captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> kroft: craig venter doesn't fit the stereotype of a world famous scientist. now, the iconoclastic, egocentric adrenaline junky who deciphered the human genetic code is experimenting with synthetic life in the laboratory. aren't you playing god? >> we're not playing anything. we're understanding the rules of life. >> kroft: do you believe in god? >> no. >> pitts: mark twain's "adventures of huckleberry finn" is one of the greatest works in

american literature, and it's always been one of the most controversial. >> why is there a big deal about this right now? >> pitts: today, some school districts ban the book and a national debate over censorship has caught fire. and it's all about one word. >> one of the first things i do is i make everybody say it out loud about six or seven times. >> pitts: the n-word. >> yeah, "nigger." "get over it, you know. now, let's talk about the book." >> i'm not... here to discuss personal matters. >> why are you here, then? >> because i bloody well stammer! >> pelley: no one saw this coming-- a small movie about the stammering king of england is one of the most nominated films of all time. >> he would rather have been facing machine gun fire than the microphone. >> pelley: the remarkable story of what happened between george vi and his speech therapist may be a tale worthy of the oscar, but the story of the treasures pulled from the therapist's

attic... well, that's a yarn for "60 minutes." wow, what an astounding thing. what an astounding thing. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm byron pitts. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." finally, there's a choice for my patients with an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, or afib, that's not caused by a heart valve problem. today we have pradaxa to reduce the risk of a stroke caused by a clot. in a clinical trial, pradaxa 150 mg reduced stroke risk 35% more than warfarin. and with pradaxa, there's no need for those regular blood tests. pradaxa is progress. pradaxa can cause serious, sometimes fatal, bleeding. don't take pradaxa if you have abnormal bleeding, and seek immediate medical care for unexpected signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising.

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>> kroft: for generations, scientists have wrestled with the idea of creating new forms of life in the laboratory. now, that age is upon us. the latest milestone occurred last year when the microbiologist j. craig venter announced that a team of his scientists had created a synthetic bacteria, designed on a computer, with man-made dna. the announcement was greeted with a mixture of praise, skepticism, and rancor, which is familiar territory for venter. he's one of the most famous scientists in the world, known for his pioneering work in deciphering the human genetic code. but as we first reported last fall, he's also one of the most controversial-- an iconoclast with a brilliant mind and an

outsized ego, who has flaunted the conventional wisdom and tweaked the staid scientific establishment at every turn. you don't have to spend much time with craig venter to understand that he likes to go fast. he's an adrenaline junky, whose willingness to take big risks has led to bold scientific breakthroughs, and he's not exactly shy about touting those accomplishments. where would you rank yourself in terms of scientific accomplishments? >> craig venter: well, in the field of genomics, it... i think the record is pretty clear cut. so, the first genome in history, the first draft of the human genome, the first complete version of the human genome. and having the first synthetic cells. >> kroft: so, the answer to the question is, "pretty high"? >> venter: i mean, it's really hard to assess that yourself. but i think the teams that we have and what we've accomplished are certainly amongst the biggest discoveries in modern science. >> kroft: if you have some stereotype of a scientist in

your mind, craig venter probably doesn't fit it. he's scuba-dived with sharks to gather microbes in the pacific, and spent much of the past summer sailing through the greek isles on his 95-foot research vessel plucking new genetic material from the sea. he rarely goes anywhere without his wife heather and their dog, darwin. and their home high above the pacific in la jolla, california, suggests the quest for scientific truth requires no vow of poverty. this is a nice place. >> venter: i have been lucky. sort of the accidental millionaire, in terms of people keep giving me money to... to start companies to exploit the... the science. >> kroft: he runs both a privately held bio-tech company called synthetic genomics, and a non-profit research lab, the j. craig venter institute. together, they employ more than 500 people on two coasts, including one nobel laureate, hamilton smith, and some of the top scientists in the world. >> venter: so, i'm much more like an orchestra conductor, you

