# What was Billie Burke's accent in Dinner et Eight? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [December 11, 2022, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332 "2022-12-11T13:20:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Roman67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roman67/32/12809_2.png) [@Roman67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roman67)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/1 "2022-12-11T13:20:52Z")
I thought that her speech was very like that of Britishers, but there are some gentlemen who don’t agree with me. Could you help me with describing her accent? Was her accent in Dinner at Eight mostly British? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/2 "2022-12-11T13:27:23Z")
Example of her accent: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Uqv9eReYfm8/hqdefault.jpg "Billie Burke's speech - Dinner at Eight (1933)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqv9eReYfm8) Related Thread: > [@Did Billie Burke Really Talk Like That?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-billie-burke-really-talk-like-that/712067): > > Most of us know her as Glinda the Good Witch in the movie “Wizard of Oz,” and have noticed her unusual voice. I was wondering did she talk like that in real life? I realize that in those golden years of movies that actors/actresses often used a exaggerated accent here and there or for effect but I noticed reviews at the time always comment on her unusual voice. Here is a sample of the OTR show “[The Billie Burke Show](http://www.otrcat.com/billie-burke-collection-p-48494.html)” (the click leads you to a page where it says “listen to a sample episode” an… ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/3 "2022-12-11T13:41:48Z")
Speaking as an actor with a fine arts degree including vocal education: Formally trained American actors of that era, both stage and screen, received elocution lessons in which the “transatlantic” dialect was taught and enforced. This is an unusual and unrealistic mode of speech which hybridizes northeast-US accents with an upper-class British influence in order to create an idiosyncratic pseudo-aristocratic pattern of speaking. You can hear Katherine Hepburn leveraging the same vocal training in this clip from the Philadelphia Story. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/nH2DKZ-2m74/hqdefault.jpg "Katharine Hepburn - Philadelphia Story") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH2DKZ-2m74) It’s not British, of any flavor. It’s not American. It’s not anything that is like the way anyone talks in the real world. It’s Actor Speak, and it’s all part of the heightened dream reality that movies were selling in that area. The Method revolutions that followed, as exemplified by actors like James Dean, were in large part a reaction against this kind of unreal performance. Anyway, Billie Burke is doing the same thing, just with the dial cranked up to eleven. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/4 "2022-12-11T13:47:27Z")
Isn’t that the same accent Kelsey Grammer uses? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/5 "2022-12-11T14:11:18Z")
I immediately thought Boston Brahmin. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/6 "2022-12-11T14:12:59Z")
I would say that to a certain degree, yes, Kelsey Grammer uses a version of the Mid-Atlantic accent as a character choice to appear “elite” (snobby, elevated). ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/7 "2022-12-11T15:07:30Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Speaking as an actor with a fine arts degree including vocal education: > > Formally trained American actors of that era, both stage and screen, received elocution lessons in which the “transatlantic” dialect was taught and enforced. This is an unusual and unrealistic mode of speech which hybridizes northeast-US accents with an upper-class British influence in order to create an idiosyncratic pseudo-aristocratic pattern of speaking. > > [snip] > > It’s not British, of any flavor. It’s not American. It’s not anything that is like the way anyone talks in the real world. It’s Actor Speak, and it’s all part of the heightened dream reality that movies were selling in that area. The Method revolutions that followed, as exemplified by actors like James Dean, were in large part a reaction against this kind of unreal performance. > > Anyway, Billie Burke is doing the same thing, just with the dial cranked up to eleven. This. I vaguely remember an SCTV sketch making fun of this phenomenon. What sticks with me is Catherine O’Hara dramatically lighting a cigarette and saying, “Oh, Johnny! Johnny!” more than a few times. Not a great example of the accent, but maybe a reminder for somebody. The only thing I would add to **Cervaise** ’s excellent explanation is that I’ve always heard it referred to as a “midlantic” accent, i.e., somewhere between New England and Britain. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/8 "2022-12-11T15:13:47Z")
Wikipedia has a page discussing it. Other names for it: Larchmont lockjaw Locust Valley lockjaw Boarding school lockjaw Boston Brahmin > **[Mid-Atlantic accent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent)** > > The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a consciously learned accent of English, fashionably used by the late 19th-century and early 20th-century American upper class and entertainment industry, which blended together features regarded as the most prestigious from both American and British English (specifically Received Pronunciation). It is not a native or regional accent; rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, "its earliest advocates bragged that its In the... ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/9 "2022-12-11T15:14:18Z")
(I’ve heard transatlantic, midatlantic, and midlantic, with the first being somewhat more frequent, so that’s what I went with.) ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/10 "2022-12-11T15:40:14Z")
Is William F. Buckley’s accent midAtlantic or something else? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/11 "2022-12-11T15:53:27Z")
Some of the people who spoke this accent weren’t actors. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s accent was something like this. He grew up in a rich New York family. He went to a prep school and to Ivy League colleges for both his undergraduate education and for law school. Rich people from the northeastern U.S. spoke in accents like this. William F. Buckley is a strange case. He was born in a rich New York family. However, as a child he spent time in Mexico, London, and Paris. English was his third language, since he learned to speak Spanish first and then French. He then moved back to the U.S. His accent was thus influenced by Spanish, French, and upper-class British English: [William F. Buckley Jr. - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley_Jr). ---
**Author:** ![Roman67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roman67/32/12809_2.png) [@Roman67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roman67)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/12 "2022-12-11T16:52:12Z")
I thought that her soft “l” was rather British. Why her pitch was very high (very like that of British speakers. Btw, thanks a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Roman67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roman67/32/12809_2.png) [@Roman67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roman67)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/13 "2022-12-11T16:53:15Z")
The speech of Roosevelt was pretty different from that of Billie Burke. His “l” was dark, velarized. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/14 "2022-12-11T16:59:08Z")
I find both Roosevelt’s and Burke’s accents to be weirdly different from any I know of now: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/HpGLY-Ege2w/hqdefault.jpg "President Roosevelt's speech against dictators (1941)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpGLY-Ege2w) ---
**Author:** ![Roman67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roman67/32/12809_2.png) [@Roman67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roman67)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/15 "2022-12-11T17:11:53Z")
It’s evident, but they’re different from each other in the same time, aren’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/16 "2022-12-11T17:41:49Z")
Yes, they are. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/17 "2022-12-11T20:05:48Z")
One of the most interesting examples is Helen Keller. She was instructed in speech by some of the most highly-thought of at the time, speech teachers in the east, who taught that dialect, and even though it is hard to understand exactly what Keller is saying most of the time, you can still hear the accent. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/18 "2022-12-11T23:15:39Z")
She spent a good number of her formative years living in London, where she went to a lot of plays, and decided she wanted to be a stage actress. If her midatlantic accent skews a bit further east than some others, that may be the reason. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/19 "2022-12-11T23:37:45Z")
For a long time I thought David Ogden Stiers was British because of the affected snobby Bostonian accent he used for Charles Emerson Winchester III (which at the time I knew nothing about). I guess that’s the same kind of thing you’re all talking about. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332/20 "2022-12-11T23:39:34Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > For a long time I thought David Ogden Stiers was British because of the affected snobby Bostonian accent he used for Charles Emerson Winchester III (which at the time I knew nothing about). When I was a kid, I thought that rich people actually talked like Thurston Howell III. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-billie-burkes-accent-in-dinner-et-eight/976332.md?page=2)