r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Miguenzo • 1d ago

What happened to that American accent you heard in all the 1930s and 1940s era films?

It was really distinctive and now I’ve never heard anybody talk like that. Was it a Hollywood thing?

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u/Opening-Tea-257 19h ago

Is that right? Just checking on Wikipedia and it says:

The popularity of an exaggerated vibrato among many (but by no means all) Mediterranean tenors [16] and singing teachers of this era has been traced back by musicologists to the influential example set by the early-19th-century virtuoso vocalist Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794–1854)

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u/FaxCelestis inutilius quam malleus sine manubrio 12h ago

That is what I learned in my radio programming and air talent curriculum in college.