RIP Gianni Bonagura

Farewell to Gianni Bonagura, lord of dubbing

Marcello Teodonio

October 10, 2017

Dead at 92 years, one of the great Italian voices. Danny De Vito, Rod Steiger, Mel Brooks, Walter Matthau, Gene Wilder are just some of the main actors who he played in front of the lectern. A man of fine culture (a library of 10,000 volumes donated to the Municipal Library of Formello), he was also an excellent interpreter of the lyrics of Gioacchino Belli

The actor and playwright Gianni Bonagura died in Milan. It would have been 92 years on October 27th. Milanese of birth, he had always lived in Rome, where he had attended high school at Tasso and then graduated from the National School of Dramatic Art Silvio D'Amico. At the theater he worked with Franco Zeffirelli, Vittorio Gassman, Gianlcarlo Giannini, Jhonny Dorelli and Gigi Proietti. In the 1950s and 1960s it became one of the most famous voices of Italy, alongside that of ever-friends, Nino Manfredi, Bice Valori, Paolo Panelli. On television he debuted in 1956 with ‘L'alfiere’, directed by Anton Giulio Majano. To ‘Padre Pio’, in 2000, with Sergio Castellitto, for Sherlock Holmes in the role of Watson. And then on film, with about forty films including “Risate di gioia” by Mario Monicelli, with Anna Magnani and Totò. But he also worked with Bertolucci, Luigi Magni and Lina Wertmuller. Among the countless others, Danny De Vito, Rod Steiger, Mel Brooks, Walter Matthau, Gene Wilder, Marcello Morante, Giuseppe in “The Gospel according to Matteo” di Pasolini, Uncle Reginaldo degli Aristogatti, and above all the extraordinary Marty Feldman and his unforgettable Aigor in Young Frankenstein.

Gianni Bonagura was also a great interpreter of literary texts, as he has shown over the twenty years as a protagonist of the literary teas of the Vittoria Theater in Rome, where he gave voice to his favorite authors, first of all Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, whose lyrics he was the most excellent performer. A man of refined culture (his library - theater and poetry of all time and all languages ​​- of almost ten thousand volumes which he gave to the communal library of Formello), Gianni Bonagura was a stern and generous and respectful man, who loved his independence and was open to confrontation: a great lord of theater and life.

Born:10/27/1926, Milan, Lombardy, Italy

Died: 10/8/2017, Milan, Lombardy, Italy

For a Few Dollars More – 1965 [Italian voice of Frank Brana]

Questa sera parla Mark Twain (TV) – 1965 (medic)

Fort Yuma Gold – 1966 [Italian voice of Jacques Sternas]

Roy Colt and Winchester Jack – 1970 [Italian voice of Giorgio Gargiullo]