"Two and a Half Men" cast members, Melanie Lynskey, Jon Cryer, Angus T. Jones, Charlie Sheen, Marin Hinkle, Holland Taylor and Conchata
Ferrell, winners of the "Favorite TV Comedy" award pose in the press room during the 33rd Annual People's Choice Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on January 9, 2007 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images)
His memoir The Book of Sheen describes an incident when his speech difficulties were first noticeable in class. The teacher asked a question and he raised his hand to answer and tried three times in earnest to say something but nothing came out. He wrote, “How could this be? During kickball, I could speak, yell, and laugh. Why now can’t I wrap speech around a basic word, a simple sound? Was I dying? Is this the first sign? When the laughter and catcalls erupted, I wished I was dying.”
In the memoir, Sheen refers to his stuttering as “Stutter-Ghoul”. When assessing the prospects of his new starring role in Spin City, he stated, “If Spin was gonna be my vehicle to a glorious comeback, Stutter- Ghoul was the bomb wired to the chassis.”
The actor described how he was sold a fluency device for two thousand dollars that he was to wear on his right ear, which he described as looking like a hearing aid from the 1960’s, “riding the temple like a small plastic banana.” He described how the “speech gizmo” utilized specific vibrations to interrupt a stutter, with any sound in the throat activating an inner-ear buzzing to give the “fear-word” a nudge. “I was told after I made the purchase that most people used the contraption at home for a couple of weeks before they felt confident with it out in the world. I had it about forty hours, and there I was, trying to act normal with a giant invisible bumblebee in my skull. I was a goner for sure.”
“The first episode involved a dental theme with the mayor and had no less than six or seven trouble spots in the dialogue. To clarify, a trouble spot is a
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fear-word I’d gotten stuck on in the past. My specific type of stuttering wasn’t (isn’t) the classic style we’ve all witnessed at some point, where the same letter is buh, buh, buh like an engine that won’t turn over. The card that I drew is a lot more subtle – halting that fear-word into locked silence before any sound makes it to the ignition. When that happens in a film setting, it’s a thousand times worse. Everyone on the set knows the word because they’re reading it – waiting for what feels like forever….. Speech prison is a nightmare. There is no time off for good behavior, there is no clemency. I wish it upon no one – myself most of all.”
Sheen goes on to describe how he debated for two days to tell the director and producer of Spin City about his speech limitations and ask for special considerations in terms of some word changes but feared the stigma and judgement that comes with stuttering. Finally, he ditched the fluency device and called a meeting with the director and producer, who were sympathetic to his situation and gladly adhered to his request to allow some word substitutions in the scripts. “They came to my dressing room – I spilled the beh, beh, beans. As uncomfortable as it felt to expose part of myself, it was equally as liberating.”
The openness that the actor courageously displayed during his time with Spin City proved to be successful and motivated him
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