Ted Rusoff

Ted Rusoff (May 20, 1939 – September 28, 2013) was a Canadian voiceover artist, actor, vocal coach, and translator specializing in the adaptation and translation from and into various languages of synchronized dialogue for the dubbing of films and cartoons. Highly prolific with over 100 credits to his name, Rusoff is best remembered for his work adapting and performing English-language dialogue for countless Italian genre films.

As an actor, he had appeared in more than 70 films. Fluent in many languages, he was often called upon for work as language/accent/dialogue consultant for dubbings, theatre, and cinema. He worked many times as a stage-director for regular plays and as stage-director and music-coach for opera in houses in Marseille, Copenhagen, Munich, Prague, Riga, Montevideo, Tokyo, Auckland, and elsewhere. He was active as a choral director, known for his "Liebslieder Waltzes" and other choral masterpieces by Brahms, as well as the music of composers of the Baroque period.

Life and career Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Rusoff was the son of screenwriter and film producer Lou Rusoff the head of American International Pictures. Rusoff started his career as a singer, appearing in operas, musical comedies, and on the road in various cities in Canada and the United States with his guitar during the folk-singing boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He specialized in foreign language songs, including Ghanaian and Māori. He also appeared in nearly all the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, acting in a wide variety of roles. He toured with a trio called The Catch Club, along with his fellow music students from UCLA, David Reznick and Larry Pack. They sang catches, or rounds, from the English Restoration period, and appeared throughout North America whilst recording an album.

In 1963, he relocated to Europe, where using his knowledge of languages, began overseeing the dubbing of English-language AIP films into Italian, French, and German. Since then, he has worked as sync-adapter and dubbing director of more than 500 films, and as a dubber his voice can be heard in more than 1000 films, providing the voice for numerous leading men as well as many villains in a number of Italian cult favorites such as The Whip and the Body (1963), Deep Red (1975), Beyond the Darkness (1979) and many others. He has also worked extensively dubbing films into Italian and French, often supplying foreign languages or accents. As a dubbing director he is known for his extensive work for the English-language versions of foreign – predominantly Italian – films. He also sync-adapted, acted in, and directed the dubbing of films shot in Turkish, Finnish, Greek, Danish, Hebrew, and Korean as well as the standard European cinema languages.

From the early 1980s, Rusoff also worked as an actor in film and television. He started out with supporting roles – often playing authority figures or religious characters such as priests, rabbis or monks. His earliest film roles were in Joe d'Amato's horror film Absurd (1981) and in Marco Ferreri's Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981), based on the works of Charles Bukowski, and Franco Zeffirelli's La Traviata (1983) alongside Plácido Domingo. He also acted together with his wife, Carolyn De Fonseca, in the Pia Zadora starring vehicle The Lonely Lady (1983), and he and De Fonseca played husband and wife, the parents of Mussolini's mistress Claretta Petacci in the TV miniseries Mussolini and I (1985), with Bob Hoskins in the title role.

Throughout the rest of the 1980s and 1990s, Rusoff acted in low-budget B-movies such as Catacombs (1988), where he plays a monk; Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989) with Lou Ferrigno, where he plays the keeper of the torture chamber; and the Jean-Claude Van Damme flick Double Team (1997), where he plays a hacking-inclined Italian monk. However, he also had roles in many acclaimed films such as Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), alongside Max von Sydow in the TV movie A Violent Life (1991), in which he played Pope Paul III, Tinto Brass' The Voyeur (1994) and, in a film about the life of Pope John XXIII, The Good Pope (2002), as a rabbi working with the future Pope Angelo Roncalli in his efforts to free a shipload of Jews in Istanbul and send them to Israel. Rusoff also played the Chief Elder in Mel Gibson's controversial Biblical epic The Passion of the Christ (2004) and Julius Caesar's Greek slave Strabo in the popular HBO series Rome (2005–2007).

Personal life Rusoff was married to his long-time colleague, voice actress Carolyn De Fonseca, until her death in 2009. He died in Rome, Italy, on September 28, 2013, more than a month after being hit by car.

