David Seidler

Screenwriter David Seidler (born Aug. 4, 1937, in London, England; died March 16, 2024 in New Zealand) received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Screenplay – Motion Picture for Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech in 2011.

Seidler went on to win an Academy Award for the same film. At age 74, he was at that time the oldest Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay. The King’s Speech, featuring Colin Firth in the role of King George VI, was inspired by Seidler’s own problems with stuttering.

Seidler, who wrote mainly for television throughout his career, is also known in film for Francis Ford Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) and the animated The King and I (1999). He wrote television movies such as Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988) and By Dawn’s Early Light (2001), and many episodes of the TV series Days of Our Lives (1980) and Another World (1981).

He penned the teleplays Malice in Wonderland (1985), Dancing in the Dark (1995), Lies He Told (1997), one episode of the series The Wonderful World of Disney (1998), the TV movie Soraya (2003), two episodes of the TV series Son of the Dragon (2006).

Seidler’s other credits include the TV movie Kung Fu Killer (2008) and, for film, the thriller The Queen of Spades (2016).