I thought she was British, so it’s definitely passable.
She was born in Indiana, grew up there and in New York. Here’s an interview from a few years ago where she definitely sounds American.
Fawlty titties. . .
Flowery Twats.
Farty Towels
Flay Otters
Connie Booth has apparently lived in Britain since 1969. Spend enough time immersed in another culture and you end up talking like them without even thinking about it.
Gillian Anderson is another such case. Her accent changes, depending on which country she’s in.
I was always thought his last name was Don’t Mind Him, He’s From Barcelona.
Except that Fawlty Towers was first filmed in 1975 only 6 years after she moved to Britain, and the interview I linked above is from 2009, and she definitely has an American accent.
Yes, of course. My point was, you pick up a foreign accent in an immersion situation, but you revert to your natural one when you return to your original habitat. The same thing happened to me when I lived in Cambridge back in the '70s, and then went back to Minneapolis.
In America, she talks like an American; in Britain, like a Brit.
But she still lives in London, or at least did so at the time of the interview. She’s lived there for the past several decades, even after leaving acting.
Even in that you can hear English influence in certain words. Regardless the character was English and she was putting on an English accent in the show.
Actually Connie’s Jimmy Cagney and honky tonk country and western singing showcased her fine range of accents.
That’s funny. I’m from Manhattan, but I’ve lived more years in Indiana than anywhere else. People from Indiana think I sound like I’m from New York, and people from New York think I sound like I’m from Indiana.
Note that Carol Cleveland spent nearly all of her childhood in the US. Is there something about American-raised women that the Pythons find amusing?
Yes, on the show, Polly was meant to be speaking with a British accent. So far as I can tell, it was a pretty good one.
What really is funny, now that I think back, is that when Polly sings “I’m Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say ‘No,’” her Oklahoma accent is really terrible. She sounds like someone who has never been anywhere near the US.
When I first saw Fawlty Towers, I didn’t know anything about Connie Booth, and just assumed she was English. Not that I’m an expert on the accents.
I lived in England for a year, and she certainly had me fooled!