Death of actor Roger Carel: he was a voice

A voice to tell a whole life.

Probably yours.

Ours.

That of our feelings as a child in cartoons, then as a teenager or adult discovering and re-examining American classics, always with his voice.

We did not always recognize it from one film to another because he knew how to model it like verbal plasticine precisely, rising very high to slalom in the treble, but once you know, it's almost a shock: his voice was there all the time.

Roger Bancharel, known as Carel, died on September 11 at the age of 93.

Information confirmed by his son joined by Le Parisien, and by the town hall of Aigre (Charente), where the actor has left us.

“We did not wish to communicate on his death, to preserve his wife, greatly upset.

We didn't want her to be bombarded with messages by people in the profession, or journalists, ”her son explains.

The funeral of the famous comedian took place this Thursday in the strictest family privacy.

It will rest in the family vault of Villejesus (Charente).

Chosen by Charlie Chaplin

Roger Carel has performed extensively in theater and cinema, but he is a dubbing legend.

An original of the French version.

Asterix, it's him.

Mickey Mouse, him for a long time.

Kaa the snake in "The Jungle Book" who sings "Have confidence ...", again him.

Like Pongo of the “101 Dalmatians”, and at the same time Roquefort the fearful mouse and the Lafayettes dog of the “Aristocats”.

Do you put it back, or rather you put it back?

More clues, as we go back in time.

The C-3 PO robot from "Star Wars" with the voice of an English butler and the very stiff posture, forming a comic duet with the other small fat robot R2-D2, you remember this elegant tone, funny by dint of courtesy supported in the most desperate or funny situations?

Alf the extraterrestrial.

Winnie the Pooh but also Piglet and Coco Lapin because it was a troop on its own.

Her voiceprint comes back like the soundtrack of a thousand memories.

A thread that we keep winding, a reel that spins through the bowels of the TV and its family treasures: Kermit the frog from the “Muppet Show”, Wally Gator, Mister Magoo, Maestro… This magician crosses “Harry Potter” through the French stamp of potions professor Horace Slughorn.

And the classics?

This tone of Jack Lemmon, especially in "Some like it hot" - even if when the character has to take a female voice, Roger Carel still had to be helped by a second voice actor - Peter Sellers in all his comedies including “The Pink Panther”, and best of all, “The Dictator”, when Charlie Chaplin decided to do the dub again, and chose it personally.

At least that's what Roger Carel said, in his interviews and his memoirs, “I admit that I laughed well”.

He published them when he was not even 60, in 1986. The career was already immense.

Almost the complete Disney, "the jackpot" as he said.

He also had a "mouth"

The high priest in the cartoon wanted to become a parish priest, his first vocation as a minor seminarian.

Even if it means preaching, he might as well play: he learned the art of the actor alongside Michel Piccoli and Anouk Aimée, studied at Cours Simon, and performed both in the theater and in the cabaret, like the generation of Poiret and Serrault.

"Most of my life, I've slept four hours a night," smiled that voice that no one wanted to hear shut up.

It is in the theater that he is spotted for his capacities as a voice actor, this chameleon modulation, a technique too.

He spoke of it like a musician deciphering every note on a staff.

He attributes to himself characters, like Hercule Poirot, whom he doubles in the cinema with Peter Ustinov, but also in his televised incarnations.

Jerry in the various Jerry Lewis films too, even when the character changes his surname.

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Of course he also had a face, and even a "face" as we say among actors.

He has played Molière, Courteline and Feydeau, Ionesco, and over a hundred roles in the theater and on television.

We see her in the Audiard cinema - "She talks more… she shoots" -, by Tchernia, by Yves Robert.

In the 1980s, he regularly participates in Philippe Bouvard's Big Heads, on RTL, where he entertains the gallery with his sound effects alongside Jacques Martin.

Radio man, again.

And culture.

The king of the French version preferred to watch the great films in their original version.

The ultimate coquetry of a supporting role, forever the first of the dubbers.