know, than the violinist. >> kroft: what do you think your greatest talent is? >> venter: i have an unusual type of thinking. i have no visual memory whatsoever-- everything is conceptual to me. so, i... i think that's part of it. i see things differently. >> kroft: venter likes to think big, and his latest advancement is no exception. so, this is what all the fuss is about? >> venter: this is the first synthetic species. >> kroft: and how long did it take you to make this? >> venter: well, if you count the total time from the conception, about 15 years. >> kroft: and how many millions? >> venter: about $40 million over that entire time period. >> kroft: in practical terms, it is about as useful as the mold that grows in a bachelor's refrigerator, but, scientifically, it's a milestone. the bacteria, which is similar to one found in the intestines of goats, was designed on a computer, manufactured in the laboratory, and gets its genetic instructions from a synthetic chromosome made by man, not nature. and it's alive? >> venter: it's alive and self-

replicating. that means it can indefinitely grow and make copies of itself. >> kroft: did you design this to do anything, in particular? >> venter: no. we designed this just to see if we could do this whole experiment using synthetic d.n.a. and now that we know we can do it, it's worth the effort to now make the things that could be valuable. >> kroft: just how valuable remains to be seen, but venter believes this is the first baby step in a biological revolution, one in which it will be possible to custom-design and reprogram bacteria and other organisms to churn out new medicines, foods, and clean sources of energy. what you're doing is programming cells like somebody would program software. >> venter: d.n.a. is the software of life. there's no question about it. and the key to evolution of life on this planet, and now the key to the future of life on this planet, is understanding how to write that software. >> kroft: so, you see bio- engineered fuel, for example?

>> venter: i see, in the future, bio-engineered almost everything you can imagine that we use. >> kroft: how far off is some of this? >> venter: the first things will start to come out in the next few years. i think, possibly, next year's flu vaccine could come from these synthetic d.n.a. processes. instead of months to make a new vaccine each year, we could do it in 24 hours or less. >> kroft: he has already signed a contract with a major pharmaceutical firm to try and do it. b.p. is funding research to experiment with underground microbes that feed off coal and produce natural gas. and exxon-mobil has committed $300 million to venter's company to genetically enhance an algae that lives off carbon dioxide and produces an oil that can be refined into gasoline. so you're trying to cut down on co2 in the atmosphere, which people believe causes global warming, and also create a fuel? >> venter: exactly. the question is on the scale that it needs to be done at, you know? facilities the size of san francisco. >> kroft: really?

>> venter: yes. >> kroft: the city? >> venter: yeah. >> kroft: venter and his team are not the only players in this growing field known as synthetic biology. for years, dupont has been using genetically modified bacteria to make a compound used in clothing and carpets. amyris discovered a way to genetically modify yeast to produce an anti-malarial drug. another company, ls9, has altered the genes of e. coli bacteria to produce fuel. but all of them are modifying a few genes, not designing all of them. venter's rivals say his method is commercially impractical. but he's made a career out of bucking the scientific establishment, and earned lots of enemies with his brash behavior and his knack for grabbing research money and the spotlight. so, what are your faults? >> venter: probably impatience is the... you know, the biggest one. i don't suffer fools too well. that, you know, i'm not going to ever win a political contest. >> kroft: a lot of people have said you're a self-promoter, an egomaniac?

>> venter: yeah. >> kroft: true? partially true? not true at all? >> venter: you know, if we hold a press conference, it's considered self promotion. but somebody at a university... the university holds the press conference and that's not self promotion. >> kroft: overly ambitious? >> venter: i... i'm sure i'm very guilty of that. >> kroft: that wasn't always the case. he grew up in the suburbs of san francisco as the prototypical surfer dude and a classic under- achiever. >> venter: i was a horrible student. i really hated school. >> kroft: were you good in math and science? >> venter: i was not really good in anything, you know? i almost flunked out of high school. >> kroft: you got a college scholarship for swimming, right? >> venter: yes. but i didn't take it, so at age 17, i moved to southern california to take up surfing. >> kroft: that was it? >> venter: that was it. >> kroft: in 1965, reality set in. he got drafted off his surfboard, joined the navy as a medic, and was sent to vietnam to work at a field hospital in da nang.

