5 Historical Figures Who Sounded Nothing Like You Think
Blame it on sexism, Hollywood or simply modern expectations, but we like to believe all historical figures spoke in roughly the same grand, booming voice. After all, we’d never accept a president who sounds like Mickey Mouse today, so why should we expect one back when Mickey Mouse was invented? But the people who populate the history books spoke with a wide range of voices, some more hilarious than others.
George Washington
America’s daddy was far from the imposing presence of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vision. He suffered from a number of respiratory illnesses in his youth, leaving him with a voice that’s been described as “high, weak and breathy.” Think Michael Jackson, not Christopher Jackson, maybe after six months in London.
Joseph Stalin
Most people’s conception of Stalin’s voice probably ends at “scary and Russian,” but they’d be wrong on both parts. Stalin actually spoke with a strong Georgian accent (in public, at least), and he was much more soft spoken than you’d probably guess, meaning a whole lot of people were out there being oppressed by a guy who sounded like Andy Kaufman’s “Foreign Man.”
Teddy Roosevelt
Roosevelt was the ultimate man’s man — if anyone was going to sound like Sam Elliott Annihilation-ed into a bear, it was him. But he spoke with an accent common to the East Coast elite in the late 19th century and popularized by early Hollywood, so it was less Elliott, more Jimmy Stewart. Think Frasier Crane being strangled.
John Keats
As an English Romantic poet, the voice in most people’s heads when they read a Keats poem sounds something like Idris Elba, but Keats had a heavy Cockney accent, to the point that many of his lines only rhyme if spoken with one. To be safe, you’d better read them all in the voice of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins from now on.
H.P. Lovecraft
Surely, the father of modern horror had a voice as spooky as the terrors lurking within his mind, but according to his contemporaries, he spoke in high-pitched, whiney tones. One of his co-writers even mocked his voice in his own story, imbuing a character who was a “Providence mystic” with a “harsh, shrill voice.” Naturally, as a Rhode Island native, Lovecraft also had a distinct accent. Put it all together, and yes, as many have pointed out, this means he sounded like Peter Griffin. What horrors indeed.