Talk:Kenneth Williams

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed biographical guide to actors and filmmakers on Wikipedia.
Maintenance An appropriate infobox may need to be added to this article, or the current infobox may need to be updated. Please refer to the list of biography infoboxes for further information.
LGBT Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject LGBT studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all LGBT related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Kenneth Williams article.
Article policies

Is there a particular reason for the exclamation mark in "Inspector Truscott (!)."? Mintguy

I rather like the article. Reads well. 194.6.79.200 04:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] English

Okay, *I* always thought KW was English, and he was apparently born in England according to this article, but in the last twenty seconds or so of this clip here he specifically says he's not English and claims to be Welsh. What's with that? Marnanel 04:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I assume he has welsh ancestry - Williams is very much a Welsh name Gavin Bl 10:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Given that his father was a Williams and his mother born a Morgan, he was of Welsh ancestry on both sides. I recall him mentioning in one book that an early (stage?) review had described him as, 'Young Welsh actor Kenneth Williams', and saying that technically, it was correct. 62.172.185.126 (talk) 14:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't view the YouTube at the moment (this PC won't allow me to), but I will later. However, I would guess the article says English as he was born, grew up and lived in England his entire life. I also don't really recall him having an English accent.--UpDown (talk) 08:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citation needed

The article claims a citation is needed for "He once proposed a cellibate marriage to Joan Sims...". I haven't read the diaries, but a scene in which he proposes a celibate marriage to Joan Sims is in Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa - which is on BBC Four as I write. 87.114.143.205 21:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Eponymous"

Regarding a recent edit, AskOxford defines "eponymous" as "(of a person) giving their name to something" and "(of a thing) named after a particular person". Parkinson is therefore correctly described. Chris 42 (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

No. If Michael Parkinson had an 'eponymous' TV show it would be called 'Michael Parkinson', not 'Parkinson'. Parkinson is therefore not correctly described. Pfistermeister (talk) 04:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

But the show is named after its host, so how else would you describe it? Chris 42 (talk) 11:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't 'describe it' as anything, old bean: the context doesn't require attention to be drawn to an inexact relationship like that! And yes, the show is named after its host, and Parkinson would be 'the show's eponymous presenter' in situations where you refer to him by his surname alone. But 'Michael Parkinson' is not what the show is called, so the word eponymous doesn't apply in the para we're discussing! Can't you see this? In the case of the film 'Nixon', it would be okay to say that 'Antony Hopkins is the eponymous President', but only because of the exactitude of the reference... Pfistermeister (talk) 12:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't share your reasoning, Pfistermeister. Are not Washington (DC) and Washington (state) two of George Washington's many eponyms? These places don't have to be called "George Washington" in order to be eponyms of George Washington. The vast, vast majority of eponymous namings are of the surname alone - Mt McKinley, the Murray River, the Hume Highway, the Monroe Doctrine, the Kennedy Center, "Oprah", etc etc. "Parkinson" is clearly named after its host, Michael Parkinson, and is thus eponymous. That's the issue here - the fact that it's named after somebody, not that the title chosen necessarily exactly matches the person's full name. This would still be true even if it were called "Parky". -- JackofOz (talk) 12:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree as well. I can't find any dictionary definition that states that the full name must be used. Many define it as "derived from" or "related to". Also, if the reader had never heard of Michael Parkinson (and therefore his chat show) the expression "Michael Parkinson's chat show, Parkinson" contains needless repetition. "Michael Parkinson's eponymous chat show" communicates the show's name just as concisely without the iteration. Chris 42 (talk) 18:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revues

"One Leg Too Few" was in One Over The Eight, not Pieces Of Eight (it even says so in the One Leg Too Few article). However I'm sick of correcting things only for some ignoramus to restore the original untruth, so I'm just going to mention it here and hope that if anyone is looking up the info and needs to know this sort of thing, they'll read the talk page as well. (And if that's you, hello! Aren't talk pages great? Much better than the articles themselves, in my opinion. And page histories are great too, even if it is - and it is - a bit annoying to have to trawl through to find out the info you actually want to know.) -88.111.15.35 (talk) 09:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)