TV Stations Report on Stuttering Awareness

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Byron Pitts

Byron Pitts has brought much attention to stuttering with his memoir, Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges, released in September, 2009. The book not only details his speech difficulties, but also his illiteracy until age 12 and his unstable family life. Pitts overcame the odds to become the chief national correspondent with ABC News.

Emily Blunt

Actress Emily Blunt struggled with stuttering early in her life. A teacher encouraged her to act in a school play at age 12 despite her stuttering.

Blunt’s name is prominently featured on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter.

Lewis Carroll

The recent Disney version of Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, garnered a great deal of media hype. Even though the mainstream media has not made mention that Carroll was a person who stuttered, his family history gives credence to the discovery of the genetic link to stuttering. Carroll was born to parents who were first cousins; almost all of their eleven children, three girls and seven boys, struggled with stuttering past childhood.

James Earl Jones

Actor James Earl Jones, a Broadway, television and movie star, is well-known for his voice as Darth Vader in Star Wars and his book Voices and Silences. Jones has spoken some of the most memorable lines in the history of American film, but the man known for his voice was once afflicted with a severe stutter.

Frank Wolf

This Virginian congressman has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1981. The longtime supporter of the Stuttering Foundation drew national attention to childhood stuttering in 2006 when he submitted an article about Tiger Woods from the SFA newsletter to the Congressional Record. The congressman is featured in the Stuttering Foundation's Famous People Who Stutter brochure.