List of dubbing roles (incomplete) Year Title Role Actor 1963 The Whip and the Body Christian Menliff Tony Kendall 1965 Bloody Pit of Horror Raul Alberto Giordini1967Gamera vs. GyaosShiro TsutsumiKojiro Hongo 1967 Yongary, Monster from the Deep Ilo Oh Yeong-il1967–1968Johnny Sokko and His Flying RobotJerry ManoAkio Ito 1968 The Battle of El Alamein Lt. Giorgio Borri Frederick Stafford1968Destroy All MonstersDr. OtaniYoshio Tsuchiya 1968 The Great Silence Outlaw Guido Simoni 1969 The Red Tent Snowblind Di Nobile Crewmember Donatas Banionis1969Machine Gun McCainRoccoMino Cuspisi 1969 Battle of the Last Panzer Lt. Hunter Stelvio Rosi1969Naked ViolenceMarcoGianfranco Pellegrini 1970 Shadow of Illusion Seth Antonio Cantafora 1970 When the Bell Tolls Tego Gino Turini 1970 And God Said to Cain Gary Hamilton Klaus Kinski 1971 The Bloodstained Butterfly Police Inspector Silvano Tranquilli 1971 The Cannibal Man Marcos Vicente Parra 1971 Four Pistols for Trinity Quinn Paradine Umberto Raho 1971 Slaughter Hotel Dr. Francis Clay Klaus Kinski 1971 The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh George Corro George Hilton 1972 The Case of the Bloody Iris Andrea Barto George Hilton 1972 Death Walks at Midnight Gio Baldi Simón Andreu 1972 Milano Calibro 9 Chino Philippe Leroy 1972 The Red Queen Kills Seven Times Police Inspector Marino Masé 1972 Shadows Unseen The Priest Renato Romano 1972 Shadows Unseen Sgt. Mortesi Elio Zamuto 1973 Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye Dr. Franz Anton Diffring 1973 The Violent Professionals Vice-Commissioner Del Buono Chris Avram 1974 Almost Human Grandi's Assistant Mario Piave 1974 Beyond the Door Robert Barrett Gabriele Lavia 1974 The Eerie Midnight Horror Show Carlo Gianrico Tondinelli 1974 Identikit Police Inspector Maurizio Bonuglia 1974 The Last Desperate Hours Paolo Mancuso Antonio Sabàto 1975 Deep Red Superintendent Calcabrini Eros Pagni 1975 Eyeball Martinez Raf Baldassarre 1975 Syndicate Sadists Pino Scalia Mario Piave 1976 Apache Woman Tommy Al Cliver 1976 The Big Racket Sgt. Salvatore Velasci Sal Borgese 1976 Black Emanuelle 2 Paul Angelo Infanti 1976 Colt 38 Special Squad Inspector Vanni Marcel Bozzuffi 1976 Last Orgy of the Third Reich Camp Doctor Fulvio Ricciardi 1976 The Last Round Rico Manzetti Luc Merenda 1976 Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man Fred Marc Porel 1976 My Father's Wife Claudio Cesare Barro 1976 Plot of Fear Chief Inspector Tom Skerritt 1976 SS Camp 5 – Women's Hell Dr. Karl ? 1977 Death Hunt Inspector Ettore Moretti Al Cliver 1977 Fearless Walter 'Wally' Spada Maurizio Merli1977SuspiriaPolice Inspector? 1977 The Desert Tigers Major Lexman Richard Harrison 1977 The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist Munition Expert ? 