the experience changed his life, and motivated him to go back to school and pursue a career in medical research. he became a rising star at the national institutes of health, and just as quickly, grew frustrated with the politics and bureaucracy of government science. when the n.i.h. declined to fund some of his unorthodox new ideas, he left and found private investors who would. >> venter: i think we have a real problem with how science is funded and done in this country. almost every breakthrough i've been associated with is from having independent money. and once they worked, we can get tons of government money to follow up on it. but we could never get the money to do the initial experiment. >> kroft: in 1998, a company that made cutting edge technology to analyze dna hired him to take on the federal government in a race to identify all the genetic material in the human body. the federally funded human genome project had already been working on it for years. why did you decide to challenge

the government? >> venter: the way it was being done just didn't make any sense. we ended up doing it in nine months instead of 15 years. that's a big difference. >> kroft: when the competition produced bad blood and bad publicity in the scientific community, the clinton administration arranged for the two sides to announce a truce and a tie, even though many believe that venter's company, celera genomics, was ahead. but for venter, the celebration was short-lived. the tension between making science and making money, and personality conflicts with his corporate bosses, got venter sacked a year and a half later. you accomplished all this stuff, and you got fired by the company that brought you in to do this. >> venter: yup. >> kroft: they locked the doors. >> venter: they locked the doors and sent me away. >> kroft: the experience left him deeply depressed, but he was financially well off and still in business, having endowed his research institute with $100

million in stock at the height of the biotech boom. within a few years, he was once again making waves in the world of science. only this time, at age 64, he's not just trying to decipher genetic codes; now, he's trying to create them. this is a quote from one of your critics. "he's trying to short-circuit millions of years of evolution and create his own version of second genesis. it's the height of hubris. it's irresponsible. and he can't tell you it's going to be safe." >> venter: except for the second part, i was taking that as a compliment. ( laughs ) i can tell you what we're doing is safe; that there's no way that i can guarantee that other people that use these tools will do intelligent, safe experiments with it. but i think the chance of evil happening with this and somebody even trying to do deliberate evil would be pretty hard. >> kroft: why? >> venter: because the complexity of biology. you know, we're not working with human pathogens.

we're working with algae cells. and part of our design is cells that won't survive outside of a facility or a laboratory. and we think other scientists will adopt these same approaches. >> kroft: there are some things that concern you about this? >> venter: well, it... it is powerful technology. it's something that needs to be monitored, absolutely. >> kroft: president obama was concerned enough to ask his commission on bioethics to hold hearings on venter's new technology shortly after the results were published in the journal "science." apart from the legal and regulatory questions raised, there are some moral and ethical ones, as well. there are a lot of people in this country who don't think that you ought to screw around with nature. >> venter: we don't have too many choices now. we are a society that is 100% dependent on science. we're going to go up in our population in the next 40 years, we can't deal with the population we have without destroying our environment. >> kroft: but aren't you playing god? >> venter: we're not playing anything. we're understanding the rules of

life. >> kroft: but that's... that's more than studying life, that's changing life. >> venter: well, domesticating animals was changing life; domesticating corn-- when you do cross-breeding of plants, you're doing this blind experiment where you're just mixing d.n.a. of different types of cells and just seeing what comes out of it. >> kroft: this is a little different, though. this is another step, isn't it? >> venter: yeah, now, we're doing it in a deliberate design fashion with tiny bacteria. i think it's much healthier to do it based on some knowledge and a better understanding of life than to do it blindly and randomly. >> kroft: you know, i've asked you two or three times, "do you think you're playing god?" i mean, do you believe in god? >> venter: no. i believe the universe is far more wonderful than just assuming it was made by some higher power. i think the fact that these cells are software-driven machines and that software is

d.n.a. and that's the... truly, the secret of life is writing software is pretty miraculous. just seeing that process in the simplest forms that we're just witnessing is pretty stunning. . >> cbs money watch update brought to you by: >> mitchell: good evening. the f.b.i. is investigating what's called a "sophisticated cyberattack" on the imf. three more countries have backed france's kristine la guard to be the new imf chief. gas is an average of $3.71 a gallon, 27 cents less than a month ago. and "super 8" won the weekend box office. i'm russ mitchell, cbs news. part of my job is teaching my patients how to take insulin.

