Monday, March 17, 2008

The Dubber's Curse

This is a very belated Oscar thought, but it just occurred to me that Marion Cotillard's win for Best Actress ended the long curse of actresses whose singing is dubbed in their films. Deborah Kerr in The King and I, for example, though I seem to recall hearing that the singer who dubbed her was practically threatened with blacklisting if she told anyone. That was because Audrey Hepburn was similarly disappointed for My Fair Lady. Funnily enough, both were dubbed by the same woman, Marni Nixon, who played one of the nuns in The Sound of Music.

Also funnily enough, a reporter asked Cotillard to sing a few bars of an Edith Piaf song in her post-Oscar press conference. Why? Just to see whether she could sing or not? Or because he was spilling over with that much love for her?

If you know of anyone else who's won in spite of dubbing, leave a comment. Wins for musical actors have died off, of course, but Catherine Zeta-Jones certainly did her own singing.

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