1977 Return of the 38 Gang Commissioner Gino Varelli Antonio Sabàto 1978 Blazing Flowers Commissioner Morani George Hilton 1978 Killer Nun Dr. Patrick Roland Joe Dallesandro 1978 Being Twenty Inspector Zambo Giorgio Bracardi 1978 The Uranium conspiracy Renzo Fabio Testi 1979 Beyond the Darkness Frank Wyler Kieran Canter 1979 Escape from Hell Dr. Farrell Anthony Steffen 1979 From Corleone to Brooklyn Lt. Danova Venantino Venantini 1979 Hotel Paradise Juan Laredo Anthony Steffen 1979 Terror Express Mike Venantino Venantini 1980 Anthropophagus Andy Saverio Vallone 1980 Cannibal Apocalypse Dr. Phil Mendez Ramiro Olivares 1980 Contamination Dr. Hilton Mike Morris 1980 Erotic Nights of the Living Dead Larry O'Hara George Eastman 1980 Hell of the Living Dead Vincent Selan Karay 1980 Inferno John the butler Leopoldo Mastelloni 1980 The Rebel Nick Rossi Maurizio Merli 1981 Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror Mark Gianluigi Chirizzi 1981 Piranha 2: The Spawning Initial Victim ? 1981 The House by the Cemetery Mr. Wheatley Carlo De Mejo 1982 Nathalie Stanley Warren Roger Beach 1982 Panic Captain Kirk David Warbeck 1982 Pieces Professor Arthur Brown Jack Taylor 1982 The Sword of the Barbarians Sangraal Pietro Torrisi 1982 Violence in a Women's Prison Chief Inspector Jacques Stany 1983 The Ark of the Sun God Prince Abdullah Aytekin Akkaya 1983 Escape from the Bronx Governor Biddle ? 1983 The Final Executioner Alan Tanner William Mang 1983 Hercules Valcheus Gianni Garko 1983 Rats: Night of Terror Kurt Ottaviano Dell'Acqua 1983 Rush Rush Conrad Nichols 1983 Throne of Fire Siegfried Pietro Torrisi 1983 Emanuelle Escapes from Hell Crazy Boy Henderson Gabriele Tinti 1984 Monster Dog Vincent Raven Alice Cooper 1984 Rage – Fuoco incrociato Rage Conrad Nicols 1984 Monster Shark Dr. Davis Barker Lawrence Morgant 1985 Jungle Raiders Tiger Protacio Dee 1985 Miami Golem Craig Milford David Warbeck 1986 Bridge to Hell Pazilbo Carlo Mucari 1986 Days of Hell Captain Williamson Conrad Nichols 1987 The Cross of Seven Jewels Marco Sartori Marco Antonio Andolfi 1987 Wartime Captain Rosen Peter Hooten 1988 After Death David Massimo Vanni 1988 Ratman Fred David Warbeck 1988 Touch of Death Lester Parson Brett Halsey 1988 Zombi 3 General Morton Mike Monty 1989 Alien From the Deep Bob Daniel Bosch 1989 The House of Lost Souls Massimo Matteo Gazzolo 1989 The House of Witchcraft Luke Palmer Andy J. Forest 1995 The Strange Story of Olga O. Paolo Roli David Brandon 1996 Fatal Frames Calzetta Massimo Pittarello 2003 Cannibal World Bob Manson Claudio Morales 2003 Land of Death Romero Claudio Morales 2003 Snuff Trap Peter Carlo Mucari 2011 The Scarlet Worm Print's Attorney Offscreen

Filmography Year Title Role Notes 1956 Runaway Daughters Teenager in Crowd 1981 Tales of Ordinary Madness Priest Uncredited 1981 Absurd Dr. Kramer 1983 The Lonely Lady Preacher 1988 Catacombs Brother Brandt 1988 The Last Temptation of Christ Crowd Member Voice 1988 Stradivari 2nd Dignitary 1989 Sinbad of the Seven Seas Torture Chamber Keeper Uncredited 1989 La morte è di moda Rizzo's Friend Uncredited 1990 Una vita scellerata Alessandro Farnese / Pope Alexander III 1994 The Voyeur The Parking Attendant 1997 Double Team Brother Ramulu 1997 The Eighteenth Angel Benedetti 2004 The Passion of the Christ Elder No. 7 2004 Eternal Italian Bookshop Owner 2006 The Nativity Story Old Shepherd 2009 Christine Cristina Frate Severino 2011 The Scarlet Worm Print's Attorney Voice