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what's surprising is that, 125 years later, "huckleberry finn" is still making news. today, there are school districts in america that ban this american classic for one reason, one word: "nigger," a word so offensive, it's usually called the "n-word." as we first reported in march, a publishing company in alabama says that schools don't have to change their reading list, because they changed "huckleberry finn." their newly released edition removes the n-word and replaces it with "slave," a bold move for what's considered one of the greatest works in american literature. mark twain's "huckleberry finn" is a classic set before the civil war. the story's told by huck, a white boy escaping an abusive father, and his adventures with a black man named jim, escaping slavery. their journey takes place along the mississippi river. in it, twain used the n-word 219 times.

to some people, the word gets in the way of the story's powerful message against slavery. to others, twain is simply capturing the way people talked back then. are you censoring twain? >> randall williams: we certainly are accused of censoring twain. >> pitts: randall williams is co-owner and editor of newsouth books, publishers of the sanitized edition of "tom sawyer" and "huckleberry finn" that replaces the n-word with "slave". it's aimed at schools that already ban the book, though no one knows how many have. williams says they are not trying to replace twain's original, n-word included. >> williams: if you can have the discussion and you're comfortable having the discussion, have it, have it with it in there. but if you're not comfortable with that, then here's an alternative for you to use. and i would argue to you that it's still powerful. >> pitts: the new edition drew powerful reactions from twain scholars, the press, and

ordinary readers, and it's worth noting most of the articles don't spell out the word, either. what's it say that people have been so passionate about it? >> williams: i think it says that race continues to be a volatile and divisive subject. >> pitts: in this passage, huck says the word three times in two sentences. >> "jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he couldn't hardly notice the other niggers. niggers come miles to hear jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country." >> pitts: what do you think of "huckleberry finn?" >> david bradley: it's a great book. it's one of the greatest books in american literature. >> pitts: author david bradley teaches at the university of oregon. he says the key to understanding huckleberry finn is through twain's use of language as the friendship between huck and jim unfolds. >> bradley: when huck comes back to that raft, he says, "they're after us." he doesn't say, "they're after you"; he says, "they're after us." and that's the moment when it becomes about the american dilemma, it becomes about, "are

we going to get along?" >> pitts: school districts struggling to teach "huckleberry finn" have called in david bradley. he believes strongly in teaching twain's original text. >> bradley: one of the first things i do is i make everybody say it out loud about six or seven times. i get all... >> pitts: the n-word? >> bradley: yeah, "nigger." "get over it," you know. ( laughs ) "now, let's talk about the book." >> pitts: students at woodbury high school in minnesota read the original book this past school year. but there are differences in how their teachers approach it. nora wise says the word out loud in class; karen morrill does not. >> karen morrill: what happens when we... when i say "the n- word" and i don't pronounce n-i- g-g-e-r. people are scared to talk about race. >> pitts: are you scared to talk about it in class? >> morrill: no. >> pitts: but you will not say out loud the n-word? >> morrill: that's just such as minor part. >> pitts: aren't you giving the word more power than it deserves by not saying it? >> morrill: i didn't give the word its power; it came into my classroom with that power.

why is there a big deal about this right now? >> people find the word extremely offensive. >> morrill: i might not always reach and nourish and nurture every single student, but i can certainly do my best not to harm them. >> pitts: when nora wise says the word, she feels its impact on students is worth it. >> nora wise: it makes sense in this novel to teach it with the controversy. it makes sense to bring up all of the hard emotions. they come with it. it's not just a classic book. it's not just the way the words are written, it's the ideas. >> pitts: 11th graders melvin efesoa, joseph jaurdio and ryan farrell confronted the controversial word and their feelings about it. >> ryan farrell: i feel that that word is in there for a reason. twain put the word in there to get our attention. and every time we read it, it does exactly that-- it gets our attention. >> joseph jaurdio: if you replace that with the word "slave," of course, people would be less bothered, but i think twain wants people to be a little bit bothered. >> pitts: melvin, you smiled. >> melvin efesoa: i smiled

