Garry Moore's Revelation

As trite as this sounds, the host of I’ve Got a Secret had a secret. At least, it doesn’t appear to have been common knowledge at the time the show was on the air.

Garry Moore revealed it to King Features Syndicate writer Harvey Pack in a story published March 9, 1963.

Moore had been on a network for 20 years at that point. In 1943, NBC quickly needed a replacement show, so Moore was hired and then paired with Jimmy Durante. The odd combination worked. Moore left in 1947 to branch out on his own, and he eventually was pulled into the Goodson-Todman stable, hosting Secret and then a revived version of To Tell the Truth before retiring. Moore died in 1993, 50 years after he first went on the air for Camel cigarettes. His cigarette habit did him in.

Moore Beat Speech Handicap
By HARVEY PACK
Many years ago in the city of Baltimore a 15-year-old boy who was destined to be one of America's highest paid TV personalities told, his friends, "If you call my house and there's no answer . . . it doesn't mean I'm not home. I never answer the phone because I can't say hello." Today, Garry Moore says more than "hello" to millions of fans every week and his loquacity is one of the key factors in his success.
"I stammered from the time I was 15 until I was 16 and a half," explained Garry, "the reason I couldn't answer the phone is that 'hello' is one of the hardest words for a stammerer and I just avoided it by not picking up the receiver. With my friends I wasn't so bad, but with adults I was terrible."
Ironically enough, even at that time Moore wanted to be an actor. "I knew it was impossible," he continued, "but it was similar to a crippled boy dreaming of being a ball player."
Garry doesn't try to analyze what caused the affliction, but he does admit that he was a poor student at the time and his older brother and sister ranked quite high in their class, a fact which psychologists would undoubtedly list as a cause. "The stammering didn't help my studies and vice versa," Garry theorized. "But in spite of my poor scholastic record, the headmaster of my high school wrote an article some years ago explaining that many miserable students are simply children who do not fit into the mold that is demanded by educators. He listed me as an example."
The cure was not affected by speech therapy, but by the theater. "A friend of mine was trying out for the school play and he had me accompany him as a friendly witness," said Garry. "They asked me to read a few cue lines and I found that when I wasn't responsible for making up the speeches, I was able to talk in front of an audience without stammering. They gave me the lead in the play . . . I was a big hit and every body was proud of me. I never stammered again."

Despite his poor scholastic showing, Garry was extremely well read and actually began his professional career as a writer. He has never forgotten his adolescent affliction and to this day he is quite active in the National Hospital for Speech Disorders.
"They do a remarkable job today," said Garry. "I don't really understand all their methods, but I get a kick out of going down there and watching these people get up in front of a class and try and talk. I was invited to address a group one night and I was introduced by the teacher, stepped up to the front of the room and said, 'I . . uh . uh . . mmm . . wouwou . . . wou . . .' I completely regressed and, for the first time in 25 years, I was unable to talk. The students laughed because they thought I was trying to be funny, but it actually took me five minutes to regain my composure."
The emcee of I've Got a Secret seen on Channel 12 Monday nights, has never kept his teenage stammering a secret and, as a result, he is constantly visited by parents whose youngsters have speech defects. "The pattern is always the same," said Garry. "The mother or father comes in to see me dragging the child behind them. The parent asks the child to tell Garry how good he is—say in sports—and before the kid has said one word the parent steps right in and takes over the explanation. They won't let the youngster get in one sentence without interrupting. When I tell the parent to wait outside, I always find the child loosens up and begins to speak much better.
"I think parents should examine their own methods of bringing up their children before classifying their offspring as candidates for speech therapy. In many cases, particularly very young children, it's simply a matter of the mind moving faster than the mouth and the impatient parent can actually aggravate this condition into a speech impediment."
As every viewer knows, the boy who won the lead in that Baltimore high school play has had no trouble getting work. His variety show — which spawned talents like Carol Burnett, Allen & Rossi and, more recently, Dorothy Loudon—will be back again next season on CBS. He doesn't seem to mind the strenuous schedule of a weekly one hour show, plus I've Got a Secret and a daily radio program.
When you ask him whether he's sorry he didn't do a film show and therefore lost out on the big fortunes performers have made by selling their old shows for syndication, the onetime stammerer proves himself a true ham by saying, "When you're on film nobody comes up to you the next day and tells you that the show was great . . . or even lousy. You sacrifice the excitement of the business and that's an awful lot to give up."
And to think . . . he once couldn't say "hello."