BEVERLY HILLS, California: Telling the story of the stammering king, George VI, has been a lifetime ambition for David Seidler, ever since he subdued his own stutter almost 60 years ago. Born seven months after George took the British throne in 1936, screenwriter Seidler grew up paralyzed by the same impediment he depicts the monarch struggling to overcome in “The King's Speech,” the best-picture favorite at the Academy Awards. From just before his third birthday to age 16, Seidler stumbled and sputtered over his syllables so badly that he lived in terror of speaking in class, talking to girls, even answering the phone. “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,” Seidler, 73, said in an interview. Born in Britain, Seidler developed a stammer in 1940 on a boat to the United States, where his family moved during World War II. Seidler, who had an uncle with a boyhood stammer, figures his own began from the trauma of German bombs, the sea voyage and abrupt separation from his beloved nanny. As George VI rallied his country, the young Seidler heard the king valiantly struggling through his radio addresses and hoped he might one day master his own speech troubles. He eventually did, in his mid-teens and drew on his own experiences in speech therapy. He underwent many of the tricks depicted in “The King's Speech”: having his mouth stuffed with marbles, reciting while listening to music on headphones.