because, like, i just kind of think that constant use of "the n-word," and it's... it... to me, it feels unnecessary. >> pitts: why? what is it ab.... it's just a word, right? what is it about this word? >> efesoa: it reflects on african-american history back then. and like i said, it's like... it's a history that nobody wants to relive. >> pitts: do you think the discomfort starts and stops with the n-word, or the discomfort extends to a conversation about race? >> williams: in this specific instance, it is the word itself that is the problem. people are not coming up saying, "well, we can't teach this book because it's got discussion about slavery." what they're saying is, "we can't teach the book because it's got all these repetitive instances of the offensive n- word in there, and therefore, we're not going to use it." >> pitts: the publisher says they are providing a service. >> bradley: they are. >> pitts: there are school districts that won't deal with "huckleberry finn," and they remove this word, and now they're able to have their students read and deal with

"huckleberry finn." >> bradley: no, it's not "huckleberry finn" anymore. we're talking about students-- what are we teaching them? this may be their first encounter with slavery. it shouldn't be their only one. but that's one of the reasons we can't mess around with it. there is a reality there that you cannot avoid. >> pitts: but do you... do you lose that reality when you take out the "n-word" and replace it with "slave"? >> bradley: yeah. "slave" is a condition. i mean, anybody can be a slave. and it's nothing for anybody to be ashamed of. but "nigger" has to do with... with shame. "nigger" has to do with calling somebody something. "nigger" was what made slavery possible. >> williams: it's... well, the word is poison. >> pitts: you use the word? >> williams: oh, i used to. i grew up saying the word. it was all i knew. i never gave it any thought. >> pitts: williams runs newsouth books in montgomery, alabama, cradle of the confederacy and where jim crow was once king. >> we don't want the niggers going in this school. it's a white school. >> pitts: williams, a son of

alabama, says the civil rights movement changed him, as it did the rest of the south. for him, the subject of race and the n-word goes beyond any debate about the book. it's also about how far the south has come. >> williams: we learned to think differently about it, and thank god we did. i mean, the movement didn't just free, you know, black southerners. i mean, it freed white southerners, too. >> pitts: freed you from? >> williams: freed us from the sin of... you know, this... this was a big... a big sin. >> pitts: kids use it-- you know, the... the rap artists use it, the black rap artists use it, as you know, as i well know. brothers use it all the time... >> bradley: oh, yeah. >> pitts: ...when they talk to each other. >> bradley: i love it. >> pitts: sorry? >> bradley: i love it. >> pitts: you love it? >> bradley: yeah, yeah. "you're my nigger, man." look, what... in every group, there are words that you use, there are inflections, there is

knowledge about what a word means to you or to me or... how i mean it when i say it, that is not an insult. i think one of the things that offends white people about it is that they can't say it. they say, "well, is it because of my inflection, or is it because..." it's... no, because it's... because you're not us. jeff foxworthy says, you know, "you can't make jokes about a redneck unless you are one." you can't say "nigger" unless you are one, and unless you are willing to accept everything that goes with it, which is a lot of good stuff, you know? and that's what they want, they want that good stuff. >> pitts: what's the good stuff that goes with that word? >> bradley: having an awareness that you have... your people have overcome centuries of oppression. the pride of saying, "yeah, you can say anything you want and it won't slow me down one bit." >> pitts: but the word is hurtful. >> bradley: the word is not hurtful. how it is used is hurtful. the person who is saying is hurtful. >> pitts: 17-year-old jeremy richardson wrestled with how to react to the word, especially as the only black student in nora

wise's english class. >> jeremy richardson: and then, having the teacher read it out loud to everyone, then everyone's looking at me like, "oh, well, she just said that. what are you going to do about it?" like, i didn't really have a reaction. i just... i basically ignored the fact. >> pitts: you didn't have an external reaction? >> richardson: yeah. >> pitts: internally, though, what was going on? >> richardson: internally, i just thought about it like, "this is wrong. like, i don't think that she should be saying this out loud." >> pitts: but why didn't you say something at that moment? >> richardson: i don't know. maybe because i didn't want anyone to see that i was having a problem with her reading the word. that may be it. but i definitely did have a problem with it. >> pitts: that's an uncomfortable conversation for students? >> wise: mm-hmm. >> pitts: is... >> wise: it's uncomfortable for me, too. >> pitts: wise spends three days in class talking about race even before starting "huckleberry finn." how do you balance your strong conviction about using the words that are in the book with the notion that some of your students may be pained by that word.

