Robert Lydiard: Dubbing dolphins and Fellinis!

 

Out of all the countless films dubbed into English throughout the years, one of the most famous of them all is for sure Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical tale Amarcord (1973) which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Many of the great English dubbers of Rome can be heard in the film, but the central role of the young schoolboy Titta (played on-screen by Bruno Zanin) was however not dubbed by any of the of the Rome regulars. Instead, Titta’s voice was provided by the very successful American theater actor Robert Lydiard, and in this newspaper article from The Miami Herald (September 11, 1980) that I’ve managed to dig out, we get the full story on how Lydiard’s voice work on the bizarre talking-dolphins thriller The Day of the Dolphin (1973) brought him to the attention of Fellini. Enjoy!

 

An Actor’s Resumé: ‘Speaks Dolphin in Five Languages’

by Bob Curtwright, Knight-Ridder News Service

 

Bob Lydiard is an actor whose voice is probably more familiar than his face.

Of course, to America’s TV-watching youngsters, he is famous as Burger King’s Sir Shake-a-lot during Saturday morning commercials.

But to their movie-going parents, he created a sensation in 1973 as the voice of the dolphin in Mike Nichols’ The Day of the Dolphin.

Constricting his vocal chords to produce a tiny, high-pitched but clear voice, he (as Alpha, the dolphin) and the human star, George C. Scott, carried on conversations that made audiences wonder whether that intelligent sea animal really could talk.

 

Poster for The Day of the Dolphin, featuring what has to be one of the best taglines ever!

 

The dolphin whose voice Robert dubbed.

 

Interestingly, Lydiard also carried his talents to Europe, where he dubbed the dolphin’s voice in four other languages. None of the other “actors” did.

“I wasn’t really fluent in all the languages, but you don’t have to be when you’re dubbing,” he recalled of the Spanish, Italian, French and German versions. “But I have an ear for dialect, so I picked it up quickly.

“Besides, who knows what a German dolphin is supposed to sound like? Most of the dubbing was for Alpha, but I also did Beta, his mate.

“Of course, I had to put a tutu on my voice,” he said with a laugh, lapsing into an example of that unique sound, one that might be described as a pre-pubescent Donald Duck.

Lydiard utilized that same voice for The Desert Song when his character, a bumbling reporter, tried to disguise himself hilariously as a harem girl. With surprisingly clear projection, his “helium voice”, as he calls it, was a comic touch few could deliver.

Lydiard is known as a master of character voices. After working in commercials for six years professionally, he has developed a considerable repertoire. But he insists that there should be no limit, because his distinctive voices are really combinations that he pulls from his vocal bag of tricks.

“We can start with something like my gravedigger,” he said, dropping into a gravelly, husky voice, “and combine that with the no-teeth sound. Then, how about adding a Scottish accent? Or, maybe a Boston accent,” he said, refining the characterization with each slight change. The results are startlingly effective and often hilarious.

While his “cartoon” voices are a staple of his American work, Lydiard noted that he has dubbed perhaps a dozen feature foreign films into English, most of them originally Greek or Italian.

He considers his finest project the Oscar-winning Amarcord, a bittersweet memoir by Federico Fellini. Fellini hired Lydiard because of his Italian work with Dolphin and had him dub the lead character, a youth patterned after Fellini.

“It’s hard to learn to dub. Either you can do it right away, or you can’t do it. You have to have a feeling for it because it is so instant. You have to memorize, then watch the film and then tape. You do it in ‘loops’, but it’s still bang, bang, bang.”

 

Robert Lydiard provided the English voice of Bruno Zanin in Amarcord.

 

Take a look at the video below for a little sample of Robert Lydiard’s dubbing work in Amarcord:

 

 

A Floridian who made it to New York in 1968 after graduate school in Detroit, Lydiard went straight to work, succeeding Gary Burghoff as the lead in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

But he also experienced the fickleness of the Great White Way when his 1971 Broadway show, Johnny Johnson, folded after a single performance.

Undaunted, he plunged into a 1976 national tour of Hello, Dolly! with Carol Channing and eventually went to Broadway successfully with it.

Oddly, while his major stage successes have been musical comedies, Lydiard says his forte really is straight drama – “gutsy stuff”.

“But that’s not generally what I’m hired for. Don’t get me wrong, I love the roles, but I’m a little scared I’ll always be looked at as the nice little boy next door,” he said with a reference to his 5-foot-4 size. “And, after you pass 30, well…”

Lydiard, who says he has no intention of succumbing to the Mickey Rooney burnout, has an ace up his sleeve if all else fails to get him dramatic roles. He is a playwright, and he may just write a vehicle for himself. He already has penned one about a grandson and grandmother putting each other through college.

“But I also want to expand into directing and producing. I’ll never be sorry I’m associated with musical theater, but I just don’t want to stagnate.”

 

Robert Lydiard in 1987.

 

Some brief thoughts on the article

While it would seem that the Amarcord gig was a bit of a one-off thing for Lydiard, who went back to the US and continued his career in theater, the mention of him having dubbed a dozen or so Greek and Italian films into English is very interesting. Where exactly did he dub those films? In the US? Or could it be that he was called back to Rome for the odd dubbing assignment here and there? Something to look into...