English dubbing in Paris

 

With this post I’ll be taking a closer look at the English language dubbing industry in Paris. A bit off topic for this blog you might be thinking, but as it happens, there was quite a bit of overlap in terms of dubbing personnel between the dubbing scenes in Rome and Paris, and that, coupled with the fact that a significant number of important films from both Italy and the rest of the world were dubbed into English in Paris makes the Parisian dubbing world worthy of closer study. Unfortunately, English dubbing in Paris is, if anything, an even more esoteric subject than English dubbing in Rome, with very little effort having been made to preserve its history or to identify its participants. It is therefore high time to try to rectify that situation.

Just like Italy, France is traditionally a ‘dubbing country’, having adopted the practice of dubbing films into French rather than subtitling them ever since the 1930s. The first few wavering steps to get an English dubbing industry started were also taken during that decade, and at the forefront of this work was British expatriate Richard Heinz, who first became involved in the business through French language dubbing in Paris sometime in the 1930s, teaming up with French dubbing expert André Norevo and establishing the dubbing company Heinz & Norevo. The 1930s was a period in which French cinema gained much international recognition, with several films and directors receiving acclaim at film festivals and award ceremonies around the world, and by the end of the decade, Heinz and Norevo decided to try to benefit from the growing popularity of French productions by branching out into English language dubbing. The lack of available English-speaking actors in those days, however, made it impossible to get an English dubbing venture started in Paris, or elsewhere in France for that matter, thus forcing the duo to look for opportunities abroad. According to an article in the French film magazine La Cinématographie Française in 1938, Heinz and Norevo ended up going into business with UK-based producer Oscar E. Wetzel, and the three of them set up the English dubbing company Wetzel Ltd. in London.

There, they quickly went to work, and the first French film Richard Heinz dubbed into English in London was Julien Duvivier’s Un carnet de bal, a.k.a. Life Dances On (1937), which was recorded at Highbury Studios. La Cinématographie Française’s London correspondent, Pierre Autré, was allowed to observe the dubbing sessions, and not only was he duly impressed by the work of the English voice actors – none of whom had any prior experience with dubbing – but he even reported after viewing some of the finished reels that one gets the impression of watching a genuine English film.

 

Despite being dubbed in London, the English version of Un carnet de bal marked an important stepping stone in the evolution of the English dubbing scene in Paris.

Alas, Richard Heinz and André Norevo’s English dubbing ventures in London do not appear to have been particularly long-lived. The reason for this is not known, but the ravages of WW2 and the impracticality of operating one dubbing company in London and another in Paris may both have been factors. What is certain, however, is that in 1948, Richard Heinz established his own dubbing company called Lingua Synchrone in Paris. Unlike the earlier Heinz & Norevo company, Lingua Synchrone was a bilingual dubbing company that dubbed films into both French and English, and it appears to have played a major part in getting the snowball slowly but steadily rolling for English dubbing in Paris.

 

Advertisement for Richard Heinz's company Lingua Synchrone in Variety (April 26, 1967).

Throughout the 1950s, the Parisian English dubbing industry grew and flourished, and by the early 1960s, Paris had been established as one of the world’s leading centers for English language dubbing. The 1960s was a particularly prosperous period for English dubbing as US television audience’s voracious appetite for product led to thousands of low-budget European genre films being dubbed into English in near-conveyor belt fashion in both Paris and Rome.

Many Italian pictures became beloved cult favorites thanks to regular rotation on American TV and continue to be readily available in their English dub versions today, but sadly, the same is not true for most French films. The perception of French films as more highbrow than their Italian cousins has resulted in English dubs of French movies being a lot less well preserved than the English dubs of Italian movies, and this undeniably impedes on the possibility of creating a comprehensive overview of the English dubbing scene in Paris – a situation that certainly isn’t helped by Blu-ray companies who routinely opt to not include English dub tracks on their releases of French films.