>> wise: i don't have a callused view about the pain, i don't. but on the other hand, i do feel like any time you come up against something that creates tension or creates discomfort, it is a point at which you could grow. and i think that life, in general, has many, many moments like that. and i don't think that teaching kids to step away from that is healthy. >> williams: is the argument that these kids should be subjected to pain? i mean, you know, i don't, you know, see the point of that. >> pitts: newsouth books says its sold all 7,500 copies of the edited version of "huckleberry finn" and plans to print more in the fall. >> williams: the only thing missing from their, you know, reading of this will be the word itself. have we taken every bit of the value of twain out? well, that's a preposterous argument. i... i just... i can't even see

that argument. >> pitts: what the publisher's saying, by introducing this new edition, they can still have the teachable moment and have the conversation about race. you look puzzled. >> bradley: well, you t... you use the term "teachable moment," and that's what "nigger" gives you. that's why it's important to keep it there. i call "huckleberry finn" a "power tool" when it comes to education. there are so many things that pry things open. it's like the jaws of life. and you say a teachable moment-- that teachable moment is when that word hits the table in a classroom, everybody goes, "whoa!" "okay, let's talk about it. let's talk about where it came from. let's talk about why you all went 'whoa,' when you don't go 'whoa' about anything else, when y'all don't go 'whoa' when it's blasting around in the parking lot in what y'all call music." if you take out everything in a book that causes the teachable moment, you have no teachable moments.

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>> pelley: last winter, "the king's speech" dominated the oscars when it took home four

out of the 12 academy awards it was nominated for, including best picture, best director, best actor and best original screenplay. the movie is based on the true story of george vi, the father of the present queen of england. george vi was a man who, in the 1930s, desperately did not want to be king. he was afflicted nearly all of his life by a crippling stutter, which stood to rob britain of a commanding voice at the very moment that hitler rose to threaten europe. the story struck a nerve with audiences and critics alike, as we reported last february, just before colin firth won his first oscar for his critically- acclaimed portrayal of george vi. did you like being king? >> colin firth: i think it's hard to think of anything worse, really. i mean, it's... i wouldn't change places with this man. and i would be very surprised if anybody watching the film would change places with this man.

it's a perfect storm of catastrophic misfortunes for a man who does not want the limelight, who does not want to be heard publicly, who does not want to expose this humiliating impediment that he's spent his life battling. i have received... a... a... a... a... he's actually fighting his own private war. he'd rather have been facing machine gun fire than have to face the microphone. >> pelley: the microphone hung like a noose for the king who was a stutterer from the age of eight. he was never meant to be king, but in 1936, his older brother gave up the throne to marry wallis simpson, a divorced american. suddenly, george vi and his wife elizabeth reigned over an empire

that was home to 25% of the world population. and like the george of over 1,000 years before, he had a dragon to slay-- radio. >> firth: when i looked at images of him or i listened to him, you do see that physical struggle. at a time when... when... this country... his eyes close, and you see him try to gather himself. and it's... it's heartbreaking. the fact h... had to be faced... >> pelley: among those listening was a seven-year-old british boy who, like the king, had a wealth of words, but could not get them out. >> david seidler: i was a profound stutterer. i started stuttering just before my third birthday. i didn't rid myself of it until i was 16. but my parents would encourage me to listen to the king's speeches during the war, and i

thought, "wow, if he can do that, there is hope for me." so he became my childhood hero. >> pelley: david seidler wrote the movie. he'd grown up with the story, but he didn't want to tell the tale until he had permission from the late king's widow, known as the queen mother. you sent a letter to the queen mother. >> seidler: i wrote to the queen mother. and finally, an answer came, and it said, "dear mr. seidler. please, not during my lifetime. the memory of these events is still too painful." if the queen mum says "wait" to an englishman, an englishman waits. but i didn't think i'd have to wait that long >> pelley: why? >> seidler: well, she was a very elderly lady. 25 five years later, just shy of her 102nd birthday, she finally left this realm. >> pelley: after the queen mother's death in 2002, seidler went to work. he found the theme of the story in the clash between his royal highness and an australian commoner who became the king's salvation, an unknown speech therapist named lionel logue.

