David Seidler

David Seidler
Seidler in 1957
Born	(1937-08-04)4 August 1937 London, England
Died	16 March 2024(2024-03-16) (aged 86) New Zealand
Occupation(s)	Playwright, screenwriter
Notable work	The King's Speech
Spouses	Mary Ann Tharaldsen ​ ​ (m. 1961, divorced)​ Huia Newton ​ (divorced)​ Jacqueline Feather ​ (div. 2008)​

David Seidler (4 August 1937 – 16 March 2024) was a British-American playwright and film and television writer.

Seidler is most known for writing the scripts for the stage version and screen version for the story The King's Speech. For the film, he won the Academy Award and a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay.

Early life and family

Seidler was born in London, where he spent his early childhood. He grew up in an upper-middle class Jewish family. His mother Doris was a print-maker and graphic artist. His father Bernard was a fur broker who bought bales of pelts on commission. He had an office in New York City. Seidler immigrated to the United States with his family in the early part of World War II during the London Blitz. The ship they sailed on was a member of a convoy of three ships; on the way one of these, carrying Italian prisoners-of-war from North Africa, was sunk by German U-boats. It was on the voyage to the US that Seidler developed a stammer, before he celebrated his third birthday.

Seidler subsequently grew up on Long Island, New York. Seidler believed that his stutter might have been a response to the emotional trauma of the war. Thinking it would make others feel uncomfortable, as a teenager he often chose to keep quiet.

Numerous forms of speech therapy failed him, until, at 16, he had a breakthrough. "I resolved that if I was going to stutter for the rest of my life, people were going to be stuck listening to me. I had been depressed, but now I was angry – I decided I deserved to be heard." That is when, in rage he spoke the 'F' word, or "naughty word" as he recalled decades later. Two weeks later he auditioned for his school play, Shaw's Androcles and the Lion and even got a small role, of a Christian getting eaten by a lion. In 2005, he used it in a scene in his stage play about George VI. Seidler later attended Cornell University, where he graduated with an degree in English in 1959.

As he grew older he decided to write and his first work was The Adventures of a Penny about a penny's travel from hand to hand. In an interview Seidler recalled George VI as a childhood hero, who gave him hope as he listened to his wartime speeches as a child, encouraged by his parents, "David, he was a much worse stutterer than you, and listen to him now. He's not perfect. But he can give these magnificent, stirring addresses that rallied the free world." they would say.

Career

Seidler arrived in Hollywood at the age of 40, and his first job there was writing Tucker: The Man and His Dream for Francis Ford Coppola. For some years he was a member of the Feather & Seidler writing team with Jacqueline Feather.

Always wanting to write about George VI, and being a stutterer himself, Seidler started researching in the 1970s. After finding the surviving son of Lionel Logue, Valentine Logue, a brain surgeon, he wrote him in 1981. In turn, Logue was keen to talk with Seidler and even share the notebooks his father kept while treating the King, but on the condition that he received "written permission from the Queen Mother" first. Upon writing to her, Seidler received a reply from her private secretary, asking him not to pursue the project during her lifetime. Consequently, Seidler abandoned the project in 1982.

The Queen Mother died in 2002, but Seidler didn't start the work until 2005, when he suffered from throat cancer, and returned to the story during a bout of creative work it inspired. Eventually, he wrote the first draft of his screenplay, and his then-wife and writing partner suggested that he rewrite it as a stage play, as an exercise. She felt that the "physical confines of the stage would force him to focus on the key relationships in the story, without the distractions imposed by concern for cinematic technique." In 2011 Seidler won a BAFTA award for Best Original Screenplay, and later an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film The King's Speech.

When writing the script, Seidler discovered that his own uncle, also named David and also a stutterer, had been sent to see Lionel Logue by his father (Seidler's grandfather).

Death

Seidler died in New Zealand on 16 March 2024, at the age of 86. He was married to Mary Ann Tharaldsen, Huia Newton and Jacqueline Feather.

