Simon Gilbert

Simon Gilbert (born 6 October 1937 in Hendon, London) is an English actor and tenor. At the age of twenty one he took singing lessons with the teachers of the Australian soprano Joan Sutherland. Gilbert gradually gravitated towards Opera and The Edinburgh Festival, where sang with Sutherland (in Haydn’s Orfeo) and Luciano Pavarotti (in I Capuleti e i Montecchi). Joining The Adelphi Theatre's company for the musical Show Boat, he played lead man to the show's star, Cleo Laine. In comparison, O'Toole's opposite number, Sophia Loren sang her own parts. He sang the complete part for O'Toole, (he described his own voice akin to Coca-Cola bottles being 'crushed under a door'). The director, Arthur Hiller, wanting Gilbert to achieve the same emotional intensity as O'Toole, had the latter record all his songs for Gilbert to compare with, even though, with Gilbert singing them for the film, O'Toole's versions would never be used. Gilbert was dubbed by at least one journalist the 'Marni Nixon' of 'La Mancha' on this account, and O'Toole's lip-synching was deemed good enough 'to have fooled... many of the critics' of the time. The next year he appeared alongside Ginger Rogers, in a production of Jerry Herman's Mame at The Drury Lane Theatre, as lead understudy, for a number of performances.