The Thorn Birds

Okay, I watched "The Thorn Birds" yesterday. (1983 Barbara Stanwyck, Richard Chamberland, Rachel Ward).

It was pretty good, very sad, a tearjerker.

Now, is it just me, or did Rachel Ward talk the way a deaf person does? Seriously. She talked very weird, so I looked her up on the internet but I couldn't find any mention of her being deaf, or having a speech impediment. I was distracted the whole movie by her weird speech and sometimes atonal voice.
I thought she did a great job, just wasn't sure what was going on which her speech. She didn't talk that way in the 2003 interview on the DVD. Tweet