Fortunately, much material does survive, however, as English dubbing in Paris was in no way limited only to French films. According to the 1966 Variety article “Reverse Twist on Dubbing Pix”, French films actually only made up about 35% of the total product dubbed into English in Paris. The rest of the dubbing work consisted primarily of films from Italy (30%) and Germany (20%), with the final 15% being made up of films from all over the world, be it Russia, Japan, Sweden etc. Italian films dubbed in Paris include both prestige projects such as Federico Fellini’s The Nights of Cabiria (1957), Elio Petri’s The 10th Victim (1965) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the Last 120 Days of Sodom (1975), as well as a number of gothic horror films, spaghetti westerns and Eurospy films; whereas the German films dubbed in Paris include all of the Jerry Cotton movies, the Dr. Mabuse sequels, many of the Edgar Wallace krimis, not to mention countless silly sex comedies.

 

Akiro Kurosawa's legendary samurai film Yojimbo (1961) is one of the most famous international films to have been dubbed into English in Paris.

 

Renato Polselli's The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960) was one of several Italian gothic horror films to be dubbed into English in Paris. This publicity still from the film's US release depicts the two vampires played by Walter Brandi and Maria Luisa Rolando, whose voices were dubbed by Duncan Elliott and Barbara Sohmers, respectively.

 

The Horror of Blackwood Castle (1968) was one of the many famous Edgar Wallace krimis from Germany to receive an English dub in Paris. Shown here are the leads Heinz Drache and Karin Baal, whose English voices were provided by Lee Payant and Ginger Hall, respectively.

Pier Paolo Pasoloni's notorious Salò, or the Last 120 Days of Sodom (1975) was one of the most infamous films ever to be dubbed into English in Paris.

The 1966 “Reverse Twist on Dubbing Pix” article also provides a few more precious data, stating that it usually took four days to dub a film and that at least 200 films were dubbed into English in Paris every year, with the cost ranging from $10,000 to $15,000. Interestingly, the same article claims it cost from $6,000 to $8,000 to dub a film into French. The reason for the difference in costs is not explained, but I interpret it to be because more care had to be spent on English dubbing, which had to be very precise due to the high demands of English-speaking viewers, whereas French viewers have grown up with dubbing and are thus generally more forgiving of minor sync issues etc. The numbers presented in the article should probably be taken with a grain of salt, however, because a small Variety piece from 1970 titled “Dubbing a Big Biz in Paris Pic Scene” states that about 100 films were dubbed into English in Paris in 1969, so either the output dwindled very significantly in just three years, or more likely, the numbers in the earlier article were somewhat bloated.

As a point of comparison, yet another Variety article from 1970, this one titled “Rome-Based English Dubbers Assn. to Grant Members 20% Pay Hike” about Rome’s English dubbing union, ELDA, has the union’s president Roger Browne citing 1968 as a bumper year for them, with 160 films dubbed into English that year, but with a bit of a dip in 1969, with 130 films dubbed that year.

It would thus seem that by the end of 1960s, the dubbing scene in Rome was a bit more productive than the one is Paris. This makes perfect sense, because while the English talent pool in Rome during the heydays of the 1960s and 70s consisted of more than a hundred active dubbers, the Paris group was quite a bit smaller. A New York Times article on dubbing from 1966 titled “A Few Become Dubbing Bums” states that while the Parisian dubbing studios had files of 75 names, the so-called ‘hard-core dubbing colony’ was made up of just around 30 actors who covered the bulk of the work. The dubbers in this group were comprised largely of American (and a few British) expatriates with theatrical backgrounds. Many of them were heavily involved with the Studio Theater of Paris, an English-speaking theatrical workshop and troupe founded by African-American actor and musician Gordon Heath. Heath was himself a much in-demand dubber, and he and his romantic partner, dubbing actor/director Lee Payant, are among the most prolific and emblematic English voices of the Parisian dubbing scene of the 1960s and early to mid 1970s.

