What's up with Jane Wyatt's weird accent?
Apparently Jane Wyatt grew up in the same part of the country as Katharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck as they all have the same bizarre accent. Why is that? Is it forced or learned?
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MovieChat Forums > Father Knows Best (1954) Discussion > What's up with Jane Wyatt's weird accent...
I always thought of her as having some type of speech impediment rather than an accent. A couple words that stand out is how she pronounced "children." Instead of saying it like "chill - dren" she pronounced it as "chool - dren". And listen out how she says the word "girls."
This isn't a criticism by any means, I always loved Jane Wyatt and Margaret Anderson, but I do think she had an impediment.
Definitely not a speech impediment. tydyed is right: it's a high-class accent.
shareDefinitely high-class. Check out some movies from the '30s and listen to the way the "rich" people talk. In particular, watch You Can't Take It With You and listen to the way Jimmy Stewart's character's mother pronounces "girl". It almost sounds like "gull". Jane Wyatt was definitely from an upper-class family.
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It does sound like a speech impediment. She calls her husband "Jem" (rather than Jim) her son Baaahd, her youngest daughter "Caaahhthay"... but what's hilarious, is when she calls her oldest daughter "Butt-hay", lol. Fitting as the "Butt-hay" character is self-absorbed and annoying.
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Well, it sure sounds like a speech impediment. But perhaps having eyes that are 1 inch further apart than average causes a strange accent. I don't know.
shareCheck out the link below from this week's Parade magazine (included as insert with most Sunday papers).
In the "Ask Marilyn" column, she gives some background to this accent dating back to the movie stars of yesteryear.
http://parade.com/472846/marilynvossavant/how-do-you-explain-the-accent-of-30s-and-40s-movie-stars/
I never noticed that Gregory Peck spoke in any odd way. Other than Katharine Hepburn's on and off very annoying way she spoke I find the older I get the more I am distracted by Grace Kelly's fake sounding way of speaking. In her early roles she sounded perfectly normal but in later roles she really turned on that "Mid-Atlantic" accent. Either you speak with an American accent or ifyou are from Great Britain, then speak with that accent! Combining the two sounds so fake IMO.
Agreed. It does sound fake. It's puzzling, because it's not quite British and not quite American. Hepburn definitely had the same odd combined fake accent, even more amplified and obvious than Wyatt's.
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I think it's cool.
shareI actually quite like her accent, but you're right, she does sound out of place at times. I would guess she was raised in an upper class family who spoke that way.
shareI've always thought Endora (Agnes Moorehead) and Professor Smith (Jonathan Harris) had unique accents but I like them. Lol!
shareI've heard it described as "The Transatlantic Accent."
My understanding is that it was supposed to make the characters sound generically "high-class."
I always found it distracting and pretentious, and I always wonder what actual Englishmen with real accents think of it.
(Maybe I'll ask the "gulls;" I'm expecting them any minute, now!)
Here is your answer
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-fake-british-accent-took-old-hollywood-by-storm
Yes, the transatlantic accent was odd. But it wasn't that unusual back then. If you were an "educated" person, that's how one learned to speak. Think of William Buckley and Gore Vidal-- two folks on the opposite ends of the political spectrum who had nearly identical speech patterns because they were educated in the same exclusive schools.
But Jackie Kennedy's accent was event more peculiar-- and very affected.
Even today, when I hear someone aspirate on words that start with a "W", I think they've been taught to speak that way. No one speaks that way naturally.
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Never say never...
Very good point....
Consider
Jim Backus
Hans Conreid
Billy De Wolfe
Verna Felton
Cary Grant
Sebastian Cabot
Doris Packer
Presidents Teddy & franklin Roosevelt, and at least FDR's first lady Eleanor