Singing Actors (and Acting Singers)

[barfle]

Shos noted in the AFI thread that Sophia Loren's and Peter O'Toole's singing in Man of La Mancha was atrocious.

I recall Lee Marvin singing "I Was Born Under A Wandering Star" in Paint Your Wagon. It was pretty bad. The key seemed to change every note.

Kirk Douglas sang "A Whale of A Tale" in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and it was halfway decent.

Frank Sinatra acted in several movies and was generally decent. I don't remember Elvis Presley ever acting like anything except a bad actor.

What's your take on these crossover atrists?

[mmichaelson]

My favorite "crossover" would have to be Judy Garland, hands down. She's not a classical singer, but I've always loved her voice. (well her voice pre-smoke damage).

Julie Andrews was lovely as well.

Other recent actors-turned singer are Gwyneth Paltrow, Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones, although to be fair, Catherine sang in Wales before becoming an actress. I think they've all got decent voices, although Paltrow seems very limited in range and strength.

I think it seems very presumptuous to assume that just because you're good at one thing (singing or acting) that you'd be good at the other (see Britney "gag-me" Spears' movies, although, I don't feel that she's good at either, so maybe she doesn't count at all here).

I did enjoy Sinatra, as mentioned above, he wasn't hard on the eyes or ears as far as his performance went.

I think it really depends on the artist themselves, and sometimes the content of their parts as well.

[BigJon]

Cher?

BigJon

[rwcrooks]

April Winchell's site has some very interesting mp3s of acotrs who thought they were singers.

http://www.aprilwinchell.com/multimedia/

[OperaTenor]

I'll have to watch Paint Your Wagon again sometime. I don't remember Lee Marvin singing in it, and it might be a blocked bad memory. I'm trying to imagine hearing him sing, and it ain't pretty.

To me it tends to be highly subjective and a case-by-case issue, but I like to think I'm pretty open to someone's attempt(s) to croos over to another genre.

One cross over that repeatedly amuses me are hard core opera singers going pop, and vise versa. Listening to Sting(and I like him, mind you) sing Nessun Dorma is frightening, much more so in the case of Michael Bolton.

And then there's Pavarotti singing Maria ...

[piqaboo]

Cher is a fine actress - does she ever sing in her movie roles?

Why on EARTH would Sophia Loren and Peter O'Toole sing and not get professionals dubbed in? The mind boggles........

Elvis did a lot of both. Q - could he sing? Could he act? Do I need to duck and hide now?

[mmichaelson]

I don't think you need to duck and hide. . .I think it was a terrible actor (apparently barfle does too) and I was never fond of his singing.
Besides, who would hit a woman in the "family way" with anything, even a pillow?

[barfle]

I like a lot of Elvis Presley's music, but then the hill is so far behind me I've lost sight of it. But as a race car driver, I could out-act Elvis Presley any day of the week.

I know Marnie Nixon dubbed Natalie Wood's voice in West Side Story. A lot of actors have stunt doubles, so I have to agree with piq on why wouldn't Peter O'Toole (wouldn't that be a good name for a porno actor?) and Sophia Loren should have had singing doubles. But I haven't seen the movie.

Bette Midler seems to be able to do it all. Sheena Easton was an excellent singer who did a little TV acting (too bad I thought Miami Vice was such a loser).

[rwcrooks]

Originally posted by barfle:
(too bad I thought Miami Vice was such a loser).

barfle,

Are you saying that that whole Miami Vice thing is over and done with? If so, should I start wearing socks again?

[rwcrooks]

But I thought the point of Elvis movies was to give him a vehicle to sing a half-dozen songs in and then put out a soundtrack album.

You mean people actually expected him to act? Why that would be like expecting Brittney Spears to actually sing during one of her concerts!

<small>[ 06-29-2004, 12:19 AM: Message edited by: RichC ]</small>

[barfle]

I wouldn't know about the socks bit, Rich. I watched one episode of the show. The important, crime-solving scene involved Don Johnson reviewing a tape from an ATM security system. The picture he was looking at had a huge reflection on the windshield of the car, obscuring the face of the driver. He told the technician to "zoom in on that" and the zoom went through the reflection and showed a recognizable driver. Sorry, when they think I'm stupid enough to think that's detective work, I KNOW they're too stupid to write a decent script.

As far as Elvis goes, yes, I suppose the idea was more to sell soundtrack albums than anything else, although I read somewhere that he was upset by his own lack of acting ability. And Can't Help Falling In Love from "Blue Hawaii" is one of the best love songs from the early 1960s.

<small>[ 06-29-2004, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: barfle ]</small>

[piqaboo]

Just like Alice going thru the looking glass! (wasnt that a porn movie? Was Peter O'Tool in it?)