{"id":96,"date":"2009-02-25T15:17:26","date_gmt":"2009-02-25T19:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=96"},"modified":"2009-02-25T15:17:26","modified_gmt":"2009-02-25T19:17:26","slug":"oreste-lionello-the-italian-voice-of-woody-allen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/oreste-lionello-the-italian-voice-of-woody-allen\/","title":{"rendered":"Oreste Lionello, the Italian voice of Woody Allen"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have just read the sad news\u00a0in the Corriere della Sera<\/em> (an Italian newspaper) that Oreste Lionello<\/strong> died last week at the age of\u00a081\u00a0following a long illness. Born in Rhodes (Greece) in 1927\u00a0of Italian parents, he was a famous comedian and one of the founding figures of Italian cabaret. Oreste Lionello and his company Il Bagaglino<\/strong> satirized Italian politics for many years, both\u00a0in theaters and on TV shows, with an\u00a0intelligent humor which always avoided insults or rudeness. Particularly memorable was his excellent\u00a0impersonation of our former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

However, aside from his career as a political satirist,\u00a0Lionello was also a great\u00a0voice over\u00a0actor.\u00a0Film subtitles in Italy are not very popular, and we have a long tradition of film dubbing.\u00a0Lionello\u00a0was the Italian voice of\u00a0many famous actors, including Peter Sellers in Doctor Strangelove, <\/em>Gene Wilder in Frankenstein Junior<\/em>, Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator<\/em>, and\u00a0Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.<\/em> But his longest lasting dubbing partnership was with Woody Allen,\u00a0for whom Oreste Lionello was the official Italian voice\u00a0in all of\u00a0his films.\u00a0According to the Corriere della Sera<\/em> Allen is quoted as having said: \u201cFor many years Oreste Lionello made me a better actor than I really was. We met personally and he always seemed to me a very kind person\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

I grew <\/span>up here in Italy watching Woody Allen films which had been overdubbed with Oreste Lionello\u2019s voice, and I have to say that when I moved to England\u00a0and\u00a0finally saw one of Allen\u2019s films with\u00a0his original voice\u00a0I was surprised to discover that it was just like hearing Oreste Lionello speaking in English: it\u2019s not just that the voices are similar, but that Lionello perfectly portrays that particular way of speaking which Allen has,\u00a0including all of his neurotic and world weary tones. Legend has it that Lionello occasionally\u00a0introduced himself on\u00a0the phone as \u201cthe voice of Woody Allen\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oreste Lionello added his voice to many cartoons and animated films, such as The Aristocats<\/em>\u00a0in which\u00a0he portrayed the voice of Georges Hautecourt, Winnie the Pooh <\/em>as the voice of Winnie the Pooh, and two of the Asterix\u00a0 animated films for which he was the voice of Asterix himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lionello also translated and adapted into Italian\u00a0many film scripts including, notably,\u00a0the challenging script\u00a0for Cyrano de Bergerac<\/em>, in which all the dialogues are in rhyme. Three of his five children have followed in his footsteps and have also become dubbing actors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is a link to the\u00a0Mondo dei Doppiatori\u00a0<\/strong>(World of Dubbers) website page about Lionello: <\/span><\/span>http:\/\/www.antoniogenna.net\/doppiaggio\/voci\/vociol.htm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have just read the sad news\u00a0in the Corriere della Sera (an Italian newspaper) that Oreste Lionello died last week at the age of\u00a081\u00a0following a long illness. Born in Rhodes (Greece) in 1927\u00a0of Italian parents, he was a famous comedian and one of the founding figures of Italian cabaret. Oreste Lionello and his company Il…<\/p>\n

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