Sam Chwat, speech therapist to stars, dies

Richard Jacques

Longtime Great Neck resident Sam Chwat, the speech therapist to the stars, died March 3 in Manhasset at the age of 57.

Chwat, who instructed a long list of Oscar and Grammy winners and nominees, as well as business leaders, broadcasters, diplomats and politicians, moved to the peninsula about 18 years ago with his young family.

Moving from the city to the Village of Russell Gardens in 1993, Chwat and his family enjoyed adjusting to “the best of both world’s” in their first home together after living in a Manhattan apartment for several years, according to his wife, Susan.

“This town has been very wonderful to us,” Susan said on Wednesday.”He learned to garden here and do all of the outdoor stuff that he didn’t do in the city.”

Over the years, Chwatt developed, standardized and perfected the Sam Chwat Method for accent elimination – a unique method for modifying accented speech that has had a staggering success rate among his clients, according to his company’s website.

“Sam Chwat was not only a truly learned man but he was a brilliant teacher and a colleague, said Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis on Wednesday. ” He was a part of my life and my work since the 1980s. So grateful and thankful for his skill and his sense of humor.”

A licensed speech-language pathologist, Chwat earned a master’s degree in speech pathology from Columbia University.

Chwat founded New York Speech Improvement Services in 1982. The organization, now known as the Sam Chwat Speech Center, is located on West 16th in Manhattan.

The Sam Chwat Method has been used successfully for 30 years by stars of major feature films, Broadway, television and radio productions, according to the Chwat center website. Academy-Award winning and nominated clients included Robert DeNiro, Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, Roberto Benigni, Abigaile Breslin, Heath Ledger, Kate Hudson, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz.

Chwat trained Robert DeNiro to trade his New York speech for an Appalachian accent in his Oscar-nominated role in “Cape Fear;” Willem Dafoe learned a Transylvanian accent for his Oscar-nominated role in “Shadow of the Vampire;” and Marcia Gay Harden earned her Oscar with the Brooklyn accent she learned for the film “Pollack.”

“He saw a lot of clients early in their careers – that’s what happened with Julia Roberts, Ricky Martins and Abigale Breslin,” said Susan Chwat.

Chwat taught Roberts and Andie MacDowell to trade their Southern accents for Standard American English before their film careers began, and Shakira on how to Americanize every lyric of all three of her English-language hit albums.

Kathleen Turner used Chwat for the 1990 Broadway production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

“I feel like the work we did with him contributed greatly to the high quality of the production,” said Kathleen Turner, in a statement on the Chwat center website.

Born in Brooklyn in 1953, Chwat was diagnosed with lymphoma last November.

Chwat is survived by his wife, Susan Lazarus Chwat; three daughters, Alexandra, Joanna and Elena; and a sister, Libby Mandel.

“He took the South away from Julia Roberts. He exorcised New York from Robert De Niro’s speech… He teaches senators how to drop their regional accents when they are in Washington, and how to pick them up again on the campaign trail,” according to the New York Times.

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