William Ross

Ross was born in Cincinnati Ohio US on September 7 1923 He was drafted into the Korean War and would be stationed in Japan where he fell in love with the country Ross would subsequently move to Tokyo with intentions of joining the Japanese State Department Instead he ended up becoming involved in the film industry and would go on to appear in more than 80 Japanese films and Television shows In 1959 Ross got into the dubbing industry upon recommendation by Japanese actor So Yamamura He showed such a talent for the industry that the Japanese dubbing director quit and left Ross in charge on the first day Soon thereafter he would hired as a director by Asian Films After the closure of several Tokyo dubbing studios in 1964 he founded his own dubbing company Frontier Enterprises also working as dialogue writer dubbing director and voice actor Frontier quickly became one of the big five early English dubbing houses doing work for companies such as Toho Toei and Shochiku Frontier would go on to dub over 465 liveaction and animated films and TV series Ross was forced to rely on whatever native English speakers he could find in Tokyo back in the 1960s much of which consisted of businessmen musicians and students with little to no acting experience He held auditions and made sure he hired the best people available and trained them thoroughly His regular dubbing cast primarily consisted of expatriates living in Tokyo and members of the Far East Network however Aside from his dubbing ventures Ross was an associate producer on Toeis Terror Beneath the Sea and the MGMToei coproduction The Green Slime where he was also an assistant director to Kinji Fukusaku and appeared as Ferguson He continued to act occasionally appearing in Message from Space The Last Dinosaur and The War in Space Ross was also a dialogue editor notably editing for American animated shows such as Dennis the Menace Heathcliff the Cadillac Cats and The Real Ghostbusters Ross died in Tokyo on April 19 2014