Sometimes I take pictures (other times I just reblog)
Reblogged from obitoftheday
Obit of the Day: “Accent”-uate the Positive
Robert Easton had a stutter as a boy. When his family moved from Milwaukee to San Antonio, Easton began imitating the slow Texas drawl for his new neighbors - and his stutter disappeared. Just seven years later he was touring the country as one of TV’s Quiz Kids. When the show ended Easton took up a career in film and television. For eight decades Easton popped up in a variety of shows and movies, a hard-working and relatively successful character actor. (OOTD chose his image from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country because Klingons are awesome.)
But it was behind the scenes that Easton has his greatest impact. What had started as a way to fix a speech impediment became a talent that few possessed: the ability to hear and imitate thousands of accents from around the world. Easton would help Robert Duvall learn the correct Virginia speech pattern for Gods and Generals. Forrest Whitaker earned his Oscar as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin with the help of Easton’s coaching on the distinct African accent. In 1981 Easton helped Yoko Shimada clean up her English pronounciations for the TV miniseries Shogun earning her a Golden Globe. What made it impressive was two factors: 1) Ms. Shimada spoke no English and 2) he only had three weeks.
Easton, who died at the age of 81, was also an avid collector of books on linguistics filling his home and two cars with volumes on speech. His daughter plans to donate his collection.
(Image copyright of Paramount Pictures and courtesy of en.memory-alpha.org)
Random note: Just eight months earlier the East Coast lost it’s accent expert in Sam Chwat. Click here to read OOTD’s post from March 2011.
