Where Does That Katharine Hepburn Accent Come From?
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant have a few things in common; not only were they popular actors during Hollywood’s Golden Age, but they both used a way of speaking known as the Mid-Atlantic or Transatlantic accent. Although Hepburn was American and Grant was from England, you wouldn’t know it by the way they spoke. By using the Mid-Atlantic accent, the top actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age, like Hepburn and Grant, hid the dialect of their natural voice and adopted a fabricated accent that is hard to place.
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@anthonyakakabota9452
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
The answer is William Henry Tilly. Look him up.
@WinstonSmithGPT
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
This is all gibberish bullshit recycled from other videos. There’s a British linguist who did a great job of debunking this horseshit on his YT channel.
@773SleepyHollow
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
This video (like many others like it that mindlessly copy one another) is so incorrect it's painful; here's a more accurate look at mid-Atlantic accents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xoDsZFwF-c&ab_channel=DrGeoffLindsey
@Hiarren
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Would it have killed you to give us samples? Also, it's not entirely fake, it's built upon the New England accent.
@ZJStrudwick
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
They spoke beautifully.
@jmrodas9
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
De las cuerdas bucales de su gargante, de la forma como aprendió a hablar, y de cómo sus neuronas enviarón las órdenes a su aparto fonador.
@Buonarotti10
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Into more than 4 minutes of this video, I am yet to hear examples of sentences spoken in this speech style.
@SteffiReitsch
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Cary Grant's accent wasn't fake, he immigrated to America as a teenager from England and his accent was a distinctive mixture.
@TheStammzilla
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Debunked
@grantrizmo2002cb
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
With all due reapect, this video isnt accurate. The whole trans-atlantic accent thing is a MYTH.
https://youtu.be/9xoDsZFwF-c?si=NJcyIfriFlz3PGhQ
@sconni666
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
I suggest stop cutting and pasting Wikipedia articles. Katherine Hepburn.had a classic WASP accent. A recent video by Dr. Geoff Lindsey just debunked this entire video. Watch it and get back to me.
@nedludd7622
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
"Where exactly that Katherine Hepburn accent came from." Funny that linguist Dr. Geoff Lindsey on his site completely contradicts your thesis.
@crazychipchap
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
I think what is told here is not correct. Please watch the video “Hollywood’s “Fake” Mid-Atlantic Accent DEBUNKED!”
@TheKoolbraider
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
William Powell of the "Thin Man" movie series (early 30's to the 40's) also spoke that way. I couldn't place it; not English, upper New York, or anywhere else.
@farmerbrownjr
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
I used to do a pretty damn good Katharine Hepburn impression. It was like a mix of RFK Jr and a random woman's voice. But alas, the many times I have done it eventually rendered me unable to do it anymore; or at least not as well.
@searchanddiscover
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
everyone should check out the 1980 documentary Hollywood about silent film era, such a fascinating topic itself.
@tomryan914
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Female teachers, "The rain in Spain…" Posh
@simont6403
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Me gustaría John waney, Jerry Fonda,Chacón mentón,Gary gran
@sgabig
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
wrt joke at 3:15 I grew up in the mid Atlantic state of Pennsylvania & never heard of water fountains referred to as "bubblers"
@johnmcalonan7968
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Martin Short created the character of Katharine Hepburn's nephew. He has a hotdog stand in Midtown and speaks in a perfect Mid-Atlantic accent. It may have been on SCTV or SNL. Regards. JPMcA
@wraithconscience
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
This video is rather a bunch of bunk! Being from both the middle-Atlantic and from an educated English family (in my day, most people had two parents, you see, if you find the statement confusing…). The "Hollywood" accent is nothing like either. Furthermore, well-documented and easily researched is that Katharine Hepburn was graduated from Bryn Mawr (Welsh for "great hill") College, outside Philadelphia, where classes in speech were REQUIRED of all students. Bryn Mawr had a most particular manner of speech which it sought from its students. Hepburn's accent is pronouncedly that Bryn Mawr accent of the time. That's a "no-brainer" as they say in the States. But many actors worked on their own accents. Joan Crawford brought a thick Texas accent with her to Hollywood, about which was commented, "She's the only person in Hollywood to need six syllables to say the word 'yes'". Crawford worked diligently to iron out her accent and succeded handsomely. Many actors, those such as Cary Grant, Peter Lorre, Claude Raines, Charles Boyer, Greta Garbo, Mae West, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Ronald Coleman, Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracy (need I go on?) retained their natural mode of speaking, that becoming an essential part of their screen personae. Get your thesis right. And while you're at it, do get your facts straight!
@morriganinoregon
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Booked a Cameo in 'Radium Girls' as "Elderly Widow" who has a killer humblebrag in the second act. I want to do it pure Katherine Hepburn, and because 'EW' is 92, complete with her tremolo!
@tr1954
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Franklin Roosevelt's way of speaking is really not an example of this, but rather of a 19th Century New York patrician's accent, one without the influences of the many ethnic groups being introduced to America in the early 20th century. A rare remnant of this is heard in Gov. Tom Kean of New Jersey … "New Jersey and you, purr-feckt to-geth-ah." (sic)
@jaimejaimeChannel
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Very well done. Thanks. Your own voice gets a little hard to make out when you go into low-volume "comedy" mode, though.
@janejohnstone5795
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
They called each other.."Darling"..
@Blue-jd8jf
October 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Hollywood moved from mid-Atlantic accent to Californian accent
Comments are closed.