Francisco Colmenero | |
|---|---|
| Born | José Francisco Colmenero y de la Villanueva y Villanueva February 28, 1932 |
| Occupation(s) | voice actor, voice director |
| Years active | 1954-present |
| Spouse | María Teresa Colmenero (m. 1955) |
José Francisco Colmenero y Villanueva (born February 28, 1932, in Mexico City, Mexico), known professionally as Francisco Colmenero, is a Mexican voice actor and voice director. After the death of his father, his brother in law, voice actor and voice director Edmundo Santos, offered him a job as his private driver then Colmenero accepted. During his time working as the driver of Edmundo Santos, Colmenero met the muse of Santos, the voice actress Estrellita Díaz with whom he started an affair and after a while Díaz convinced Santos to use Colmenero as a dubbing actor for additional voices (although Colmenero wasn't an actor nor having any knowledge of acting) debuting in The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin in 1954.
In 1959 Santos as a gesture of kindness referred Colmenero to Enrique Candiani, CEO of the back then new dubbing company Servicio Internacional de Sonido for hire him as voice director.
After the death of Edmundo Santos in 1977, Colmenero and his siblings took over the dubbing company of Santos called Grabaciones y Doblajes, S.A. and never informed their main customer, The Walt Disney Company, about the passing of Santos and Colmenero became the almost absolute voice director in the company after putting his brother Jorge as the production manager. This era of Disney's Latin Spanish dubs was known for excessive repetition of a few actors in all the dubs directed by Colmenero for Disney arranging the castings to make the client believe that Colmenero's group had been selected.
In 1988 Disney's localization executives learned the truth about the castings and the death of Santos then The Walt Disney Company filed a lawsuit to Grabaciones y Doblajes, S.A. meanwhile for the pending dubs were hired the studios Intersound in Los Ángeles and Servicio Internacional de Sonido in Mexico City. A few time later voice actor Javier Pontón was hired as dubbing creative manager for then recent created Disney Character Voices International assuring Disney's Latin Spanish dubs in Los Ángeles and other studios of Mexico City different of Grabaciones y Doblajes keeping a hard supervision over castings and performance.