre voice. It never bothered me being dubbed. I was glad someone got a gig.

Dubbing was a strange bird. I usually dubbed guys like me, 6 ft 175/180 who could move. Maybe not act, but that’s where dubbing often saved the film. Worst film I ever did was The Three Centurions (1964). My English script was terrible! I decided to do it in Italian and let the Italian dubbers deal with it. I doubted it would ever be sold for English distribution. Ralph Zucker, a little a-hole distributor, got it and didn’t even call me to dub myself, which I couldn’t care less about because he wouldn’t have paid me. So, I think he got Frank Latimore, who he had to pay.

[To be continued]