The dubbing adventures of one-and-done dubber Don Stoneman

For most fans of English dubbing in Rome, the names we most closely associate with this industry are Ted Rusoff, Carolyn de Fonseca, Nick Alexander, Frank Von Kuegelgen, Susan Spafford, Pat Starke, Tony La Penna and others who spent some 40 to 50 years doing dubbing. The majority of people who were involved with dubbing in Rome were not on the scene for that long, however. If anything, the English dubbing world was like a revolving door of people – with some involved for a couple of years before moving on to something else, whereas others were only briefly roped into it while in town for some months. One dubber belonging to the latter category was Don Stoneman, a.k.a. E. Donnell Stoneman, a former New York stage actor turned director/producer who enjoyed a very short-lived foray into English dubbing when he was in Rome for a few months in 1963. What makes Stoneman’s brush with dubbing so interesting in spite of its brevity is that he chronicled his experiences in an article called “Film Dubbing Is Great Fun”, which was published in the newspaper The Charlotte Observer on 22 August 1965. The article provides such a fascinating and insightful look into the inner workings of the Roman dubbing world in the early 1960s that I’m posting it here in full (original typos and all) for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

 

Don Stoneman, now a Charlotte resident, spent some months in Rome working for a motion picture company. While there, he also found work dubbing English on Italian films. He is presently in the reservations department of Eastern Air Lines here.

 

By DON STONEMAN

The last time I had seen Curt Lowens was in Staunton, Virginia where we were performing THE ELEVENTH HOUR, a centennial drama based on the life of Woodrow Wilson.

Now, here we both were in the Piazza Navonna in the middle of ancient Rome, watching the camera crew, the director, Vittorio de Sica, and stars Sofia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni hard at work on the Rome segment of IERI, OGGI, DOMANI (“Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”).

I had arrived in Rome only a few days earlier and my work co-ordinating the production of an American film with an Italian film company was taking only a few hours a day, leaving plenty of time for exploration. My first stop was the Piazza Novonna where I ran into Curt.

Curt was just as surprised to see me and, hearing that I would be in Rome for the entire summer, suggested I join him at Fono Roma the next day. In addition to acting in films, Curt was a member of a small group of actors who supplemented their acting jobs with dubbing: they supplied the English voices for the many Biblical adventure films which the Italians were so fond of producing.

The next morning I joined Curt at the little outdoor cafe in the Piazza del Popolo where we had our capuchino. Then we walked a couple of blocks toward the river to Via Romagnosi where Fono Roma is located. This is the largest recording studio in all Italy – perhaps in all Europe – used exclusively for dubbing films. All Italian films are post-dubbed, that is, the sound is added after the filming is complete. This makes for simpler shooting, lower production costs and provides an understandable sound track for every region of Italy as well as for export to other countries.

Curt was dubbing a film into English. The director, an Irishman named Dick McNamara, had gathered a group of actors together who could play many parts. This was important because the actor was paid for the number of “loops” he did and the more parts he could play the more money he made.

 

Dubbing director Richard McNamara as he looked in the 1950s.

I was asked to stay after the dubbing session was over to read for the director. This suited me fine because it gave me an opportunity to observe and, contrary to what I had told McNamara, I had never set foot inside a dubbing studio.

It all looked rather frightening: a huge screen covered one entire wall; a microphone hung from the ceiling with a speaker’s stand in front of it. The film had been chopped into small pieces (about a minute’s length) and then spliced together to form a loop. These loops were then put on the projector and run over and over. The first time through the actor listened to the Italian sound track as he watched the action. He was not allowed a glance at the complete script, only his scene. The second time, the track was turned off and he listened to the Italian dialogue through a small receiver which he held to one ear. The third time he read his dialogue and tried to synchronize his voice with the lip movements of the actor on the screen. The fourth time it was recorded. A good dubber rarely needs a fifth take.

I was glad the studio was empty when it was time for me to audition. Everything seemed to happen at twice the normal speed. The screen seemed twice as large, the faces of the actors enormous. My audition scene was one of Roman conspirators plotting to assassinate some senator – a highly original plot, I thought – and my guy was one of the good guys. He tried to speak out against the plan but, not being much of a speaker, he was forced to show his disapproval by walking out of the council chamber. It wasn’t a long scene, my character did not have many lines… but he did have an enormous beard!

