User talk:Robertetaylor

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Contents

[edit] Mark Ruffalo

A couple of in-depth articles make it pretty clear that he's an Italian-American (i.e. not Jewish unless I'm missing something). He's probably Catholic, but I haven't seen that stated yet.

"Ruffalo, 32, left when he was 13, after attending Lance Middle School, but he still returns to visit his father, grandparents and sister.

"I had a great childhood there," Ruffalo said.

"I lived on the edge of a forest. We had a very big Italian family with lots of love."

Perhaps his Italian great-grandfather's interest in commedia dell'arte had a genetic influence on Ruffalo's choice of careers, but not at first.

He appeared in the high school play while living in Virginia "and, after that, I put away acting as a totally useless thing I could never make it at or do," he said. "But I couldn't find anything better."" http://www.jsonline.com/enter/movies/dudek/dec00/count21122000.asp?format=print

"“I was brought up in Kenosha, Wis., a factory town,” he said. “My mom was a hairstylist. My dad was a construction painter. He was an amazing, charismatic guy who was city high school wrestling champion three times. He was away a lot when I was growing up. I was very lonely for him.”

Mark is the oldest son of Frank and Maria Ruffalo, second-generation Italian-Americans. His three siblings—Scott, Tania and Nicole—are all hairdressers.

When Mark was 13, the family moved to Virginia Beach, Va. “My dad’s painting company had collapsed,” he explained. “In Virginia, he started a business called Soda Butler: You deliver syrup to people, and they carbonate their own soda at home. That fizzled out. We got poorer and poorer. It caused a lot of anger at home.”" http://archive.parade.com/2004/0509/0509_mark_ruffalo.html Vulturell 02:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aniston

lol, well I was the one who added her full background to her Wiki entry, so here it is directly from there: "Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, and is the daughter of Cretan-Greek actor John Aniston (originally Yannis Anastasakis, later americanized to John Aniston) and his then-wife Nancy Dow. Aniston's godfather is actor Telly Savalas, her father's best friend. Aniston spent much of her childhood in New York, where her father won a role in the soap opera Love of Life and later Search for Tomorrow. In 1985, the family moved to Los Angeles when John Aniston started on Days of Our Lives. Aniston's mother, from whom she is now estranged, is an actress of half Scottish, as well as English, and Italian descent; through her, Jennifer is a direct descendant of the royal House of Stuart of Scotland.

Her mother wrote a book bio about Aniston. She specified that her own paternal grandparents were Scottish immigrants. And her mother was half Italian and half something else. And of course Aniston's father is well known to be Greek. Vulturell 04:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] TSTV

TSTV may be a real station, but it turns up 0 google hits and that classifies it as deletable per CSD A7. KVRTV at least has some google hits but only 297 which also qualifies it to be deleted. However, I'm not going to speedy the new article but add it to AFD.--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 06:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright violation

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome and appreciate your contributions, such as TSTV, but we regretfully cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. For more information about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, take a look at our Five Pillars. Happy editing! jareha 00:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lucas

I don't know - maybe. He hasn't really revealed anything about his background in interviews. His original last name is "Maurer", which is often a Jewish last name. And his father was a doctor. But that's all the information that's out there, unfortunately. Maybe his father is Jewish and his mother isn't, or something along that line. Vulturell 22:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Good call on Newman - that's actually what I was thinking. In a somewhat related note, Adrien Brody has exactly the same background as Newman (i.e. Hungarian mother, too) but they look miles apart. Vulturell 22:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for edit summary

Thank you for your contributions. And one remark. I would like to ask you to use edit summaries more often when you contribute. That one helps others understand what you changed when checking the watchlist or the recent changes, and often times complements studying the diff. Think of it as the "Subject:" line in an email. I hope you don't mind. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On signing posts

And one more tip: you can sign your posts on talk pages using four tildas, like this: ~~~~. Enjoy! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aniston

It's pretty clear that Aniston's father is just a non-Jewish Greek. If Aniston's father was Jewish, her mother would have surely mentioned it in her book (she just talks about him being Greek). And Aniston was Christened, see her mom's book again[1] "we found ourselves gathered for his funeral in the same church where, many years earlier, baby Jennifer was christened". Vulturell 00:23, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lauer

He's Jewish on his father's side, so maybe that's why. ""My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything. I do feel a desire now to find something spiritual. Getting married and wanting to have kids has something to do with that." http://www.usaweekend.com/00_issues/000430/000430matt_lauer.html Vulturell 00:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's what I put in: "Lauer grew up in Connecticut, the son of parents who divorced during his youth; his father was Jewish and his mother Christian." Sounds good, I think. Vulturell 01:39, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rush

No, Rush isn't Jewish (just a British-origin Australian), although about half of the major characters that he's played are Jewish. By the way, someone has made a proposal that all "Lists of Jews"be deleted as a Wikipedia policy, you may want to vote "Disagree"or whatever if you're interested in the subject matter. At Wikipedia_talk:Centralized_discussion/Lists_by_religion-ethnicity_and_profession. Vulturell 22:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It's fallflies@hotmail.com. And thanks for your vote. Vulturell 03:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where am I?

