Gaetano Mazzaglia dei Conti Cutelli (January 1, 1889 – July 16, 1944), better known as Count Tano Cutelli, was an Italian-American nobleman and sound effects specialist for television and during the 1920s and '30s, and worked for companies including Disney and Looney Tunes. In his career, he received the nickname " The Big Noise" for the 2000 or so sound effects that he could create with his voice.
Early life
Gaetano Mazzaglia dei Conti Cutelli was born in
Sicily,
and grew up on his father's estate near
Mount Etna.
He was raised as a nobleman within the Italian aristocracy. One of his first jobs was as a sea-captain, and during the First World War, he fought for the Italian Army on the African front.
Stage and screen career
Cutelli started his career as a stage actor, performing in European
vaudeville venues
—specifically in
Palermo. He moved to Hollywood in the early 1920s in order to begin performing in early "talkie" motion pictures. His first contact in the film world was with the manager of
Gloria Swanson, who had heard Cutelli's impressions during his early radio work. He was asked to do a screen test for his imitation of a crying baby, and soon after began doing film work.
From there, he became a pioneer in the creation of sound effects in both film and radio.
By 1929, his career in the movies was the subject of an article by
The New York Times.
He immigrated to the United States in 1930, settling in Los Angeles, and became a naturalized citizen a decade later.
Cutelli was able to produce more than 2,000 sound effects from his throat, including a large variety of different animals, mechanical noises (like air plane squadrons), and weather effects (like howling winds or sea waves crashing on the shore).
Roles
Films that his voice work was featured in included
The Trespasser,
, and
Condemned, and he voiced the crying baby Abraham Lincoln in the 1930 film
Abraham Lincoln.
Another role that Cutelli did was providing the additional lines for
Porky Pig after his original voice actor
Joe Dougherty could not control his
Stutter. In 1937, Dougherty was replaced by
Mel Blanc as the voice of Porky, in which Blanc would continue voicing Porky until his death in 1989.
Death
Cutelli died of a heart attack on July 16, 1944, while waiting for a train in
Seattle. Upon his death, the
Chicago Tribune called him the "Genius of Sound Effects".
After his death, The Berlin Anthropological Institute offered $2,000 to purchase Cutelli's head so that it could be studied for his sound effects ability. The request was declined by the family.
Anniversary
Celebrating Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday year in 2018, the newspaper
il Mattino published a story
of remembrance.
External links
