Celebrities Who Stuttered As Children Quiz

Answer: Hugh Grant

English actor Hugh Grant was born in London in 1960 into a reasonably aristocratic family. He is famous for such delightful romantic comedies as the 1999 "Notting Hill". With the lovely Julia Roberts as his co-star, it relates the story of a famous American film star, Anna Scott, and her on again, off again romance with William Thacker, a shy bookshop owner in Notting Hill, London.

This is a lovely story with a superb cast of characters, and has a perfect ending. Incidentally, Julia Roberts was also a stutterer as a child. Part of Hugh's characteristics in this role are a little hesitancy in speech at times and a slight stutter, characteristics he brings to many films, and for which he has been sometimes panned by the critics. Hugh, however, is not producing those endearing qualities artificially.

He overcame a bad stutter as a child, but occasionally these emerge in his many movie roles. Remarkably, he has made them a part of his many portrayals, so much so that, rather than making us aware of same, they slip easily and unobtrusively into our enjoyment of the personality of his characters.

Answer: James Earl Jones

Born in 1931, James Earl Jones will always be famous for his deep voice if nothing else, but this fine actor is far more than that. He is described as one of the "most distinguished and versatile" performers in the United States. One of his most famous roles, for which he won an Academy Award nomination, Tony and a Golden Globe was that of Jack Jefferson in the biographical drama "The Great White Hope". Based on the play of the same name, the film relates the story of a boxer (Jefferson) who wins match after match in the ring, defeating every white contender along the way.

As racists and the press search for a "great white hope" to beat him, the married Jack unfortunately falls in love with a white woman - leading to disastrous consequences. James Earl Jones is, of course, the deep and powerful voice behind the villain, Darth Vader, in the series of science fiction "Star Wars" films (1977-1983) as well, and it is remarkable to learn that that amazing voice was afflicted with a bad stutter when Jones was a child.

He overcame it through poetry reading and public speaking over a period of several years.

Answer: By swearing

Samuel Jackson (born 1948) is a powerful actor and producer, famous for such roles as the 1993 "Die Hard With A Vengeance" opposite Bruce Willis. In this film, he plays Zeus Carver, the extremely reluctant partner of John McClane, as they battle the soulless mercenary and terrorist, Simon Gruber (played by Jeremy Irons).

This is quite an engrossing film. Jackson is famous for his hard-hitting, show-no-mercy characterisations in many of his movies. Yet, as a child, he had a severe stutter. According to Jackson, he overcame this by incorporating one particular swear word into his vocabulary.

Not quite the recommended form of treatment, but it worked for him.

Answer: Marilyn Monroe

It's no wonder the lovely and fragile actress Monroe Monroe (1926-1962) stuttered as a child, given her appalling childhood. Yet this vulnerable and heartbreaking woman, chronically shy all her life, overcame all to become one of the most in demand actresses in Hollywood, with a list of movie hits to her credit.

Her internal demons would overcome her in the end, however, and at her death in 1962, the movie world lost a truly great comedienne whose comic gifts are perhaps only being fully appreciated today. One of Marilyn's most successful films was the hilarious 1955 "The Seven Year Itch".

In her character of The Girl, she becomes the totally oblivious object of desire for Richard Sherman (played by Tom Ewell), a conservative man whose wife and son are out of town on holiday during a very hot summer.

The ongoing fantasies he has about The Girl, compared to what is really happening, is comic genius. But then, seven short years later, Marilyn was gone forever.

Answer: Sam Neill

Born in Northern Ireland in 1947 but growing up in New Zealand from the age of seven, the magnetic Sam Neill is the star of such engrossing films as 1993's "The Piano". This tells the story of a mute Scottish woman, Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) with a great love for the piano.

She is sold into marriage to a New Zealand frontier man, Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill). He is cold and heartless and leaves her piano behind on the beach where she, her daughter and their goods have been unloaded by the ship's crew.

His best friend is Baines, a white man who has almost taken on every aspect of Maori culture and the two, after a strange and troubled beginning, fall in love, with initially disastrous consequences. Sam Neill had a very bad stutter as a child, so much so that he used to wish that people would ignore him so he wouldn't have to talk.

It still shows up now and then in his speech, but never while he is acting.

Answer: Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn (1915-2001) is a full quiz on his own. His own life was just as fascinating as any character he played on film. This included several marriages, many affairs, twelve children as a result of same. He painted, he wrote, he associated with gangsters as a matter of course, and was good friends with a New York mafia crime boss.

In his award winning film, the 1964 "Zorba the Greek", he plays the title character in a series of misadventures involving life and love in Crete. This film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and took out three of them. During his childhood, Quinn had a bad stutter which he overcame by sheer determination as he grew older.

Answer: James Stewart

James Stewart (1908-1997) was one of the loveliest gentlemen born, both in real life and on the silver screen. Star of many fine dramas, he was at his best, perhaps, in playing endearing characters who bumbled their way to happy endings. Many of those characters now and then, in the heat of the moment, developed a very slight stutter, a condition which plagued the gentle James Stewart all his life.

These included his role as Elwood P. Dowd, one of nature's innocents, who has an invisible friend - Harvey, a six foot, three inch tall rabbit that nobody else can see, until they have reached the right state of mind.

It's a lovely old classic, well worth waiting up to see on late night television. James Stewart was a hero, in the military, in the movies and in real life.

A unique and humble individual, the world needs more of his kind.

Answer: Bruce Willis

Born in 1955, Bruce Willis is not only an actor who grows better at portraying characters the older he becomes, he is also a producer and singer - a surprisingly good singer at that. He is most well known for his series of "Die Hard" movies. Willis has stated that the main character in those films, detective John McClane, will be retired if there is another.

These are all centred around his hard-nosed, cop character taking on scores of baddies, sometimes on his own, sometimes with help, and triumphing over evil at their conclusion, bloodied but unbowed.

These films have been made over a span of twenty-seven years, which is rather amazing. McClane'll be a grandfather at their conclusion. Right up until his late high school years, Bruce was afflicted with a bad stutter, leading his ever so kind-hearted peers to refer to him as Buck-Buck.

He took to acting on stage as a means of overcoming this disability, and more than successfully so.

Answer: Kylie Minogue

Born in 1968, Kylie Minogue first rose to fame playing Charlene Robinson in the long-running, and very successful television series "Neighbours", which began in 1985 and was still going strong in 2015. Kylie played a tomboyish character who is a garage mechanic, and who eventually marries her true love, Scott (played by well known performer, Jason Donovan), for several years before moving onto a much larger career on the international stage as a singer and actress. That role earned her four logies and one gold logie along the way.

As a child, because of her parent's constant relocation, she developed into a shy girl with a stutter. Hitting the bright lights and developing her love of singing helped overcome that affliction.

Answer: Elvis Presley

Born in 1935, Elvis Presley never won an Academy Award for his movies, mainly because most followed the same light-hearted plot - boy meets girl, a few complications arise, boy gets girl in the end. Still, they were entertaining enough for the times. One of these included perhaps his most popular, the 1961 "Blue Hawaii".

This film tells the story of a recently returned G.I. back to his home in Hawaii. He is back to the sun, surf, singing and girlfriend, and thinks life will be the same as when he left. Unfortunately real life and adulthood intervene, and so the story goes on to its happy ending. Elvis, who was very shy as a child, and often teased by his classmates, learned to sing in church, and it was this singing that helped him overcome his childhood stutter.