When Katharine Hepburn, Joan Fontaine, Jean Arthur, Merle Oberon and Ingrid Bergman speak their lines on France's movie screens, they talk French as fluently as natives. This is not strange because each of them uses the same native tongue and larynx; tiny, blue-eyed French Actress Paula Dehelly does the talking for all of them.
Paula is one of 200-odd French actors who eke out their stage salaries dubbing French dialogue on Hollywood sound tracks for the French-owned Syndicat de Post-Synchronisation. Theirs is difficult and exacting work. Sometimes they must sit for eight hours a...