46 replies to this topic

[zerominus]

I was recently reading about Nikki van der Zyl who apparently dubbed lots of the female voices in the early Bond films. I can understand why this may have been necessary for certain roles, but why would Eunice Gayson or Shirley Eaton (with English as a first language) have required this? Does anyone know much about film production from this era and why this was done? Was this common practice even if the stars first language was English?

[DR76]

Shirley Eaton and Eunice Gayson were dubbed???

[Tybre]

Shirley Eaton and Eunice Gayson were dubbed???

Perhaps their voices were just so god-awful it would negate any physical charm?

[zerominus]

Yes, both dubbed, according to: http://www.bondstars...erzyl/index.htm - Caroline Munro too.

I read from another source that Eunice Gayson's voice remains in the Dr No trailer, so if anyone has the trailer to hand it might be worth a comparison with the film itself. It seems odd to think that the person who voices Honey is also used for Sylvia!

Edited by zerominus, 20 July 2009 - 03:59 PM.

[jimbo bond 007]

I thought she only did the dubbing for Ursula Andress in Dr No and Daniela Bianchi in From Russia With Love.

Pretty sure it is Eunice and Shirley's voices in the films. If it isn't though it would be interesting to find out why.

Edited by jimbo bond 007, 20 July 2009 - 04:00 PM.

[The Dove]

I'm pretty certain that Nikki Van Der Zyl ONLY dubbed Ursula Andress in Dr. No, Mia Hama in You Only Live Twice and Claudine Auger in Thunderball.

Daniella Bianchi was dubbed by someone else and while I'm certain that Eunice Gayson was dubbed (by whom I'm not sure), Shirley Eaton and Caroline Munro were NOT.

[Tybre]

I think Sylvia (Eunice) was dubbed alright. Just watched an original trailer for Dr No on YT and the clip from Bond's apartment (links to both shortly). Though similar in places, the voices are obviously different, and when she says "I decided to accept your invitation" it sounds very much like the voice of Honeychile.

Dr No scenes -- Sylvia appears around 3:40, in the apartment. I skipped ahead to that point to compare it to the audio from the trailer. Just a fair warning, the audio is a bit poor. Definitely turn your speakers up.

Dr No trailer

[Mister Asterix]

From Nikki’s website:

FILM TITLE Year Notes
Dr. No – 1962 – Revoiced Ursula Andress and all female voices, except Moneypenny and a Chinese girl.
From Russia with Love – 1963 – Revoiced Eunice Gayson. (I was almost given the leading role.)
Goldfinger – 1964 – Revoiced Shirley Eaton. Voice coach to Gert Frobe and on set with him.
Live and Let Die – 1973 – Revoiced Jane Seymour (part).
Man With the Golden Gun – 1974 – Revoiced various.
Moonraker – 1979 – Revoiced various
On Her Majesty's Secret Service – 1969 – Revoiced various
Thunderball – 1965 – Revoiced Claudine Auger
You Only Live Twice – 1967 – Revoiced Kissy, the girl Bond marries in the film.

Most interesting for me is she partially dubbed Jane Seymour.

[sthgilyadgnivileht]

Well Peter Hunt spoke the most about the dubbing on Bond films, especially on the DVD commentaries.
I don't think anyone gets any prizes to why the foreign actors were dubbed.
I can only guess at why some of the English speaking actors were re-voiced, clearly quite a lot were suggesting it was not axiomatic at the time that the actual actors voices would be used for their roles on Bond.

[Mr. Blofeld]

From Nikki’s website:

FILM TITLE Year Notes
Dr. No – 1962 – Revoiced Ursula Andress and all female voices, except Moneypenny and a Chinese girl.
From Russia with Love – 1963 – Revoiced Eunice Gayson. (I was almost given the leading role.)
Goldfinger – 1964 – Revoiced Shirley Eaton. Voice coach to Gert Frobe and on set with him.
Live and Let Die – 1973 – Revoiced Jane Seymour (part).
Man With the Golden Gun – 1974 – Revoiced various.
Moonraker – 1979 – Revoiced various
On Her Majesty's Secret Service – 1969 – Revoiced various
Thunderball – 1965 – Revoiced Claudine Auger
You Only Live Twice – 1967 – Revoiced Kissy, the girl Bond marries in the film.

Most interesting for me is she partially dubbed Jane Seymour.

I can hear van der Zyl's voice in LALD in places; specifically, when she introduces herself to Bond and when she is monologuing on the train at the end of the film before Tee-Hee sneaks up on Bond.

Also, on first viewing of OHMSS, I immediately recognized the voice of the receptionist that Bond telephones in the hotel as that of Miss van der Zyl.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Van der Zyl dubbed Ursula's speaking voice but not her singing one. That was dubbed by "Bless This House" star Diana Coupland, who was Monty Norman's wife at the time.