>> seidler: the words that keep coming up when you hear about lionel logue are "charisma" and "confidence." he would never say, "i can fix your stuttering"; he would say, "you can get a handle on your stuttering. i know you can succeed." >> geoffrey rush: do come in. >> pelley: geoffrey rush plays lionel logue, an unorthodox therapist and a royal pain. >> rush: what do i call you? >> firth: prince albert fredrick arthur... george. >> rush: how 'bout bertie? >> pelley: they say you can't make this stuff up, and in much of this film, that's true. david seidler could not have imagined that his work would lead to a discovery that would rewrite history. it happened when the researchers for the film tracked down lionel logue's grandson, mark logue, because the movie needed family photos to get the clothing right. and you told them what? >> mark logue: i told them, "yeah, i've got pictures. i've got some diaries, too."

>> pelley: his grandfather's diaries were up in the attic in boxes that the family had nearly forgotten. when mark logue hauled them down for the movie, he discovered more than 100 letters between the therapist and his king. >> logue: "my dear logue, thank you so much for sending me the books for my birthday, which are most acceptable." that's so british, isn't it? "yours very sincerely, albert." >> pelley: as you read through all of these letters between your grandfather and the king, what did it tell you about the relationship between these two men? >> logue: it's not the relationship between a doctor and his patient; it's a relationship between friends. >> pelley: we met mark logue at the same address where his grandfather treated the king. and among the hundreds of pages of documents were logue's first observations of george vi. >> logue: probably the most startling thing was the king's appointment card. it described in detail the king's stammer, which we hadn't seen anywhere else. and it also described in detail

the intensity with the appointments. >> firth: shall i see you next week? >> rush: i shall see you every day. >> pelley: the king came here every day? >> logue: every day. yeah, every single day for an hour. >> pelley: through the weekends? >> logue: through weekends. you know, he was so committed i think he decided, "this is it. i have to overcome this stammer, and this is my chance." >> pelley: in the film, the king throws himself into what look like crazy therapies. but in truth, lionel logue didn't write much about his methods. >> rush: and slowly exhale, and down comes the royal highness. >> you all right, bertie? >> firth: yes. >> this is actually quite good fun. >> pelley: these scenes are based on writer david seidler's experience and ideas of the actors. >> rush: feel the looseness of the jaw. we threw in stuff that we knew. i mean, somebody had told me that the only way to release that muscle. and of course, little did i realize that the particular lens they were using on that shot made me look like a galapagos tortoise. ( laughter )

>> pelley: even as they were shooting the film, the actors read the newly discovered diaries and letters, and worked them into the script. >> firth: the line at the end, i found reading the diaries in bed one night, because this is what i used to do every night. when logue says "you still stammered on the 'w'"... >> rush: you still stammered on the "w". >> firth: i had to throw in a few so they knew it was me. it shows that these men had a sense of humor. it showed that there was wit. it showed there was self mockery, and it just showed a kind of buoyancy of spirit between them. the fact that he spoke on a desk standing upright in this little hidden room is something we found in the diaries, as well. you've redecorated, logue. in reality, he had to stand up to speak. he had to have the window open. >> rush: some fresh air. >> firth: and he had to have his jacket off. >> there you are, darling. >> firth: that's wonderful, specific little eccentric observation that came from reality. >> pelley: one of the most remarkable things to come out of the logue attic was a copy of what may be the most important

speech the king ever made. >> 40 seconds, sir. >> pelley: the speech that gave the movie its name. this was the moment when king george vi had to tell his people that, for the second time in a generation, they were at war with germany. the stakes were enormous. the leader of the empire could not stumble over these words. you have the original copy of the speech that the king made to the people on the advent of world war ii? >> logue: yeah, i have it right here. >> pelley: on buckingham palace stationery. what are all of these marks, all these vertical lines? what do they mean? >> logue: they're deliberate pauses so that the king would be able to sort of attack the next word without hesitation. he's replacing some words, he's crossing them out and suggesting another word that the king would find easier to pronounce. >> pelley: here's a line that he's changed. "we've tried to find a peaceful way out of the differences between my government..." he's changed that from "my government" to "the differences between ourselves and those who

