Did you know that? The voice of JR, iconic character from Dallas, comes from Le Havre

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While the name may not mean much to the younger generation, his voice is easily recognizable. Serious and rocky, it was the French version of notorious characters from the small screen like the bad guy JR in dallas or the evil Hannibal in The All Risk Agency.

Behind hides the actor Dominique Paturel born in 1931… in Le Havre (then in Seine-Inférieure)!

From Le Havre to Paris

The actor, whose uncle is none other than Le Havre Robert le Minihy de la Villehervé, spent a large part of his childhood in a house on rue Lord-Kitchener, in the city center. He does not forget the bombings of the World War II which he describes in particular in the preface to the book Le Havre four seasons.

Shortly before the age of 20, he arrived in the capital at the rue Blanche entertainment school and through several meetings, he climbed the career ladder without really knowing what he expected. Moreover, in an interview given to France 3 Dijon in 1986, he explained: “I came from this job not knowing at all what to do,” he told the journalist.

What followed was a (very) long career with voice dubbing for iconic characters like JR from Dallas, for whom he didn’t really believe in it, as he explained to our colleagues at l’Impartial.

I was asked to voice the famous JR in Dallas, a soap opera which, at its beginnings, was rather unknown (…) Personally, I thought that these stories of oil and money would not excite the French. It was wrong. The audience for this US soap opera quickly broke all records.

The rest, we know it.

Small screen and boards

In addition to his interpretation of iconic characters made in the USA, Le Havre also lent his voice in the credits of Captain Flam and played in more than 80 plays.

Dominique Paturel died on February 28, 2022 in Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d’Armor), leaving a big void in the world of the small screen of the 1990s.

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