 

Lee Payant (1924-1976) was one of the all-time great American dubbers in Paris, working tirelessly all through the 1950s, 60s and until his premature death in 1976. His most famous dubbing roles include Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal (1957), Robert Hoffman in the TV series The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1964), Joachim Fuchsberger in The College Girl Murders (1967) and Charles Denner in The Crook (1970).

 

African-American actor Gordon Heath (1918-1991), who unlike his boyfriend Lee Payant didn't really enjoy doing dubbing, was still a highly prolific character dubber. Some of his most memorable dubbing roles include Eddie Constantine in Attack of the Robots (1966), Aleskey Glazyrin in The Viy (1967), Guy Tréjan in The Beast (1975) and Paolo Bonacelli in Salò, or the Last 120 Days of Sodom (1975).

The other big American and British dubbing actors from that era include Russ Moro, Marc Smith, George Birt, Hal Brav, Duncan Elliott, Robert Braun, Bruce Johansen, Edward Marcus, Steve Eckardt, Billy Kearns, Colin Drake, Fred Neumann, Robert Woods, Eric Sinclair, Arch Taylor, Anthony Stuart, Max Gulack, Steve Gadler, Sean O’Neil, Mike Marshall and Jimmy Shuman, while some of the main actresses were Barbara Sohmers, Ginger Hall, Maggie Brenner, Helen Gary, Honora Fergusson, Ruth Maleczech and Sally Wilson. Additionally, the English dubbing group also included several French or Canadian bilinguals who were regulars at French language dubbing, and these include Jean Fontaine, Jacqueline Porel, Yves Brainville, Sylviane Mathieu, Katy Vail, Suzanne Avon, Roger Lumont and Howard Vernon. In return, some of the American and English dubbers also sometimes did French dubbing if there were parts requiring such accents.

 

Marc Smith (1933-2006) was one of the all-time great American leading man dubbers of Paris. His Parisian dubbing roles include Frederick Stafford in the OSS 117 films, Maurice Ronet in The Champagne Murders (1967), Jean-Paul Belmondo in Ho! (1968) and Alain Delon in Shock Treatment (1973). He later became a regular dubber also in Rome, and finally in London.

 

Ginger Hall (1930-2023) was one of the leading American female dubbers in Paris throughout the 1960s. She regularly dubbed Brigitte Bardot and was also often the voice of German actress Karin Baal. Other notable dubbing roles include Daliah Lavi in The Return of Dr. Mabuse (1961), Dominique Boschero in Ulysses Against the Son of Hercules (1962) and Mireille Darc in Rififi in Paris (1966).

 

American actor Hal Brav with his gravelly, Lionel Stander-esque voice was the character actor dubber par excellance. He dubbed Louis de Funès in several of his 1970s films, and Gert Fröbe in the Dr. Mabuse sequels. Other memorable roles include Alfredo Rizzo in The Playgirls and the Vampire (1960), Charles Denner in The Bride Wore Black (1968) and Charles Gérard in The Crook (1970).

 

British actor Duncan Elliott was another of the great character actor dubbers throughout the 1950s and 60s. His dubbing roles include Rudolf Forster in The Mad Executioners (1963), Jean Gabin in Rififi in Paris (1966), Siegfried Wischnewski in Whom the Gods Wish to Destroy (1966) and Adolfo Celi in Operation Kid Brother (1967). He also did French language dubbing.

Jacqueline Porel (1918-2012) was one of the grand dames of French language dubbing, both as an actress, adaptor and director, but thanks to her flawless command of English, she also dubbed regularly in that language. Her English roles include Danielle Darrieux in Murder by Two (1960), Magali Noël in Rope Around the Neck (1966), Senta Berger in The Strangers (1969) and Micheline Presle in A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973).

The strong ties between the English and French dubbers are likely due to the fact that much of the English dubbing work in Paris was actually carried out by French companies. Lingua Synchrone, Les Films Jacques Willemetz, Société Parisienne de Sonorisation (S.P.S.), Société Nouvelle de Doublage (S.N.D.), Leo Lax Films, and Record Film are just some of the many French dubbing companies that regularly produced English dubs in Paris.

