The writer of the 2010 movie “The King’s Speech,” named David Seidler, passed away on Saturday at the age of 86. The cause of death is unknown.
Seidler's film won several Academy Awards in 2011, such as Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. The movie was about King George VI (played by Colin Firth), who struggled with a stutter, and his relationship with speech therapist Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush).
Seidler had wanted to tell George VI's story for a long time, as he also dealt with a stutter when he was young. Stuttering Foundation, Seidler struggled with the condition from the age of three to 16. He said, “I had huge trouble with the 'H' sound, so when the telephone rang, I would break into a cold sweat, because I couldn’t say hello.”
“In those days, school had set places, and the teacher worked up and down the rows. If I could see her working toward me and she was just going to miss me that day, I would fake sick the next day so I didn’t have to go to school, because it was so terrifying to be called upon.”
Seidler attributed his stutter to the stress of being Jewish in Europe during World War II. His family moved to the United States in 1940 to escape the hardships in Europe.
In the same interview, he also mentioned that his stutter motivated him to become a writer. Seidler explained, “If you’re born with two conflicting traits — in my case, I was a born ham, but I was a stutterer — and if you want to be the centre of attention but you can’t talk, you find another channel, and that’s writing.”
In another interview, Seidler expressed how King George VI inspired him. “By the time I arrived in New York City, I was stuttering, and it stayed with me right through my childhood and much of my adolescence. But the one ray of hope that I was given was the speeches of King George VI. In the latter stages of the war, when I was old enough to listen to the radio, my parents would encourage me to listen to the king’s speeches.” Film Critic, Seidler shared that King George VI's speeches gave him hope. “By the time I arrived in New York City, I was stuttering, and it stayed with me right through my childhood and much of my adolescence. But the one ray of hope that I was given was the speeches of King George VI. In the latter stages of the war, when I was old enough to listen to the radio, my parents would encourage me to listen to the king’s speeches.”
Seidler moved to Hollywood at the age of 40 to pursue a writing career and later worked on “Francis Ford Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” and the Elizabeth Taylor television film “Malice in Wonderland.”
Seidler had been thinking about telling King George VI’s story since the 1980s, and he wrote to the king’s widow, Elizabeth the Queen Mother, to ask permission. She requested that he wait until after her death. Seidler returned to the project after he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2005; the king himself died from lung cancer. The Queen Mother had died in 2002.
The director of the movie Tom Hooper got in touch with Seidler after his mother went to see a performance of the story on stage. Hooper told the Stuttering Foundation, “It’s clearly the best script of his life. He’s really writing about his own childhood experiences through the guise of these two characters.”
Seidler received the Oscar for Writing (Original Screenplay) in 2011. His speech was both emotional and humorous. He started, “The writer’s speech, this is terrifying. My father always said to me I would be a late bloomer. I believe I am the oldest person to win this particular award. I hope that record is broken quickly and often.”
“I would like to thank Her Majesty the Queen for not putting me in the Tower of London for using the Melissa Leo f-word,” Seidler added. “And I accept this on behalf of all the stutterers throughout the world. We have a voice, we have been heard thanks to you, the Academy.”
Seidler was born in London in July 1937. He is survived by his two children, Maya and Marc.
The 2010 drama won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor
