I have always wondered how this is done. I was super-surprised to hear Clint Eastwood singing in Paint Your Wagon, until a friend pointed out that it was the voice of someone who had the same tonal characteristics as Clint, but could carry a tune.(Sorry, no cites to reference)
I’m still not sure if I believe that it wasn’t Clint singing. Same thing with Lee Marvin in the same flick. Well okay, let’s leave that and talk about the subject of the post…
Say you have an actor who is absolutely tone-deaf, yet his part calls for him to sing, or he wants to make a top-40 recording on his own. Does the studio tweak his voice until it’s on-key or what? I have an old 45 of Robert Mitchum singing Thunder Road from the movie of the same name, but I never heard him sing anything else.
Before I ramble too much, let me get to the point: Do the studios change pitch, etc. to get an actor on-key and get a decent recording?
I once heard Eastwood on a talk show saying, completely straight faced, how he was proud of the result of his singing attempt in Paint Your Wagon. He even commented on taking classes and hiring a singing coach so I am hesitant to jump on the bandwagon on the Eastwood statement.
It was definitely Lee Marvin’s voice singing his girlfriend at the time used to make regular fun of him about it.
Often what happens for non-singing actors is that the music is adapted to their talents. The classic example is Robert Preston who was not a singer when he got {i}Music Man*. They allowed him to “talk-sing” it. This was also true with Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. This was pretty much the same thing for Mitchum with Thunder Road. Session players came out of that one a little frustrated, I’m told. They were hoping for overtime and he did it in one take.
With Audrey Hepburn, in My Fair Lady however, it was a complete musical dub job.
I have heard, but I don’t know how valid it is however, that these days studios now can manipulate a voice through computer means to make a non-singer a singer. I imagine this can be done as easily as they can digitally remove an accent (see Stuart Little for an example of this).
One of the Medved “worst film” books talks about “Paint Your Wagon” and makes it clear the Eastwood did do his singing.
As far as Robert Preston is concerned, his songs in “The Music Man” were written with his limited vocal range in mind. OTOH, the songs for Marion require a very good range.
Dubbing is less common today, simply because musicals are less common. Usually people do their own singing (often to great scorn).
Something like this was done for Michelle Pfeiffer in the Fabulous Baker Brothers. They took the best individual note from multiple takes of her songs, and digitally spliced them together for the final take. There’s also an effect called a pitch shifter that can be applied to “fix” notes that are slightly flat. I don’t know for a fact that this was used in the Fabulous Baker Brothers, or any other movie, but I have my suspicions.
…money. I vocal coach here in the Orlando area, many of whom are Equity actors / singers / dancers.
If the studio wants to have a “name” then they’ll spend some money and time on coaching, and yes, sad to say, sometimes manipulation of voices. (There’s a tape being played on one of the local cable stations,a tape of a well-known Miami singer, where they played what she was actually singing, instead of the pre-recorded dub. Of course, I think it’s understandable…no one can dance like that and give a stellar singing performance.)
I’ve taught a lot of folks to sing, from the newest of beginners, to my 87 year old retired priest. Only one, over the years, was hopeless. (And that was due to stubborness as much as tone issues.)
I’m a believer that with enough work and practice, anyone can sing…ok, maybe not Broadway quality, but good enough for community theater.
Paint Your Wagon did have a dub job though. Jean Seberg didn’t do her own singing. Now a question, did Scott Bakula do his own singing on that episode of Quantam Leap?
Almost. The beginning and end of “Just You Wait, 'Enry 'Iggins” is sung by Audrey herself.
On the Original Cast Album of My Fair Lady, Harrison sings most of the songs rather than reciting the lyrics. Maybe it’s just because I saw the movie first, but his OCA performance sounded weird and not as satisfying.
Woody Allen’s film “Everybody Says I Love You” was a musical in which all the actors sung their own parts. (Except for Drew Barrymore.) Some of them aren’t bad, some are awful. I assume that was pretty good cross-section of acting/singing talent in Hollywood.
Before the era of computer manipulation, sometimes record companies just went for it, regardless, I am sure.
My father had the first LP, circa 1965, by actor/singer Cosmo Filane, who hails from what is now Thunder Bay, Ontario. I haven’t seen the LP in many years, but I put the “hit” from the LP, Small Town Boy, on one of my old mix tapes because it sounded so odd. He basically talk-sings the song with female back up singers. (“I’m a small town boy…and you’re a big town giirrrlll. And there’s just no room for a small town boy, in your big town world”) I recall that he’d been a star in some CBC shows or something. Teen hearthrob, I guess.
I remember that the liner notes were really funny, because they admitted “Cosmo is almost totally tone deaf” and went on to say that they were so moved by his love of music that they patiently coached him. It’s the love of music that really shines through, etc, they said.
I recall that they bragged about his back-up singers, “who have sung with top artists, including… Petula Clark!”
The topper is that a few years ago, National Geographic did a feature on Thunder Bay, and they ran a picture of Mr. Filane and all the albums he put out, with him talking about what a big star he was!
A classic splicing a zillion singing takes together was done for Lauren Bacall in “To Have and Have Not”. It was still beyond awful. I love Betty’s acting, but her singing? Gack. This, incidentally is a great Bogey film too. Hogie Carmichael was in it and good writing too. You do know how to whistle, don’t you?