[Double-Oh Agent]

Daniella Bianchi was dubbed by someone else....

That would be Barbara Jefford.

From Nikki’s website:

FILM TITLE Year Notes
Dr. No – 1962 – Revoiced Ursula Andress and all female voices, except Moneypenny and a Chinese girl.
From Russia with Love – 1963 – Revoiced Eunice Gayson. (I was almost given the leading role.)
Goldfinger – 1964 – Revoiced Shirley Eaton. Voice coach to Gert Frobe and on set with him.
Live and Let Die – 1973 – Revoiced Jane Seymour (part).
Man With the Golden Gun – 1974 – Revoiced various.
Moonraker – 1979 – Revoiced various
On Her Majesty's Secret Service – 1969 – Revoiced various
Thunderball – 1965 – Revoiced Claudine Auger
You Only Live Twice – 1967 – Revoiced Kissy, the girl Bond marries in the film.

Most interesting for me is she partially dubbed Jane Seymour.

I thought she also dubbed the voice of the Istanbul Hotel Receptionist in From Russia With Love as well. It certainly sounds the same as the voice used for Honey Ryder in Dr. No--to me anyway.

[DAN LIGHTER]

After watching From Russia with Love it seemed that Morzeny played by Walter Gotell was dubbed also. Due to his mixed German accent maybe? I may be wrong but it sounded like it.

[Mister Asterix]

I thought she also dubbed the voice of the Istanbul Hotel Receptionist in From Russia With Love as well. It certainly sounds the same as the voice used for Honey Ryder in Dr. No--to me anyway.

I wouldn’t rule it out, it’s not like that bit would be an exciting thing to put on her website.

[Goldengun007]

Shirley Eaton was definitely dubbed. She comments on this in her "Golden Girl" autobiography, along with seeing Margaret Nolan in the gold paint for the opening credits. She states that she did not know that she was being dubbed nor that some other actress would appear in the gold paint for 'Goldfinger'.

[sthgilyadgnivileht]

I have tried to find out the answer as to why so many were dubbed, obviously thinking in reference to the English speaking actors.
On the Criterion edition of the GF Laserdisc (the commentary that was eventually banned) Peter Hunt speaks quite a bit about dubbing and I think he supervised a lot of the process.
On the subject of re voicing in general Hunt says it becomes 'an irritant' [for the audience] if you have an actor and you can't quite understand them.
My GUESS therefore is anything that the film makers thought the audience would not understand was dubbed. Perhaps this may have been just one scene and not the whole actors performance(?).
Hunt also says the producers gave a lot of time to post production sound and understood the importance of a good soundtrack.

[Peckinpah1976]

I suppose that given the limited experince of some actresses, they may not have been up to the task of doing their own ADR.

[WC]

I think Sylvia (Eunice) was dubbed alright. Just watched an original trailer for Dr No on YT and the clip from Bond's apartment (links to both shortly). Though similar in places, the voices are obviously different, and when she says "I decided to accept your invitation" it sounds very much like the voice of Honeychile.

Dr No scenes -- Sylvia appears around 3:40, in the apartment. I skipped ahead to that point to compare it to the audio from the trailer. Just a fair warning, the audio is a bit poor. Definitely turn your speakers up.

Dr No trailer

Well Eunice Grayson doesn't have such a nice, sophisticated voice compared to van der Zyl's more soothing tones. For that matter, neither does Ursula Andress, who has a more scratchy, hoarse sounding voice. Honey wouldn't have sounded quite the same saying the immortal lines "what are you doing here, looking for shells?" if she had used Ursula's voice.

[MajorB]

True. Andress's voice is actually heard at one point--as she's being taken away form the dinner table by No's men and says "No.....no...." That's Andress. I'm not sure why they didn't dub it--possibly it was just missed, since it's a very isolated moment.

[PrinceKamalKhan]

Yes, both dubbed, according to: http://www.bondstars...erzyl/index.htm - Caroline Munro too.

It is odd that Tatiana and Naomi have the same voice!

From Nikki’s website:

FILM TITLE Year Notes
Dr. No – 1962 – Revoiced Ursula Andress and all female voices, except Moneypenny and a Chinese girl.
From Russia with Love – 1963 – Revoiced Eunice Gayson. (I was almost given the leading role.)
Goldfinger – 1964 – Revoiced Shirley Eaton. Voice coach to Gert Frobe and on set with him.
Live and Let Die – 1973 – Revoiced Jane Seymour (part).
Man With the Golden Gun – 1974 – Revoiced various.
Moonraker – 1979 – Revoiced various
On Her Majesty's Secret Service – 1969 – Revoiced various
Thunderball – 1965 – Revoiced Claudine Auger
You Only Live Twice – 1967 – Revoiced Kissy, the girl Bond marries in the film.

