The King’s Speech Oscar winner and Cornell alumnus David Seidler offers advice to WCMC-Q students

One piece of advice Oscar winner and Cornell NY graduate would pass on to students of WCMC-Q is, “Never give up on your dreams”. At 73 and being the oldest recipient of an Oscar for best original screenplay, Seidler is well placed to give such advice.  There was much hilarity when, at the Academy Awards ceremony, Seidler, who won for the script, The King’s Speech commented, “My father always said I’d be a late bloomer.”

Graduating from the class ’59 with contemporaries such as writers Kirkpatrick Sale, Richard Farina and Thomas Pynchon, author of Gravity’s Rainbow and The Crying of Lot, Seidler was always in good company with talented writers. He attended high school with Francis Ford Coppola and it was through this connection Seidler received his first big break. He explains, “I was working in New Zealand in advertising which I disliked. I was approaching 40 and I decided to give writing one last shot. I had always wanted to make a living as a writer and so I decided to go to Hollywood and give it all I could.”

In the mid 1980s Seidler had an idea for a film about Preston Tucker, based on a true story of an American man’s dream to build the best cars in the world. He wrote the script and in 1988 Coppola directed the movie, which won a string of awards including a BAFTA, Golden Globe, and three Academy Award nominations. Other successes followed including the Emmy Award winning Onassis: The Richest Man in the World, which also bagged Seidler a Writers Guild of America award.

However, none matched the run away success of The King’s Speech, staring Colin Firth and Helena Bonham-Carter, about the struggles of England’s King George VI to master his speech impediment. Inspired, in part, by Seidler’s own challenges with a childhood stutter, he had the idea on hold for many years as he was asked by the Queen Mother, Elizabeth and the wife of King George VI, to not produce the story in her lifetime, so deep were the scars left behind by her beloved husbands stutter.

Seidlers’ own speech problems had all but disappeared by the time he reached Cornell in 1955. He says what he loved the most about the university in those days was its sheer size. “If you wanted to you could be completely anonymous there as it was so vast and I liked that.” Seidler had originally intended to study Genetics with a view to becoming a Botanist but his love of English literature and writing won him over. Cornell has a rich history in producing world-class writers and has also attracted some of the most established names in literature.

Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, taught at Cornell during the ’50s and James McConkey, author of the novels Crossroads and A Journey to Sahalin, was also a mentor to Seidler.  “As a result I majored in English and also took up playwriting in the drama department,” he says. “Despite being concerned that I might never earn a living as a writer.” But with other inspirational writers around at the time like Baxter Hathaway, who founded the renowned literary magazine Epoch, he felt he had to give it a try.

These were clearly halcyon days for Seidler who became a well-known figure around the campus. So much so that when the legendary riots broke out on campus in May 1958 over the treatment of co-eds he was asked by a senior staff member, Proctor George, to help calm the situation. He attempted to do so but the scenario backfired and Seidler came very close to being wrongly expelled, for inciting the disorder.

This incident among others the writer recounts with some amusement in his rich baritone voice. Had he not made it as a writer, Seidler undoubtedly would have made it as a voiceover artist, with the deep, dramatic tones often heard introducing the latest blockbusters. A natural storyteller, there is always a fascinating history behind each subject we discuss.

His latest project takes us to the Middle East with a screenplay about Lady Hester Stanhope, an 18th century noblewoman and niece of William Pitt the Younger, the youngest ever UK Prime Minister. Based on a biography by Kristen Ellis, Seidler’s screen adaptation is a sweeping biopic that takes in great swathes of the region from Damascus to Mecca. “Hester was a remarkable woman, ahead of her time,” says Seidler. “She ran Pitt’s household during his tenure at 10 Downing Street and, unusually for women in those days, sat in on many cabinet meetings.”

Bold, headstrong and ambitious, Lady Stanhope traveled to the Middle East in order to broker good relationships between the UK and the region, according to Ellis’s book. She was welcomed by the leaders of the day, despite shirking conventional dress codes and instead adopting men’s dress including embroidered trousers, waistcoat and saber. Local Bedouin leaders were reportedly impressed by her and she also met with governors, Pashas and other key figures from all over the region.

“I’m inspired by stories about real people,” says Seidler. “Hester was quite a remarkable woman, she completely embraced Arabs and the Arabic way of life and that was quite unique for a British noblewoman in those days. She was the ‘Lady of Arabia’ a hundred years before we had ‘Lawrence of Arabia’.” She finally settled in a Monastery on the Mediterranean coast in an area that is now Lebanon and gave shelter to fleeing refugees of the inter-clan wars until her death in 1839.

The project is due to start filming later this year and is scheduled for release in Qatar and the region by the end of 2012. Despite his current success and arriving at what some might call retirement age, Seidler has no plans to slow down with many high profile projects in development.  He is walking proof that it is never too late to live your dreams. “Whatever it is you want to achieve, follow your heart,” he says.