Writing credits

Year	Title	Notes
1965–1967	Adventures of the Seaspray	6 episodes
1981	Another World	1 episode
1985	Malice in Wonderland	TV film
1988	Onassis: The Richest Man in the World	TV film
1988	My Father, My Son	TV film
1988	Tucker: The Man and His Dream	Feature film (co-credit with Arnold Schulman,)
1993	Whose Child Is This? The War for Baby Jessica	TV film, co-written with Jacqueline Feather
1995	Dancing in the Dark	TV film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
1997	Lies He Told	TV film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
1997	Time to Say Goodbye?	Feature film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
1998	Goldrush: A Real Life Alaskan Adventure	TV film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
1998	Quest for Camelot	Feature film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
1999	The King and I	Feature film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
1999	Come On, Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story	TV film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
1999	Madeline: Lost in Paris	Direct-to-video film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
2000	By Dawn's Early Light	TV film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
2003	Soraya	TV film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
2006	Son of the Dragon	2 episodes (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
2008	Kung Fu Killer	TV film (co-written with Jacqueline Feather)
2010	The King's Speech	Feature film
2016	Queen of Spades	Feature film

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Work	Category	Result	Reference
1989	Writers Guild of America Award	My Father, My Son	Original Long Form (with Jacqueline Feather)	Nominated
		Onassis: The Richest Man in the World	Adapted Long Form (with Jacqueline Feather; tied with Susan Cooper for the Hallmark Hall of Fame episode "Foxfire".)	Won
2002		By Dawn's Early Light	Children's Script (with Jacqueline Feather)	Nominated
2010	Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award	The King's Speech	Best Writing, Original Screenplay	Nominated
	Awards Circuit Community Awards		Best Original Screenplay (2nd place)	Won
			Davis Award for Best Original Screenplay	Nominated
	British Independent Film Awards		Best Screenplay	Won
	Chicago Film Critics Association Awards		Best Screenplay, Original	Nominated
	Denver Film Critics Society		Best Writing, Original Screenplay	Nominated
	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards		Best Screenplay (2nd place)	Won
	San Diego Film Critics Society Awards		Best Screenplay, Original	Nominated
	San Francisco Film Critics Circle		Best Original Screenplay	Won
	Satellite Awards		Best Screenplay, Original	Won
	Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards		Best Screenplay, Original	Won
	St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association		Best Original Screenplay	Won
	Village Voice Film Poll		Best Screenplay	Nominated
	Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards		Best Original Screenplay	Nominated
2011	Academy Award		Best Writing, Original Screenplay	Won
	Golden Globe Award		Best Screenplay – Motion Picture	Nominated
	British Academy Film Awards		Best Screenplay (Original)	Won
			Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film (with Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin, Iain Canning and Tom Hooper)	Won
	Central Ohio Film Critics Association Awards		Best Screenplay, Original	Nominated
	Chlotrudis Awards		Best Original Screenplay	Nominated
	Critics' Choice Movie Award		Best Screenplay, Original	Won
	European Film Awards		Best Film (with Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin, Iain Canning and Tom Hooper)	Nominated
	Humanitas Prize		Feature Film Category	Won
	Italian Online Movie Awards		Best Original Screenplay	Nominated
	London Critics Circle Film Awards		Screenwriter of the Year	Nominated
	National Society of Film Critics Awards		Best Screenplay (2nd place)	Won
	Online Film & Television Association Awards		Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen	Nominated
	Online Film Critics Society Awards		Best Screenplay, Original	Nominated
	Toronto Film Critics Association Awards		Best Screenplay	Nominated
2012	International Online Film Critics' Poll		Best Original Screenplay	Nominated

External links

• David Seidler at IMDb
• "Confessions of David Seidler, a 73-year-old Oscars virgin". Los Angeles Times. 20 February 2011. Archived from the original on 26 February 2011.
• "Finding words for 'The King's Speech' took decades". CNN. 25 February 2011.
• "Screenwriter David Seidler: 'Being a stutterer puts a cloud over childhood'". National Post. 17 February 2011. Archived from the original on 29 January 2013.
• Meng-Yee, Carolyne (20 February 2011). "Proud of his Dad's work (but tried to talk his father out of writing TKS)". The New Zealand Herald.