 

Lingua Synchrone receives a credit for post synchronization on Mel Welles' beloved Spanish/German cult horror movie Maneater of Hydra (1967). Welles, who himself worked regularly with English dubbing in Rome, was not involved in the dubbing.

 

The German Eurocrime film Bloody Friday (1972) was dubbed into English in Paris by Société Nouvelle de Doublage (S.N.D.) under the direction of Lee Payant.

 

The German erotic thriller Moonlighting Mistress (1970) was dubbed into English in Paris by Les Films Jacques Willemetz.

 

Of the English dubbing directors, the undisputed top dog was Richard Heinz, who for many decades was a prolific and highly esteemed director of dubbing in both French and English language. Some of the many famous French films dubbed into English by Heinz and his company Lingua Synchrone include Diabolique (1955), The Black Tulip (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Day for Night (1973).

Peter Riethof was another of the really big Parisian English dubbing directors. Originally from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), Riethof moved to New York in the postwar years and became involved with dubbing there, before moving to Paris in the late 1950s and setting up his own English dubbing company Oscar Films. Riethof adapted and directed the English dubs of such well-known films as Purple Noon (1960), Yojimbo (1961), Boccaccio ’70 (1962), Diabolically Yours (1967), The Train (1973) and Cousin Cousine (1975).

 

The name of Peter Riethof can be found in the credits of many a film dubbed into English in Paris. Here from Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard (1963).

Assisting Riethof in his dubbing work during the early years was his wife, Carol. After they divorced, Carol went on to marry Jesse Vogel, another important English dubbing director in Paris. Together they formed the dubbing company Vogel Films, which handled the English versions of many important pictures, including several of Ingmar Bergman’s classics from the 1950s and 60s. The Vogels eventually relocated to London and continued their dubbing ventures there.

 

Advertisement for the dubbing services of Vogel Films in Variety (August 21, 1963).

Other important English dubbing directors were Lee Payant, Russ Moro, Hal Brav and George Birt, all of whom were also very prolific and much in-demand as dubbing actors.

 

Another interesting, but often forgotten point – one that is of particular relevance to this blog – is the collaboration between the English dubbers of Paris and Rome. Prolific Roman dubbing actor/writer/director Ted Rusoff briefly touched on this subject in the career-spanning interview he did with Video Watchdog in 2010, opining that the English dubbers of Paris “were damn good”, and going on to state that “[t]he Parisians were great in modern detective films such as the ones with Lino Ventura, and the main man there was producer/director Dick Heinz, a very affable guy and one with a good ear. The main voices included Jean la Fontaine [Jean Fontaine] (a Canadian bilingual), Bruce Johansen and Russ Morrow [Russ Moro]. Bob Spafford thought they were gods walking on earth and occasionally persuaded [Fulvio] Lucisano to send one of them a plane ticket to dub something in Rome. The most frequent was Jean la Fontaine [Jean Fontaine], a cheery, good-looking fellow whom Carolynn [de Fonseca, Rusoff's wife] tripped and beat to the floor practically on first meeting.”

 

Canadian actor Jean Fontaine (1929-2011) was a frequent dubber in Paris in both French and English language throughout the 1960s and 70s. In English, he frequently dubbed Alain Delon, and also did some other big stars like Jean-Louis Belmondo, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Maurice Ronet.

Bruce Johansen was a major American leading man dubber in Paris from the mid 1960s and until his return to the US in the early 1970s. Dubbing roles include Jean-Louis Trintignant in A Man and a Woman (1966), Jacques Perrin in The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Lou Castel in Come Play with Me (1968).

 

Russ Moro (1932-2008) worked both as a dubbing actor, adaptor and director, and was the husband of dubbing actress Ginger Hall for several years. Born in Rome, Moro was Italian-American and was often used to dub such Italian actors as Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman and Vittorio De Sica.

