Posted on 10/28/2016 12:18:38 PM PDT by MUDDOG
In the Golden Era of Hollywood, actors such as Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn spoke with a strange form of English that placed them somewhere between America and Great Britain.
The so-called Mid-Atlantic accent actually wasn't an accent at all, but an affectation concocted by a Canadian elocutionist.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
No. The mid-Atlantic accent has totally fallen out of favor since the 60s. Most theater in NYC is now American vernacular and even the Brits are losing their beautiful received English and playing classical roles with highly regional accents.
From the examples given in this interesting thread, it appears that politicians and dynastic families are the only ones continuing to speak in this phony way!!! Except the Clintons, of course, who continues to speak in braying Chicago accents and Gomer Pyle patois.
Wouldn’t make a hash of it! I can’t believe I made that mistake. Grrrr!
Dunno.
All I can say is I grew up in Hartford, and no one in Hartford speaks like Hepburn. She either made her way of speaking up herself, or she was taught/coached to speak the way she did.
Having said that, at least back then the actors had nice, clear diction, unlike now!!
LOL!
I would more expect to encounter it spoken by early 20th-century Boston Brahmins and New York aristocrats.
The article claims that it was an invented way of speaking by this speech expert Skinner, and Hepburn was taught to speak that way.
Those Canadians, always coming up with ways to ruin our lives.
Hepburn had a very famous actress and elocution teacher in Manhattan who taught her the mid-Atlantic accent. Unfortunately, all my biographies of actors are packed away and I can’t remember her name. She was very famous in her time and taught many actors.
Of course, accents and dialects change over the years but Hepburn’s accent is unique. Lovely, I think. Less successful on the occasion when Bette Davis (another Yankee) tried it in movies like “That Skeffington Woman.” Although I buy it in “Now, Voyager.” She dropped it in her greatest movies, “All About Eve” and “The Little Foxes.”
I’m originally from New Jersey and I say “wudder”, but we say work and jerk correctly.
“Wudder.” I never noticed that before. Good one!
I think “water” is a good marker for different pronunciation groups.
Never noticed it before, but now that you mention it, I see it.
Hepburn grew up next to my grandmother in West Hartford CT.
Nice community, wealthy folks, but no one put on that accent.
Hepburn’s family was very progressive (for what that’s worth - fond of abortion and sterilization of blacks). A friend of mine was married into the family. By today’s standards, Hepburn lived pretty modestly. Compared to today’s stars, of course. A great actress.
She lived well, my family had connections with her into the fifties, and she didn’t stint.
Served to mask horrendous regional accents as well. Poster child for this is this gentlemen:
New York born Jay Robinson, the Emperor Caligula in The Robe.
I'd also throw Lauren Bacall of the Bronx in there as well as East Harlem's Burt "I Was Never A Nice Guy" Lancaster.
I had to look him up. Interesting bio.
I have long wondered about what I call “The 1930s Hollywood Accent”!
That is a better name for it, since it doesn’t confuse it with an actual accent spoken by real people.
I’ve been fascinated by it ever since Thurston Howell III. I loved the way he talked.
But how about all those TV folks and East Coast elites who now have affected the British POSH accent?
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