George Gonneau(1925-1997)

During his long career at the Titra Sound Studios in New York, George Gonneau became the regular choice to dub Steve Reeves in the Italian epics. This was because both actors had similar voices, but Gonneau possessed the better dramatic conviction. As with other voice actors at Titra, Gonneau had to sign a secrecy clause since the studios did not want fans to know that their star was speaking with someone else's voice. The Reeves fan club knew the truth, however, and affectionately nicknamed the mystery dubbing artist as "The Consistent Voice." After taking over the dubbing of Reeves on Hercules (1958), Gonneau continued to dub him on Hercules Unchained (1959), Goliath and the Barbarians (1959), The Giant of Marathon (1959), Morgan the Pirate (1960), The Thief of Baghdad (1961) and Sandokan the Great (1963). For reasons best known to Titra, Gonneau was selected to dub friend-of-the-hero Verus in the Reeves epic The Slave (1962).

In 1963 Gonneau was sent to Rome to discuss with Federico Fellini the English language version of 8½ (1963). Fellini approved of the project and Gonneau dubbed Marcello Mastroianni. Apart from providing English versions of foreign films, Gonneau and fellow Titra voice actor Norman Rose did a similar job for the New York stage. In 1985 their adaptation of "The Cost of Living" by Yves Jamiaque was presented at the Judith Anderson Theatre. Ten years later their same adaptation, as "Monsieur Amilcar," was included at the Chichester Festival in England.

Apart from his visits to Italy, Gonneau and his family lived in Paris from 1965 onwards whilst he worked for Avco Embassy Pictures. They returned to New York in 1975. On one occasion, George's son Daniel Gonneau (born in 1961) was invited to the Titra studios to dub one of the children's parts. However, whilst Daniel went on to do boat building in Maine, his cousin Jackie Gonneau (daughter of George's brother Pierre) became an accomplished voice actress in her own right. Many thanks to Jackie and Daniel for their kind help on this research.