The night of November 5th began like any other work night. I'm an entertainment journalist, and I was going to the American Film Institute's premiere of "The King's Speech" at Grauman's Chinese theater in Hollywood, a place I've been to hundreds of times.

I knew that the film would hit close to my heart. I am a stutterer, and the movie is about King George VI of Britain, a fellow stutterer who has to find his true voice as he ascends to the English throne, just prior to his country declaring war on Germany.

I said hello to my friend Harvey Weinstein -- yes, that Harvey Weinstein -- one of the executive producers on the film, as well as a few other Hollywood friends I know from years spent interviewing the types of celebs who make most humans tongue-tied. I settled in the red velvet chair with my Diet Coke and popcorn. The lights dimmed.

From the opening scene, as Colin Firth's Duke of York gives his first halting speech, the look of sheer terror in his eyes shook me to my core. When Geoffrey Rush's character, Lionel Logue -- the Duke's unorthodox speech therapist -- tells him, "You don't need to be afraid of the things you were afraid of when you were five," I started to cry.

In my case, I was transported back to a moment in the third grade. "What President was assassinated after Abraham Lincoln?" our teacher asked the class. I knew the answer. "William McKinley!" I said in my head, willing my tongue to form the words, but I just couldn't get the 'W' out.

In the theatre, all those emotions -- feeling small, stupid and invisible -- welled up again in a profound way. A lot of them had lain dormant clear through my teenage years. The pivotal moment that finally helped me not feel small, or trapped by my speech patterns anymore, had come when I was twenty and hanging backstage in the Broadway dressing room of my late cousin, the actor Ron Silver.

I told him about a speech therapist I had seen who advised me to pursue a career which would not require me to speak to anyone.

"You're really smart," Ron said, turning to me suddenly, "and you love anything to do with entertainment. Why would you shut yourself off from what you love?"

Then and there I decided not to isolate myself in the prison of stuttering. I realized that the goal of speaking "normally" was the real obstacle. I accepted that I stuttered, stopped shaming myself, and went on with my life. Which is not to downplay the fact that learning to accept a stutter is a long and winding road. And, as Bertie's journey in "The King's Speech" exhibits, there's no such thing as a cure.

The irony, for me, is that ultimately stuttering enhanced my career. The skills I developed as a result, including heightened intuitiveness, awareness and observational skills -- not to mention the simple ability to be quiet and listen -- all serve me well as a journalist, interviewer and now, as a film and television producer.

Obviously "The King's Speech" is resonating with more than stutterers like me. It just surpassed the $100 million mark in the US box office and is doing very well overseas. Besides winning a trail of awards, the film is poised to sweep the upcoming Academy Awards. Clearly it has touched a collective nerve. I asked some of the forces behind the film, to what do they attribute its success?

Tom Hooper, director of "The King's Speech" gave me his take: "We all have blocks between us and our best selves. Whether it's shyness, insecurity or anxiety, we navigate these on a daily basis. Bertie had a profound version of that block. I think the story of someone overcoming that block to their best self is a universal story."

Gareth Unwin, the film's producer, explained why the story of an English king has such appeal here in the US: "Americans have a great appetite for heroes. It's a particularly American theme, where people who struggle in the face of adversity can win out, especially when it's supported by friendship. It's a tale that in some ways captures the American dream."

"I think the reason people are connecting to the film is the disconnect that people have between how they see themselves and how they would like to see themselves," said Geoffrey Rush. The bottom line is that it takes courage to live a full, vibrant and fearless life. To play it big or small.

Colin Firth agrees. He told me: "There's something so moving about a man who doesn't know how brave he is. When Logue says, 'Bertie, you've got such perseverance, you're the bravest man I know,' I don't think it's ever occurred to Bertie in his life that he's brave. His experience up until now has been about fear, and I think to be told that every word you've spoken has been valiant...it was life changing for him."

