"I had to work on [my voice and speech] everyday. One of the reasons I do this [perform Shakespeare], and I'm not great at it, is that I do get practice saying the words. I'm not a word person. The voice, well I was a mute from age four and a half to about 14. I didn't talk at all. Yes I was a farm kid and I'd say 'gee-haw' and 'giddy up.' I could talk to animals, but I couldn't talk to people. No one knew where my voice went. At 14, I had a teacher in high school who caught me writing poetry and he said 'Jim, if you like words, you've got to be able to say them out loud.' He challenged me and as long as I said my own words, that I wrote, I didn't stutter. It left me a way to learn how to talk again. And then he said to me, 'Jim, you have a bass voice. Now, don't ever catch yourself listening to it, because if you do, no one else will.'"
-- Actor James Earl Jones, on the development of his famous voice and overcoming speech impediments, speaking Thursday (Sept. 22) at Eisenhower Auditorium on Penn State's University Park campus as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series. For more information about the DSS, visit http://live.psu.edu/story/13359 and for photos from the event, go to http://live.psu.edu/still_life/2005_09_23_jones/index.html