These overseas dubbing assignments were also mentioned by Saul Lockhart, an actor who worked with English dubbing in Paris for a few years in the early to mid 1960s, and who in an interview with the great Vantage Point Interviews website recalled that “[e]very so often – maybe once every six months or so – a few of us would be sent to Rome or Madrid – I can’t remember Germany, but certainly Rome and Madrid – to do a film. And London.”

Going to Rome to dub could prove challenging for the Parisian dubbers, however, because the dubbing system used in Rome was completely different from the one used in Paris. In Rome, the dubbers would memorize dialogue from a script and then synchronize their lines with the mouth movements of the actors on the screen. There were no cues to alert the dubbers on when to start speaking – they had to rely on their own pair of eyes to determine when to jump in and to get the length and rhythm of each line down correctly. In Paris, however, a different dubbing system was used, the so-called bande rythmo, i.e. a rhythm band, sometimes also called a rhythmograph. Here, the dialogue is projected on a thin strip of scrolling film underneath the main picture, with the words written to match the speech rhythms of the on-screen actors. If a word, or a group of words, is spoken slowly, the letters are stretched out, and if spoken briskly, the letters are cramped. On the left of the band is a small vertical bar, and if the dubber speaks each letter exactly as it passes through that bar, it is supposed to create perfect sync.

 

Illustration of dubbing performed with the rhythm band technique.

French dubbing actress Geneviève Hersent, who worked with dubbing in Rome in both French, English and Italian language for many years, spoke at length about the differences between the French and Italian dubbing systems in the interview I did with her, concluding that the Italian system was “more spontaneous but less precise in terms of sync, and required a good memory and, if possible, good reflexes and good eyesight, not forgetting, for any dubbing, the ability to work standing up all day, as well as great concentration. There was one drawback, however, with the rhythm band: if you weren’t a very good dubber, you could end up with that infamous ‘dubbing tone’ that’s so characteristic, where you can feel the reading.”

Geneviève also recalled that Jean Louis, the top dubbing director for French dubbing in Rome, often called on French actors from Paris to come dub their own voices for the French language versions of Italo-French co-productions they had appeared in, and that these actors were so lost trying to dub without the rhythm band that Jean Louis had to import a moviola from Paris to create a rhythm band. Whether a similar concession was also made for the English dubbers who came from Paris is not known, however.

A few Parisian dubbers such as Marc Smith, Robert Braun and Fred Neumann even ended up relocating to Rome to continue their careers there, and it would seem that at least a few other dubbers did so, too. For example, prolific 1960s Rome dubber Bill Kiehl mentioned in newspaper articles that he had worked with dubbing in both Rome, New York and Paris, yet no Paris dubs from the 1960s featuring his voice have been unearthed as of yet, so it’s possible that his Parisian dubbing days might have been back in the 1950s, before he arrived in Rome. This is likely to have been the case with other Rome dubbers as well, but has has yet to be verified.

Again, there is frustratingly little literature available on English dubbing in Paris. One notable exception, however, is the May 1966 issue of the magazine Réalités, which includes a terrific feature by Daniel Behrman on the English dubbers of Paris, titled simply “The Dubbers”. It provides a greatly fascinating inside look into the world of the Parisian English dubbers, including coming along to the dubbing studio for the recording of the English version of Yves Ciampi’s spy thriller Qui êtes-vous, Monsieur Sorge? (1961), released as Who Are You, Mr. Sorge? in English. This part of the article is in fact so interesting that I’m reproducing it here in order to help paint as vivid a picture as possible of what a typical English dubbing session in Paris was like back in the mid 1960s:

We were able to watch the dubbing process recently at a studio just off the Champ-Élysées where a spy thriller, Qui êtes-vous, Monsieur Sorge (the story of the famed Soviet agent in Japan) was being post-synchronized – a word that no one in the business ever seems to use.

In a half-darkened projection room we gropingly shook hands with Richard Heinz, a relaxed, balding man in a polo shirt, who was directing the production. He seemed to be taking it in his stride and this was not surprising. He had been doing this sort of work for thirty years, he told us, and he expected to be through with Monsieur Sorge in four or five days, just about par for the course.