The screenwriter, David Seidler, a fellow stutterer, says, "Bertie displayed an act of courage that all stutterers need. You have to turn the corner and say, 'Yeah, I may be stuck with this. Maybe I can control it, maybe I can't but I don't care anymore. I'm going to talk and people are just going to have to listen.' You're no longer the victim; you've gone beyond it."

For my part, I don't remember a time when I didn't stutter. Like Bertie, who thought his stutter began at five, I remember when I was that age and couldn't get a word out. I was the youngest of four children in an educated, boisterous family. I was a smart, sensitive, introspective child. I was tougher at home -- as the youngest, I had to be. Since I kept to myself, it spared me taunting at school ... some, at least. Let's just say I was an old soul at a young age.

At home, my family sort of took the route of positive denial. I never gave out the pity vibe, and they never gave it to me. My father didn't believe in conventional thinking and treated me like my siblings. I kind of just plowed through my childhood. What I didn't understand then is how much my family not making the stutter a big deal helped me later in life. By not focusing on it, they allowed me not to be 'handicapped' by it.

The National Stuttering Association, or the NSA, defines stuttering as "a communication disorder involving disruptions, or disfluencies," in a person's speech. The precise cause of stuttering is not known. We do know that it is not caused by emotional problems, and it is not a 'nervous' disorder. We also know that stuttering is not the fault of the person who stutters.

The Stuttering Foundation of America http://www.stutteringhelp.org adds that, "Nervousness does not cause stuttering. Nor should we assume that people who stutter are prone to be nervous, fearful, anxious, or shy. They have the same full range of personality traits as those who do not stutter. You can't 'catch' stuttering. Recent research indicates that family history (genetics), neuromuscular development, and the child's environment, including family dynamics, all play a role in the onset of stuttering."

Stuttering does tend to run in families -- although as far as my family can tell, I am the only one of us who does. Most children outgrow it. It affects four times as many males as females. One percent of adults worldwide stutter, over 3 million in the United States. Research recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed three genetic mutations in the brain cells of people who stutter. The cells are located in the part of the brain that controls speech, which suggests that genes could play a big role in the disorder. Still, stuttering has perplexed experts for ages.
I'm in good company: Biblical lore tells us that Moses stuttered, as did Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, James Earl Jones, Bruce Willis, the actress Emily Blunt and many more. My journalism career has included covering politics as well; Vice President Joseph Biden talks openly about his stuttering. We met the first time right before the election. The future VP and I chatted for twenty minutes about our similar childhood stories. He told me his experiences as a stutterer gave him compassion and feelings for the underdog, which obviously has served him well in a high-achieving career.

I know how fortunate I am to have forged the career path I have. I love Hollywood because it is truly accepting of offbeat and quirky people -- I would have never thrived in the "normal" world. In the course of my trajectory, I've gotten to interview and know so many amazing people, all of whom, when the stutter does come up (which honestly is not all that often these days), heard me out patiently and with understanding: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, George Lopez, Will Smith, Johnny Depp, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah, Angelina Jolie, Sandra Bullock, and many more.

In real life -- unlike in the movies -- endings are not so clearly "happy" or not. Mine basically is. Not that it's been easy. I've tried many therapies: some helped, some didn't. But with perseverance, I got there. Well almost there, since there is no cure, so I'll never be "there." What I do know is that I am not defective or damaged. I'm not the stupid imbecile stutterer that has long been portrayed in the media -- like Porky Pig's 'Th-th-th-that's all folks', which, truth be told, still makes me sick to my stomach, as does the stuttering gangster in a "A Fish Called Wanda" and stuttering Stanley in "The Sixth Sense."

"Stuttering has been fair game for satire for too long," Tom Hooper told me. "It was time to look seriously at it." The King and I, like so many other stutterers, both took the leap and chose not to carry our pasts into our futures.


Leah Sydney is a producer/journalist based in Los Angeles.


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