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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Esther Addley

From Audrey Hepburn to Zac Efron: a brief history of dubbed singing in Hollywood

The sound of music cast
Christopher Plummer (centre) and Peggy Wood (third from left) had their vocal performances replaced by ‘ghost singers’ for The Sound of Music. Photograph: 20th Century Fox/Allstar

Christopher Plummer was far from the only Hollywood star to discover his or her singing parts had been junked in favour of someone more mellifluous. Playback singers, or “ghost singers”, were once widely (if secretly) used to dub tuneless actors – and they haven’t quite disappeared. Here are some of the most notorious examples.

Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946)

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