The movie "The King's Speech" may do a blockbuster at the Hollywood Oscars. It has been a smashing hit around the world even if it does not. CBC tonight had a short documentary on the recent movie and the actual facts. For once the movie got it pretty well right, as they had done their homework on all that is available on that side of King George VI life. The producer wanted to do this movie 25 years ago, asked the Queen mother if he could, and she asked him to not do it in her lifetime as it was still such a tender nerve and would bring back a time she really did not want to visit again.
Those who have had stuttering problems know how pain-full and humiliating it can be. For whatever reasons stutterers can SING without stuttering. Few people of the millions around the world who have loved (and still love) the singing of Slim Whitman (I am one of those millions) know about the early life of Slim and his huge stuttering problem as a child and into his early adult life. It was so bad that he became an outcast in school, and was for years a "loner." An interesting true story is the time a friend of his sister said to her, "Poor O.D. (Otis Dewy his birth name) he'll never amount to anything." Slim's sister replied, "Oh, you never know, he may become a knight in shinning armor."
Otis Whitman did finally become Slim Whitman, and took a singing entertainment career, that made him a household name in the world in the 1950s. At the beginning of his singing career his wife did have to do the introductions because he still had a large stuttering problem. Slim finally did overcome his stutter which made all who knew about it so proud of him.
I can relate to it in a manner - not that I ever had a stuttering problem, but as a young child till about 11 years of age, I had a humiliating reading problem. I was a terrible out-loud reader in school. One teacher would have us all take turns reading a paragraph from a book. Two or three students before my turn I would frantically try and figure out which paragraph I would be reading, and be reading it to myself. Most of the time my guess was correct, and so I did okay, but if I would have been wrong I knew it would have been terribly humiliating for me, and sure enough I would have been made fun of, as I knew that out of 40 kids in the class, I was the worst reader of all.
Fortunately for me I was a good singer and doing a song in a Boy Scouts Concert a lady watching asked me afterwards if I would consider joining her "Concert Group" (the group did songs and skits and a variety of stage numbers for charity groups). I said I would join. What I did not know at the time was that this lady was also an "elocution" teacher (speech trainer - teaching children and adults to talk like the Queen of England). She asked me to come for lessons, and I did. It was remarkable how my reading ability took an upward curve off the page within a year or two.
So watching the movie about the King's Speech, knowing the stuttering problem Slim Whitman had when a boy and young man, brought back the humiliating problem I had as a young child with reading out-loud in public.
The King's Speech is an inspiring movie in many ways. I hope it does real well at the Oscars. It does have a section with strong language and so adults may want to mute that section if showing the movie to their young children. The King was a seaman and they are known for strong language at times.
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I've kept this on my must-see list for when it comes out on dvd. I've always had speech problems and had to take two years of speech therapy as a child. Then, of course, my sweet baby, my firstborn, stutters and has a few other speech problems, but we're working on it.
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