Holding the receiver tight to my ear, my eyes glued to where I thought the actor’s lips were, I was amazed to hear his voice long before I saw his lips move. The first take was no good.

The next time I watched for a hand movement or something that would indicate that a line of dialogue was coming. Sure enough, he was one of those actors who“telegraph”, announce by some little movement that they are about to speak. This worked so well that I at least finished at the same time as my Italian counterpart.

I thought it was a terrible job of synchronizing but McNamara seemed pleased. He introduced me to the producer, director and translator of the film and to my amazement they offered me the role of the arch villain, Burbak, in their next production GOLEO E LA SCHIAVA REBELE (“Goliath and the Rebel Slave”).

 

Goliath e la schiava ribelle, a.k.a. Goliath and the Rebel Slave, probably better known under its US television title The Tyrant of Lydia Against the Son of Hercules.

The cast had already assembled when I arrived the next morning. The part of Goliath, played on the screen by ex-Tarzan Gordon Scott (whose voice was not considered right for the role), was being read by a young blond dancer who arrived at the studio wearing abbreviated shorts, tee-shirt and sandals and carrying the standard small airlines canvas bag. I was surprised to hear he was Goliath and even more surprised when I heard his voice; deep, resonant, forceful but yet reserved, just what the director wanted.

The leading lady was a young English girl, an ex-handmaiden to CLEOPATRA which had just finished shooting in Rome. About a dozen others were cast in many varied roles, some doing as many as four or five parts.

Burbak was great fun; he was acted on the screen by an Italian John Carradine type; tall, thin with deep piercing eyes and a long black beard but fortunately no moustache so I had no difficulty watching his lip movements.

Orson Welles was absolutely right when he said all Italians are born actors. This one made the most of every scene, pausing before he delivered his lines, timing his entrances and exits. Once I caught on to his style he was easy and fun to follow.

 

Burbak (played by Giuseppe Fortis), the character dubbed by Don Stoneman.

The difficulty came in the large scenes where one tricky line could wreck the entire take. There was one spot where Burbak was giving orders to a band of soldiers. About five men where involved and one could not get his line on cue; we did that scene some thirty times and each take had to be as good as the first. This called for lots of patience and stamina.

I was rather sorry to see Burbak die and rather disappointed that he died so quietly. You’d think such a dyed-in-the-wool villain would at least have gone out protesting noisily. But when the dagger sank into his padded tunic, he merely dropped to the floor without so much as a groan or a gurgle. Nothing for me to do; the plump of the dagger and the rustle of the falling body would be added by the sound effects man at the final recording.

So my days as the voice of the villain ended and I left Rome without ever hearing – or seeing – the results of the dubbing sessions. But who knows, perhaps someday in a small-town drive-in or even in my own living room on the tiny silver screen of the television set I may finally find out what happened to Goliath and the Rebel Slave.

A few comments on the article

·      Stoneman refers to dubbing director Richard McNamara as an Irishman, which is incorrect. McNamara was actually an American – born in Lynchburg, Virginia. This error is likely a result of Stoneman writing his article around two years after his dubbing experience in Rome.

·      The article doesn’t identify the actor dubbing the voice of Gordon Scott by name, and only refers to him as a blond dancer with abbreviated shorts, tee-shirt and sandals whose deep and resonant voice surprised Stoneman. The actor who dubbed Scott in this film (and also in many others) was in fact Robert Sommer, one of the all-time great Rome dubbers whose career spanned more than 40 years. Contrary to Stoneman’s recollections, though, Sommer was not a dancer – he was an opera singer.

·      Stoneman’s path from audition to dubbing the part of the film’s arch villain might sound surprising, but dubbing actress Nina Rootes actually recounts a similar experience in her book Adventures in the Movie Biz (2013), with her initiation into dubbing being an audition for a small part for Richard McNamara, which led to her being promoted to dub the female lead because McNamara liked her voice. Such easy breakthroughs were apparently common in the old days, but this looks to have changed around the mid 1960s, when the scene had become more set, with established top dubbers and directors who each had their own favorites.