Article: She accentuates film performances.(FEATURES)(ARTS)

Byline: Laura Randall Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

LOS ANGELES -- In the new Coen brothers comedy "The Ladykillers," Tom Hanks trades his California-bred baritone for an outsized drawl that reminded one movie reviewer of a cross between William Faulkner and Maj. Charles Winchester of "M*A*S*H."

But the person behind the hybrid accent has nothing to do with the small-town Mississippi world of Hanks's Goldthwait Higginson Dorr III. She is Liz Himelstein, a native of Fort Wayne, Ind., one of a handful of Hollywood dialect coaches used by Mr. Hanks and other top actors to refine and teach the accents demanded by period or regional movies.

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