would be our enemies." >> firth: we have tried to find a peaceful way out... >> rush: ...of the differences... >> firth: ...of the differences... >> rush: ...between ourselves... >> firth: ...between ourselves... >> rush: ...and those... >> firth: ...and those... >> rush: ...who are now... >> firth: ...who are now... >> rush: ...our... >> firth: ...our... >> rush: ...enemies. >> firth: ...enemies. well done... my friend. >> rush: thank you... your majesty. >> pelley: you know, i'm curious. have either of you snuck into a theater and watched this film with a regular audience? >> firth: no, the only time i've ever snuck in to watch my own film, i got quite nervous about it, because i just thought it would be embarrassing to be seen doing that. so i... i... you know, i pulled my collar up, and the hat down over my eyes and, you know, snuck in as if i was going into a porn cinema or something, and

went up the stairs, crept in, sidled in to sit at the back. and i was the only person in the cinema. ( laughter ) that's how well the film was doing. ( cheers and applause ) >> pelley: now, it's a lot harder for colin firth to go unnoticed. recently, he was immortalized in hollywood pavement, and brought along his italian wife, livia. they've been married 14 years and have two sons. with "the king's speech," we realized that firth is one of the most familiar actors that we know almost nothing about. so we took him back to his home town in hampshire, outside london. he's the son of college professors, but firth dropped out of high school to go to acting school. but you don't have a hampshire accent. >> firth: ah, no. my... my accent has changed over the years, as a matter of survival. so until i was about ten, i... ( in hampshire accent ) i used to talk like that. i remember, it might have been on this street, actually, where... i think the conversation went something like, "oy, you want to fight?"

and i said, "no, i don't." "why not?" "well, 'cause you'll win." "no, i won't." "well, will i win, then?" "well, you might not." and so, you know, we went trying to process the logic. and i thought, have we dealt with it now? i mean... >> pelley: "do we still have to fight?" >> firth: "do we actually have to do the practical now? we've done the theory." >> pelley: he wanted us to see his first stage. it turned out to be the yard of his elementary school, where he told stories from his own imagination. >> firth: and at lunch time, on the field up here, the crowd would gather and demand the story. they'd all sit around and say, "no, we want the next bit." >> pelley: did you have the thought, at that early age, "this is what i want to do?" >> firth: no, no. not until i was 14. >> pelley: and what happened then? >> firth: i used to go to drama classes up the road here on saturday mornings, and one day, i just had this epiphany. "i can do this. i want to do this." >> pelley: he's done 42 films in 26 years, most of them the polar

opposite of "the king's speech," like "mamma mia." ♪ ♪ how hard was it to get you to do the scene that's used for the closing credits? >> firth: you know what? that may be the reason i did the movie. >> pelley: you have no shame? >> firth: i'm sorry. that's... if one thing has come out of "60 minutes" here, it's we have discovered... we've unveiled the fact that colin firth has no shame. i am such a drag queen. i... you know, it's one of my primary driving forces in life. if you... you cannot dangle a spandex suit and a little bit of mascara in front of me and not just have me go weak at the knees. >> action. >> pelley: from queen to king, colin firth is an actor with wide range, who had his best shot at his first oscar. like george vi himself, this movie wasn't meant to be king. "the king's speech" was made for

under $15 million. but the movie, the director, the screenwriter-- david seidler, who made it happen-- and all the principal actors were nominated for academy awards. geoffrey rush had won once before. what advice do you have for this man who may very likely win the oscar this year? >> rush: well, enjoy it. it isn't the end of anything, because you will go on and do a couple more flops, probably. you might even sneak into another film in which no one is in the house. ( laughter ) >> pelley: but on oscar night, stammering king george had the last word. a lot of movies are based on true stories, but "the king's speech" has reclaimed history. captioning funded by cbs, and ford-- built for the road ahead. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> go to 60minutesovertime.com for a closer look at the stash of letters discovered in a london attic from king george vi to lionel logue.

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