 

Poster for the English language release of Who Are You, Mr. Sorge?

Dubbing has made considerable progress since the days when the English-speaking actor had to memorize his script and then try to finish in more or less of a dead heat with the action on the screen, a technique still used in certain backwaters of the European film industry. But not in France, where the whole process has been rationalized by what Heinz told us is called the “rhythmograph”.

It looks easy. First, the actor watches while a scene from the picture is flashed on the screen of the projection room with its original sound. Then the scene appears again, still with the sound but with a handwritten script in a band running across the bottom of the frame from right to left. Finally, it comes on without the sound but with the band, and the actor then records.

“See that vertical bar near the left of the frame?” Heinz asked as actor Yves Brainville watched his lines. “When the word hits that bar, then the actor starts to read.”

Watching the handwritten words, watching the bar and watching what was happening on the screen all at once did not seem all that easy. The lines are handwritten by a calligrapher who has to stretch or condense the scriptwriter’s words depending on the speed of the original actor’s delivery, for the speed of the band never varies.

Brainville began reading his lines, a narration in a German accent. At one point, Heinz looked around for someone to read: “A message to relay” in a Russian accent, found no one handy and read it himself.

 

Yves Brainville (1914-1993) was one of the great French language dubbers who also did a lot of English dubbing thanks to excellent command of English. He was for example the English voice of Jochen Brockmann in The Fellowship of the Frog (1959), Gert Fröbe in Backfire (1964), Daniel Iverner in Cobra (1971) and Bernard Blier in Joe the Busy Body (1971).

When Brainville had finished he put on his coat, shook hands all around and left. His place under the big microphone fixed to a boom in the middle of the studio was taken by Howard Vernon, a bespectacled Swiss-American actor who cheerfully admitted he had an accent in every language. He was dubbing Richard Sorge in between film assignments (he last played Dr. von Braun in Godard’s Alphaville).

Some action crept into the room. On the screen, a woman was pouring wine while the master spy was hiding a radio transmitter inside a chimney flue before dancing with a girl. In a small booth to the left and right behind Heinz, a sound effects man was pouring water from a milk bottle into a glass, scraping anything within reach, then stamping his feet.

Vernon ran through his lines once. “Don’t forget you’re the chief,” said Heinz. “Get some more authority into it.” Vernon’s voice became crisper as the water poured from the milk bottle again.

 

Howard Vernon (1908-1996), another of the French language dubbers who also worked in English, seen here in his signature role in Jess Franco's famous The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962), which was dubbed into English in Paris with Vernon dubbing his own voice.

In a room at the back of the studio two projectors were running simultaneously, one showing the original film and the other the handwritten synchronization band, both in endless loops. A third machine was winding magnetic tape in another loop. In fact, the whole film was divided into just over 150 of these loops, to be dubbed one by one.

Heinz told Vernon he could take a twenty-minute break and the master spy gratefully went out for a sandwich. Then a middle-aged woman, her grey hair worn in a severe bun, came onto the screen. Sitting on the floor in front of the screen as she watched was willowy Barbara Somers, a stately brunette with a startling gift for vocal mimicry.

Barbara asked a few questions, mixing easy American with flippant French. Heinz filled her in, then Barbara stepped up to the mike.

“The truth about Richard Sorge?” she said, in the deep tired voice of an older woman and breathed with a sigh just as a handwritten “hh” symbol flitted across the bar. She raised her arms and rolled her “r’s” in a Slavic accent.

 

American actress Barbara Sohmers (1930-2003) was one of the best and most versatile English dubbing actresses in Paris. She often dubbed Madeleine Robinson and Sylva Koscina, and some of her cult dubbing roles include Kai Fischer in Maneater of Hydra (1967), Teri Tordai in Tower of Screaming Virgins (1968) and Caterina Boratto in Salò, or the Last 120 Days of Sodom (1975).

She and Heinz worked their way through the scene, listening to the playback after every few lines. As they went along, they reworked the text.

