A video history of actors who were dubbed in musicals from 3'0s till now

[EricMontreal22]

Fun video of many famous, and some not so famous, dubbed voices in musicals (I didn't realize Christopher Plummer was dubbed in Music for some reason--and while I knew all the dubbing in A Little Night Music I didn't know Tomkinson did three of the women...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wowXaIuWv0

[alphanguy74]

I an STUNNED that they would dub Debbie Reynolds and of all people, Harry Belafonte? What were they thinking? And I never realized that Kathe Green was dubbed in in Oliver. I have her 1970 album, and the tracks are really quite lovely. she onhly released 2 albums that I know of. she also had one on Motown in 1975, I think

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One they didn't include that was one of my favorites, Lynn Carey for Dolly Read in "Beyond The Valley Of the Dolls"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xr5rzu7nbs

[quartermainefan]

Debbie Reynolds being dubbed in Singing In The Rain is the most famous dubbing of all because it was a movie about dubbing. I am shocked at Drew Barrymore in Everyone Says I Love You because that was a movie built on starring actors who did not star in musicals. I really thought this practice stopped, but I see not. It's a shame because a lot of these movies you can see there was a Broadway star who created the role wondering "WTF??"

[EricMontreal22]

Drew surprised me for the same reason--I mean why didn't they dub Julia or someone as well then?

Yeah to be fair back then they always felt they had to have a movie star over lesser Broadway stars (ie Rita Moreno--who I love--instead of Chita Rivera in West Side Story)... and that hasn't changed except now it is largely a badge of pride to have the celebs do their own singing, no matter how awful they are (Pierce in Mamma Mia, etc). So I'm kinda of two minds of it. I'm not sure it rally shows a movie star to be brave the way many seem to think it does to do their own singing. But dubbing more often than not feels fake (sometimes it does feel legit, but...)--and it's too bad they just don't give the role to someone less famous who can pull it off. I mean Nine was a terrible movie version of a great Broadway show, but then they give its best song to Nicole Kidman who has a decent VERY SMALL RANGE voice, and so have to change the song so much, lowering it's keys, ropping high notes, etc, that it sounds dreadful. It's counterproductive.

[I Am A Swede]

Maybe the most famous (or infamous) of those decisions was when Audrey Hepburn got the role of Eliza Dolittle in "My Fair Lady" over the Broadway star from the show, Julie Andrews. Of course Julie then went on to make "Mary Poppins" that same year, and won the Oscar for Best Actress, whereas Audrey wasn't even nominated even though "My Fair Lady" got nominated in almost every other category.

[alphanguy74]

I always felt that musicals should pick an actor who can sing in the first place, so they didn't HAVE to be dubbed. That's one reason I think movies like Grease work so well. Sometimes it gets sticky when an actor is portraying a singing star. But other times, like in "Coal Miner's Daughter", it's a total win.

[DRW50]

You think of something like Grease, and the dubbing would have been a disaster - Stockard Channing's songs were some of the high points of the film, and she couldn't sing a lick.

[quartermainefan]

That to me is the classic example of bonehead hollywood decisions. In hindsight, how do you choose someone over Julie Andrews? Maybe she wasn't Julie Andrews in all-caps back then but it just sounds crazy. And some of the songs from MFL are her signature songs too. Gypsy is another example. Ethel Merman had starred in movies before, and she was the biggest star on Broadway and a nationally known name, this was her big role, and they go for someone who does not sing.

[DRW50]

I can see why they went with Audrey Hepburn. A part of the appeal is that the simple girl becomes a high society lady - Julie Andrews was very pretty and yet part of her appeal was that she had a certain ordinariness. Audrey Hepburn was seen as the height of elegance and sophistication at that time.

[alphanguy74]

Really? I think Stockard channing is a great singer. She has a certain character to her voice that I really like. Sometimes a dub is really so out of place, it's laughable. My brother thought this actually WAS Didi Conn singing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlRFQbFl_kA

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah it was, but at the same time it made some weird sense at the time. Julie was VERY much seen as a theatre star with one minor hit (the UK parody musical The Boyfriend--years before the Twiggy monstrosity movie version), and My Fair Lady which did make her a huge name, but still people had no faith that she could bring that charisma to the screen. It is true that often they can't (Gwen Verdon was always passed up for movies because they felt she filmed ugly--even though she was such an attraction on stage that *straight* men would often make a musical she was in a hit as long as she was wearing something racy on the poster--thank God she was kept for Damn Yankees but you can tell she probably looked better in person, Chita Rivera, who doesn't have classic looks by any stretch, is another whose sheer stage presence made her sexy, but that's lost on screen, though she's great in the movie of Sweet Charity). Julie of course had jjust as much warmth on screen as on stage, but I can see George Cukor and all doubting if she could.

Right though in that case it kinda switched. Many critics said that Julie was MUCH better at the early parts, but did grant that in some ways Audrey was better with the latter parts.

[EricMontreal22]

LOL I'd never seen the movie the song was in and had NOOOO idea Didi was in it! Too funny.

[alphanguy74]

I LOVED that movie when I was a kid. It made it's TV debut on the ABC movie of the week around the fall of 1978... usually a motion picture took a year and a half or sometimes two to make it's TV debut in those days. She's lip synching to the original version of the song, of course... sung by Kasey Cisyk, which many people consider superior to Debby Boone's version, which became the megahit. Cisyk's version was released as a single, but only reached # 80 on the billboard charts. she wasn't credited as the singer of the song in the film, and she sued the producers because of it and WON.

[quartermainefan]

Original voice

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14200351?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/14200351">Show Boat - Ava Gardner 's own voice - Can't Help Lovin' That Man</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1114463">Mark</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

dubbed voice

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rGOyycNqiWA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[EricMontreal22]

Now updated

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCNlpIlRL2k

I still can't believe some of the dubs--the whole point of Plummer's role in Sound of Music is he can't sing and is not a performer - and the song has a range of about four notes - I actually find his original version more touching

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/4143597?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0" width=400" height="225" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/user1114463">Mark</a> on <a href="