Voice actors in the American version of MM1

[MFP 2020]

One of the mysteries that I will obsess over until I die, I think, is the identity of the voice actors who did the overdubbing for the American release of Mad Max. I have a good ear for voices, and if I've pegged a voice to particular actor, I can usually tell when I'm hearing them again. I was watching "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" several years ago and thought, "Hey, David Hedison sounds like Max!" I wrote to his website and they said it wasn't him. But why should I believe them? I also recognized Goose's voice as being the same actor who overdubbed Jack in "Message from Space."

Anyway, I'm watching the DVD of "Lidsville" and the voice of Mr. Big sounds to me just like the guy who did Sarse's American voice. Mr. Big was voiced by Lennie Weinrib, who was a prolific actor and VO actor (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0918396/). He died in 2006, but his daughter Linda Bendik is still working. She's listed on VoiceOver LA's roster.

For what any of that is worth.

[MFP1]

Liddsville?
Boy does that bring back memories...... Now I wanna trade my MovieCars for a flying Top Hat Saucer!

I think that the Liddsville kid is Eddie Munster, and that Weenie the Genie is Witchiepoo from Puffinstuff....

Krofft!!!!

What? Mad Max? Oh yeah, ill take this to another forum!


Sorry, to the point I would like to know who the dubbing voices are, but I dont have a good ear for voices, and the VO actors often clam up about uncredited work.

Good luck though, and let us know if you get any "Conformations".

[aussie muscle]

given they are uncredited, it was likely just another paycheck to them.

of course, the american movie industry is way over the top when it comes to movie credits. i mean, it's not like i'm going to care who got coffee for the actors.

[Peter Barton]

The most info I ever found on the dubbing was in Sam Arkoff's biography. Check out the "US Dubbed Release" section at this page:
http://www.madmaxmovies.com/films/mad-max/index.html

I believe the dubbing studio used was named in the book, but I didn't put it on the page above (which really does need some other updates too...!) From memory it was "Titra Studios". A few people have thrown me a few names over the years (David Hedison keeps coming up for some reason, although as per above, apparently not), but no one has ever been able to get confirmation from anywhere. Certainly a couple of voices do sound familiar, particularly against some US TV / Cartoons from the same era.

As for lengthy credits, up until basically the 1970's, most films didn't have the kind of credits we see today. It was really just the main players, and that's it - like you say, who really cares who makes the coffee? The first Mad Max was the same, then for Mad Max 2, the credits were quite different. One of the guys involved with the film at the time once mentioned that Byron Kennedy had stated that he "wanted the longest credits of any film, with everyone in there, right down to the guy that mops the floors"! The theory is, the bigger the credits list, the bigger and more impressive the production looks - I mean, look how many people were involved!

[Peter Barton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titra_Studios

If you look at the page through viswiki, it contains more cross references, which may lead to further info on specific Titra voice actors:

http://www.viswiki.com/en/Titra_Studios

[zykotec]

Didn't Mel do the american voice-over for Max himself?

[Peter Barton]

According to Sam Arkoff, no, Mel did not dub himself.

Someone should see if they can find a contact for Peter Fernandez. Looks like he was one of the principals at Titra Studios - if he wasn't involved in the dubbing, he would almost certainly be able to provide pointers on where to look.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fernandez

[MFP 2020]

Thanks, Peter. I knew a lot of the old kaiju movies were dubbed by the same people (and a lot of kung fu movies as well), but had no idea it was one studio. I'm going to listen carefully to some of my 70s monster DVDs and see who I can hear.

My site no longer exists, but here is the text about the dubbing.

The identities of the voice talent on the American dub are a big mystery (no credits were added to the US release). However, the guy who dubbed Goose is the same guy who dubbed Jack in the Japanese Star Wars rip-off Message from Space (in case that bit of trivia helps). Additionally, some dubbers do multiple voices.

I was once about 99% sure that Max was dubbed by Peter Thomas, Sr., a ubiquitous vocal presence on US educational TV. He's done numerous commercials as well, including one for "Blue Stratos" cologne—the one that made me say, "Hey, that's Max's voice!" But after Peter Barton said that Mike McGee suggested on alt.cult-movies that David Hedison did Max, I leaned strongly in that direction until my question was answered on Hedison's site:

Did David Hedison dub the voice of Mel Gibson in the English version of the Australian film Mad Max?

No. David Hedison reports that he DID NOT do any dubbing for George Miller's 1979 film.

At this point, the only thing certain is that Mel Gibson did NOT re-loop his own dialog. He still had his halfway accent in Lethal Weapon, and that was 7 years after Max. There are a bazillion voice demos online, but I just don't have the time to listen to them all. Who's to say the original voiceover talent is even still alive? Someone out there must know.

I'll give Mr. Fernandez a shot.

[Peter Barton]

Not another site that no longer exists! I'd be happy to host it here in the archives if you like. There's a few sites like yours, and madmaxstuff, that had info & materials I've never actually put up, because you had it otherwise covered (and it's all too much work just for one site). Even with madmaxstuff gone for some years now, the memorabilia side is just so much work to try and do anything meaningful with myself.

[MFP 2020]

I'll get it back up eventually. When I do, I'll let you know.

You know how that goes...