Mario Bardella was an Italian actor and voice actor, born in Venice on September 17, 1926. His career began in the performing arts at a young age in his native city, where he had his first theatrical experiences with Cesco Baseggio, whom he always considered his mentor, and Gianfranco De Bosio. He further honed his craft at the miming school of Jacques Lecoq. His stage work subsequently took him to the stable theater companies of Genoa, Trieste, Turin, and the Piccolo Teatro in Milan.

With the arrival of television, Bardella expanded his career to include numerous roles in sceneggiati, the literary dramas popular on Italian television, and comedies. Despite his screen work, he maintained a strong connection to the theater, frequently returning to perform, particularly in the works of Carlo Goldoni. Over time, he increasingly focused on dubbing, both as a voice actor and as a dubbing director, often collaborating with his wife, Gabriella Genta, a renowned figure in Italian dubbing.

In the realm of anime and animated features, Mario Bardella contributed his voice to a variety of characters for Italian-language versions. He is notably recognized for his role as the villainous Doctor Hell in the iconic series Mazinger Z, a part he performed for a single episode. His other anime voice roles included Gantezu in Don Chuck Monogatari and Doctor John in Lucy-May of the Southern Rainbow. He also lent his voice to the character of the Lion in an Italian adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. His work extended to animated films as well, where he voiced characters such as Hiram Flaversham in Basil the Great Mouse Detective, Einstein in Oliver & Company, and the Major in the animated version of Animal Farm. Beyond performing voices, Bardella also contributed to the anime industry as a dubbing director, notably on the Italian version of Mazinger Z.

Throughout his career, Mario Bardella's deep and expressive voice was also heard in dubbing for live-action cinema, providing the Italian voice for numerous international actors, including Peter Ustinov and Walter Pidgeon. He balanced his professional life between Rome, where he eventually moved, and Venice, maintaining his artistic ties to his hometown until his later years. Mario Bardella passed away in Rome on September 30, 2014, at the age of 88.