“Don’t say ‘capitalistic wars’,” Heinz said. “She sounds as if she’s talking to schoolchildren.”

“She talks like a singing teacher,” said Barbara.

“Now start again, where she laughs,” Heinz then asked.

“Oh, no, don’t make me start on a laugh.”

The lines in English slid across the screen and Barbara suddenly stopped her reading. She reflected a moment.

“That’s wrong,” she said. “It can’t be ‘to the Gestapo’. It should be ‘at the Gestapo’. So let’s rewrite it, huh?”

“Give some credit to the dialoguist,” Heinz said to her.

“I never give credit to the dialoguist unless I wrote the dialogue,” Barbara commented and went back to her job.

This is the way the job runs most of the time for Barbara and Paris’ other dubbers who look upon it as routine work but a convenient way of remaining in Paris.

 

Robert Braun (no picture currently available) was a British character actor dubber and adaptor who was very active on the Paris scene throughout the 1960s. He dubbed Louis de Funès in many of his 1960s films, such as Oscar (1967), and was also the voice of Bengt Ekerot in The Seventh Seal (1957), Horst Frank in The Head (1959), Manuel Muñiz in A Pistol for Ringo (1965) and Joachim Teege in The Hunchback of Soho (1966). In the late 1960s, he relocated to Rome and continued his dubbing career there.

 

Edward Marcus was a long-time American dubbing actor (and also adaptor and director) in Paris, who has achieved near mythical cult status for his dubbing of countless different characters in the late 1990s and early 2000 dubs of the Dragon Ball anime films, but he was active on the Paris scene since at least the late 1960s.

 

George Birt was another long-time American dubbing actor (and also director) in Paris who was active since the 1960s. He notably dubbed Philippe Noiret in English several times.

Sylviane Mathieu (no picture currently available) was another of the bilingual Paris dubbers who did a lot of leading voices in both French and English in the 1960s and 70s. Her English dubbing roles include Mylène Demongeot in OSS 117 - Mission for a Killer (1965), Claudine Auger in The Bastard (1968) and Senta Berger in Cobra (1971).

Katy Vail (1934-2008) was the daughter of noted American novelist Kay Boyle and French-American sculptor Laurence Vail, but spent most of her life in Paris, where she became a long-time dubber for both French and English language versions. No identified English dubbing roles as of yet, but her French dubbing credits include Suzanna Leigh in Boeing Boeing (1965) and Susan Bay in The Big Mouth (1967).

Billy Kearns (1923-1992) was an American character actor who spent most of his career in Paris, where he specialized in playing American characters in French films. He was also an active dubber, and his voice roles include Carlo Hintermann in Last Man to Kill (1966), Friedrich Schütter in Death in a Red Jaguar (1968) as well as providing the voice of Obelix in some of the 1980s Asterix cartoons.

American actress Maggie Brenner arrived in Paris in the mid 1960s and quickly established herself as one of the top female dubbers, providing the voices of such actresses as Emmanuelle Riva, Maria Schell and Irene Papas. She was also the voice of Romy Schneider in many of her old German movies when they were dubbed into English in the 1960s.

The delightfully smoky-voiced American actress Sally Wilson specialized in dubbing middle-aged or older women in character parts, such as Mady Rahl in The Horror of Blackwood Castle (1968), Lola Gaos in Tristana (1970), Colette Emmanuelle in The Devil's Nightmare (1971) and Simone Signoret in Police Python 357 (1976).

Hopefully, this article will have been able to shed some much deserved light on the unfairly forgotten dubbing scene in Paris. Even though English dubbing in Rome will of course continue to be the main focus of this blog, I’ll also be devoting some space to the work done by the Parisian English dubbers, so expect to see several of them profiled here. Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to write to me with any comments, corrections or additions. I’d love to hear from any fellow fans of English dubbing in Paris!

 

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to French dubbing enthusiast Rémi Carémel of the great French language blog Dans l’ombre des studios, ace film critic and researcher Julian Grainger, and my dear friend Geneviève Hersent for their kind assistance.