Most interesting for me is she partially dubbed Jane Seymour.

Miss Van Der Zyl clearly did the voice for Virginia North/Olympe in OHMSS. I believe one can hear Miss North's voice in her film debut, the 1967 Bond-inspired Bulldog Drummond spy adventure Deadlier Than The Male. Miss Van Der Zyl also dubbed Anita Ekberg in the 1963 EON produced Bob Hope comedy Call Me Bwana. That was especially strange since Miss Ekberg was already a major international star by that point. I'm very glad EON never dubbed Luciana Paluzzi's voice in TB.

Shirley Eaton was definitely dubbed. She comments on this in her "Golden Girl" autobiography, along with seeing Margaret Nolan in the gold paint for the opening credits. She states that she did not know that she was being dubbed nor that some other actress would appear in the gold paint for 'Goldfinger'.

You can hear Shirley Eaton's voice in Ten Little Indians(1965) with Daliah Lavi from the 1967 CR spoof and in 8 on the Lam(1967) with Bob Hope and Jill St. John/Tiffany Case.

[WC]

I wish she dubbed Halle Berry's voice in DAD and Denise Richards in TWINE.

[Gabriel]

Was Carole Bouquet dubbed in For Your Eyes Only? She never seems to open her mouth enough to sound like she does in the movie!

[Mr. Blofeld]

Was Carole Bouquet dubbed in For Your Eyes Only? She never seems to open her mouth enough to sound like she does in the movie!

Yeah; whoever dubbed her sounded like a 40-year-old woman at the time!

[Gabriel]

Looking at Thunderball, I think Molly Peters was also dubbed. Damn! If she isn't staggeringly attractive!

Why can't women look the the Bond girls of the 60s anymore?

[PrinceKamalKhan]

Was Carole Bouquet dubbed in For Your Eyes Only? She never seems to open her mouth enough to sound like she does in the movie!

Yeah; whoever dubbed her sounded like a 40-year-old woman at the time!

I believe whoever dubbed Miss Bouquet's voice in FYEO also dubbed Sylvia Kristel's voice in the 1979 swashbuckling adventure The 5th Musketeer, based upon Alexandre Dumas'The Man In The Iron Mask and co-starring Ursula Andress(with her original voice) and dubbed Taryn Power's voice in the 1977 Ray Harryhausen fantasy classic Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger co-starring Jane Seymour. That voice actress must've gotten a lot of work during the late 1970s/early 1980s.

[Hotwinds]

I tend to agree about how women looked in general from the 1960's.
The Incredible World Of James Bond has some scenes primarily in the casino where you can hear their real voices before they were dubbed and Adolfo did not need to be dubbed really.
I would have thought he could just re record his lines later like they do anyway but maybe in general his voice was not easy enough to understand?





Why can't women look the the Bond girls of the 60s anymore?
[/quote]

[Colossus]

Waitaminute so Gert Frobe only had a voice coach and it was really his voice?

[Stuart]

IIRC from the commentary he didn't speak a word of English.

[Zorin Industries]

I think some people are mistaking dubbing for synching. And there would have been voices dubbed / replaced / re-recorded for Craig's two efforts. Its the nature of the beast. It is not always done because an actor's original accent is too strong. It can be a myriad of reasons - scheduling, bad sound on the day, unavailable actors to re-record their dialogue later, studio insistence, clarity, a line needs changing but cannot be re-shot.

Those actors that were dubbed throughout the Bonds were done so as everything else was perfect for the part except the (usually) strong European accents. It makes sense. Gert Frobe was one such example as was Ursula Andress and the early Connery squeezes.

Ursula Andress's MANGO TREE vocals were also voiced by Diana (BLESS THIS HOUSE) Coupland who was married to Monty Norman (?!!) at the time.

Looking at Thunderball, I think Molly Peters was also dubbed. Damn! If she isn't staggeringly attractive!

Why can't women look the the Bond girls of the 60s anymore?

Bond women don't look like they did in the 1960's as none of us do anymore - male or female.

Molly Peters would have been RE-dubbed - but by herself. Relooping is common when on-set sound is poor (for a variety of logistical reasons).

[Glockenspiel]

Was Carole Bouquet dubbed in For Your Eyes Only? She never seems to open her mouth enough to sound like she does in the movie!

Yeah; whoever dubbed her sounded like a 40-year-old woman at the time!

Carole BOUQUET was dubbed in the english version of FYEO.
And I don't understand why, because :
1°)she'a a great actress (I'm french, and Carole BOUQUET succeeds very well in cinema in France)
2°)she speaks english fluently (with an accent, of course, but in the film, she was greek, so it'd not have been strange to hear her real voice with an accent!)
You can hear the real voice of CArole BOUQUET in the french version of FYEO, on the DVD of the film.
She dubbed herself... quite well, actually.