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5 Famous People You Probably Didn't Know Stutter

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Greg Wilson
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571-239-7474

Stuttering Foundation Celebrates National Stuttering Awareness Week with ‘75 Must-Use Resources’

Memphis, Tenn. (May 13, 2024) — For more than 75 years, the Stuttering Foundation, the first and the largest nonprofit charitable organization in the world working toward the prevention and improved treatment of stuttering, has provided free online resources, services and support to those who stutter and their families, as well as support for research into the causes of stuttering.

The Stuttering Foundation Mourns Passing of Bill Walton

Memphis, Tenn. (May 28, 2024) — The Stuttering Foundation mourns the passing of college basketball and NBA legend, broadcaster, and stuttering advocate Bill Walton.

Featured nearly 30 years ago in The Stuttering Foundation newsletter, Walton spoke about his stuttering through childhood, college, and even in his professional career. Following is excerpted from that article:

#NSAW2026: The Stuttering Foundation—The World’s Most Trusted Resource on Stuttering

Contact: Greg Wilson, gregwilsonpr@gmail.com, 571-239-7474

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Reaching More than 181 Countries and Territories

Remembering Bill Withers

Bill Withers has been a friend for many years and is on our list of Famous People Who Stutter. Like so many great singers and songwriters such as B.B. King and Carly Simon, Bill stuttered. And just as they did, he turned to singing to express himself through music because the spoken word was so tough for him. He will live on forever through his incredible songs.

-Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation

Hurricane

The Georgia office is closed because of Hurricane Irma. We will reopen as soon as we can.

Dr. Mother Goose

Teachers have intuitively known the secret for years: nursery and counting rhymes have an important place in the learning process.

Croatian

Mucam. Treba li mi logopedska terapija?!

6 savjeta za razgovor s osobom koja muca

8 savjeta za učitelje djece koja mucaju

Jeste li znali…

Famous People Brochure

On the Stage

For more than a year, celebrated author Vince Vawter has been collaborating with Jim Wann on a stage show that will be of great interest to the stuttering community — Paperboy: A Musical.

Pages

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Bill Walton

From BillWalton.com

Thank you for your interest in my life long problem with my speech and communication skills. I was a very shy and reserved young man who could not speak at all without severely stuttering until I was 28 years old. Always a success in the classroom and on the basketball court, I took refuge in the things that I did well as a youngster. A straight A student, my athletic abilities covered the deficiencies that limited my overall growth and development. The game of basketball was my religion, the gym my church. It was a convenient way of avoiding my responsibilities of developing my human relation skills.

When I was 28, a chance encounter at a social event with Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman completely changed my life in so many ways that things have never been the same since, nor have they ever been better. That day, in a very brief, private conversation (one way, mind you, since I literally could not speak at the time) Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill not a gift or a birthright and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice. Marty gave me some simple tips that day and then encouraged me to take those keys and apply them to methods of learning that I had received from the special teachers that I had come across in my life, particularly the 6 Hall of Fame basketball coaches that I had played for throughout my career. The beginning of my whole new life was as simple as that. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. Just the realization that with some help, guidance and a lot of hard work that I too could do what seemed so easy, simple and natural to everyone else, yet seemed impossibly out of my reach and comprehension.

Winston Churchill

Seeking to "remove Winston Churchill's stutter by second guessing the diagnosis" indicates neither a truthful retelling of history nor an informed opinion about a complex speech disorder, say experts in the field of speech-language pathology.

Recent news reports that quote Dr. John Mather, a Washington physician, as saying that Churchill's stutter "is a lie" brought adamant critical response from specialists in the field of stuttering and fluency disorders.

King George

In November 2010, worldwide movie audiences were presented with a most interesting and unusual movie release with The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth as King George VI and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, history may have forgotten the courageous and inspiring story of Prince Albert who stuttered badly and never dreamed that he would ever be king when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abruptly abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.

Bruce Willis

While the world knows Bruce Willis as an A-list actor, few know that he struggled with stuttering throughout his first 20 years.

Walter Bruce Willis was born in 1955 in West Germany to his German mother, Marlene, and his American GI father, David Willis. The family settled in David’s hometown of Penns Grove, New Jersey in 1957, and the couple has three other children.

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.