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What do Winston Churchill, King George VI, cartoonist Al Capp, performers Tommy Smothers, Bob Newhart, Jimmy Stewart, James Earl Jones, George Burns, Anthony Quinn, and Marilyn Monroe, Annie Glenn (wife of astronaut John Glenn), TV journalist John Stossel, basketball player and NBC commentator Bill Walton, as well as singers Jane Froman, Carly Simon, Mel Tillis, and I, all have in common? We stutter, and ridicule hasn't stopped us from achieving success.
Tillis has been a top Country-and-Western singer for almost four decades. Besides writing many of his own songs, he produces and stars in his own show in Branson, Mo. He can be quite the comedian onstage. He's witty and charismatic, and he has an impeccable sense of timing. I've met Tillis on several occasions. Recently, I spoke with him about his stuttering and the impact it has had on his life.
Believe me, this columnist can empathize with many of the challenges Tillis has faced. His family, like mine, gave him support when he needed it. "My family accepted me as one of them and never mentioned the stutter," the Florida native recalls. Same with me. My parents, friends, and relatives never made a fuss over my stuttering. They never saw it -- as was believed for centuries -- as a sign of the presence of a demon in the stutterer's body.
AN "OLD FRIEND."
Tillis says he started stuttering when he was three. "Some people say it was caused by a bout with malaria. I say it's genetic." His father and brother stutter. Now, at age 67, Tillis has just accepted it. "I wish I could tell you I have cured myself of stuttering, but I can't," he says. "It's still very much part of my life. I have come to think of my stutter as my old friend. It's always there and will always be there."
How has he coped with it? At an early age, he realized the value of laughter in dealing with his stuttering. He told me: "I was six years old and attending Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Plant City [Fla.] when I realized no one is immune to laughter. So, I said to myself, 'Well, if they're gonna laugh at me, then I will give them something to laugh about.'" He says it was pretty rough for him through those first years of school.
In high school, he was introduced in his history studies to Demosthenes, one of the great Greek orators. Demosthenes had a speech defect, including a stammering problem that legend says he overcame by speaking with pebbles in his mouth and reciting verses while running. Tillis tried the same remedy. Alas, it didn't work. He says he swallowed about half of the stones. Years later, he joked on The Tonight Show, "I am certain that's how I got kidney stones."
The snickering didn't end after high school. He enrolled as a cook in the Air Force, where the jokes and jibing continued. After an honorable discharge in 1955, he took speech therapy at the University of Tampa, where he enrolled in a few courses. But then he decided to follow his real dream. "I wanted to go to Nashville and become a singer, but not before those music folks in Nashville told me, 'The public doesn't doesn't want any stuttering singer.' They told me my record would be as popular as a washtub." Tillis says the record execs had a big laugh at his expense, but he has had the last laugh.
To this day, sometimes fans standing in line to get his autograph will smirk at his stuttering. But whatever pain he has experienced throughout his life, he either masks very well or he has vanquished it. "Stuttering is the only handicap I can think of that makes people laugh," he says. "And hey, they'll laugh in your face, too."
ROLE MODEL.
In fact, Tillis sees stuttering as having empowered him. "I think the stutter made me want to succeed more and made me work harder." And, he adds, "I believe it has made me more sensitive to the needs of others who are a lot worse off than me." Today, Tillis considers himself a role model for the more than 3 million people who stutter in the U.S. In 1998, he was the national spokesperson for the Stuttering Foundation of America. The SFA educates adults on stuttering and works to prevent stuttering in children.
His sense of humor about stuttering is seen in the name of his backup singing group -- The Stutterettes. He's comfortable working onstage, and like most of us, he doesn't stutter while singing. Speech therapists say this is because singing is rhythmic, so the speech flows smoothly.
He hasn't always been comfortable performing live. While working as a rhythm-guitar player for the late Minnie Pearl, she noticed that whenever she introduced him onstage, he would never speak. She told him, "If you want to be a singer, you have to learn to talk onstage." Tillis responded: "Miss Minnie, I just can't. They'll all laugh." She told him, "Let 'em laugh. Goodness gracious, laughs are hard to get, and I am sure they are laughing with you, and not against you, Melvin."
Tillis has had quite a career. He has appeared in 13 movies, including Smokey and the Bandit, Every Which Way But Loose, The Villain, and Uphill All the Way. In 1976, he was doubly honored as Songwriter of the Year and Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association of America.
"SEEK THERAPY."
Tillis does not stutter all the time. Sometimes, when he is speaking and does not think about stuttering he is fluent, but when he starts to remember, he stutters. His advice to people who stutter: "Seek therapy." He encourages people who stutter also to seek out technology to help them control their stuttering. Today, computers are used to help people control their stuttering. Computers can alert a person seconds before they will stutter. This allows the person time to use control techniques (see BW Online, 4/28/99,
"Controlling Stuttering: A Long Journey with a Computer Named Hal").
Williams writes a weekly column for Business Week Online on assistive technology. For information on assistive technology, write to him at JMMAW@aol.com. You can also discuss these issues on BW Online's EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT
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