Thursday, January 13, 2011

Stuttering No Rarity Among Hollywood Stars

Inspired by the The King's Speech, I was curious to find actors and actresses, people whose career often calls upon them to speak, who suffered, at some point in their life, from a speech deficiency (whether it be a stutter or something else). That was when I came across this piece at disabled-world.com. Believe it or not some of the biggest names in the world of celebrity today at some point in their life dealt with these issues. For example, golf all-star Tiger Woods had a stutter as a child and worked to overcome it as he got older. A common tale for many modern day celebrities. So I went through the list some and picked out a handful of big names, past and present, that I thought may be of interest to you.

The King's Speech offers us a unique chance to shed light on a debilitating issue that far too often gets set aside because it lacks the flash, and inspires a reserved nature in those who have it. Bellow I've listed the actor/actress and added a few notes on things you might find of interest with respect to them.

Bruce Willis

James Earl Jones - intones,  a form in which one recites things monotone

Julia Roberts

Marilyn Monroe

Eric Roberts - claims he still does so on occasion

Rowan Atkinson - has particular trouble with B's and tends to over-articulate for comedic effect in compensation

Sam Neill

Anthony Quinn

Jimmy Stewart - though we might argue it was one of his great charming features.


Tom Sizemore

Emily Blunt

Samuel L. Jackson (took up acting at urge of speech therapist)

Harvey Keitel



Well, as you can see it is by no means a rarity! Did any of these particularly surprise you?

7 better thoughts:

MovieNut14 said...

Jones I knew about. I would've never pictured Jackson or Keitel as stutterers.

Simon said...

You lie. JEJ has no time for stuttering. He's too busy punching sharks in the balls.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Eric Roberts? I still say his speech problems in Sharktopus were due to the fact he was drunk during filming. Lucky dude - wish I'd been drunk when I watched that travesty!

Univarn said...

@MovieNut Two real cool guys, it's definitely something that catches your attention.

@Simon Which makes it all the more surprising that he doesn't make a movie about his shark punching ventures.

@AlexJ Would be a good excuse to have :)

Anonymous said...

Bruce Willis?? Freakin' John McClaine? Wow, I'd never have guessed. The only one I knew who has this condition from this list is Emily Blunt.

Castor said...

Wo... wow! I cer-certainly didn't know these big names uused to stut-stutter!

Lesya said...

Didn't know about Emily Blunt, she's such a fine British actress. And Willis surprised me, too.

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