"Somewhere in Texas" is about all I'm prepared to tell the world in general. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Candice

Pretty sure she isn't. She says on her official site that's she German (which explains the "Beckman") and Panamian (which explains her dark looks). She was born in Wisconsin, where there is a large non-Jewish German-American community, so I would guess that her father is of ethnic German descent. Vulturell 23:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
There. Broderick's entry fits the usual format now. Vulturell 23:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poehler

No, always glad to answer a question (I don't get that many), I just was finishing up some notes on that big discussion, all done now until the next assault :). I'm pretty sure that Amy Poehler isn't Jewish. The website Jewhoo (which had a pretty comprehensive and accurate listing of Jews, but has now taken down its database) claimed (under Chris Kattan's entry, I think) that all the Jewish players on SNL were listed, which implies Amy Poehler, Anna Gasteyer, etc. as being not Jewish (they weren't listed). I haven't seen a note as to their exact background, though. Probably something Germanic. Vulturell 00:39, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

No, Jewhoo was 1. accurate and 2. not an anti-Semitic site. It had full bio and details for every person, it was certainly a site that a lot of work went into. I really wish that whoever came up with the English-language word for "Jew" came up with different, separate names for the Jewish ethnicity and the Jewish religion. If that was the case than that discussion would now be over. Vulturell 01:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jackson

Oh no, he isn't Jewish at all. Just like like Geoffrey Rush, a British-origin Australian. The Jewish population of Australia is comparatively small, and indeed the only Jewish Australian show business person I can think of would be actress Claudia Black (there's also Olivia Newton-John, but she's British by birth and parentage). Btw, back in the day Jewhoo said that the only Jewish actors on the "LOTR" movies were Sean Astin (whose biological father is Jewish) and Orlando Bloom (whose non-biological father is Jewish, and otherwise his background is mostly a mystery). Vulturell 00:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I did a little more research on Jackson for the fun of it. His parents were actually immigrants from England [2], something I didn't know (I thought his family would've been in Australia for a while) Vulturell 00:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh yah, King Kong is pretty easy. There's Jack Black, he's Jewish. Adrien Brody - half Jewish and half Hungarian Catholic. Naomi Watts isn't Jewish, but word on the street is that she's engaged to actor Liev Schreiber, who is. That's about it. Two fun facts - Colin Hanks (Tom Hanks' son) co-stars as Jack Black's assistant in the movie, and they played siblings just four years ago in "Orange County". Thomas Kretschmann (a German actor) plays the ship captain, and him and Adrien Brody co-starred in the Pianist, also four years ago, where they had a few crucial scenes. So "King Kong" is a bit of a reunion for some actors. Vulturell 03:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, Rita Wilson (Ibrahimoff) ins't Colin Hanks' real mother. His real mother is a (late) actress named Samantha Lewes. I read a full-length book bio of Tom Hanks, and it mentioned Lewes' real name (which I can't remember, but it was something British-sounding). If Lewes was Jewish I'm sure the book would have mentioned it. Rita Wilson, btw, isn't Jewish either. Her father is Bulgarian, and "Ibrahimoff" is actually a pretty common non-Jewish Bulgarian Muslim surname. Wilson is Greek Orthodox (her mother was Greek). Vulturell 19:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethan Hawke

I remember seeing an interview with him, something like 2 years ago (back when I first started doing this). I think he was talking about a book he wrote or something - he mentioned he comes from a family that had a number of religions in its back ground - I think he said Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian (basically all Protestant denominations). I couldn't re-find this interview recently. But you can assume, based on this info, his birthplace and his parents' full names (which I recently placed in his entry) that he's basically of English Isles descent and nothing else.

Felicity Huffman is a tough one, or maybe not. She's only recently become famous. But if you're asking if she's Jewish, I personally don't think she is. I'm sure as the Oscars approach (she may well win) I'll know for sure what she is from some in-depth profile. Vulturell 05:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sabra and Shatilla

Eh, you removed "personally" so that it only read "indirectly responsible". As I told you, it was only a matter of time before someone reinserted "personally" after you'd removed it. Now that's happened. Alas, the description is still imperfect, because while the Kahan Commission report describes him as "personally responsible", they also state that his reponsibility (and that of other Israelis involved) was "indirect". The article no longer reflects that. Instead, it reflects the view of people who would prefer that the commission had never used the qualifier "indirect". However, it's still better than the way you left it...given a choice between the two words, I would go with "personally". Cheers. Babajobu 13:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edward Norton

I know Norton was raised a Protestant [3], and based on other details - like his maternal grandfather being famous philantropist James Rouse, it's pretty clearly Norton is basically of English descent. Vulturell 22:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Garry Shandling

Garry Shandling is easy. He's Jewish. See this interview [4] for the most details. Vulturell 05:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yup. I just added it to Garry Shandling. Vulturell 18:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Charlie Chaplin

I'll give you Chaplin straight from the database of Jewhoo (you can access the full database here [5] - the full categories are at the bottom of the page]. The overall answer is definitely "no", but on a different note - Chaplin did have some Gypsy ancestry, a couple of generations back, on his mother's side. "Charlie Chaplin - Not Jewish. His biographers have gone over his past and it is clear that Chaplin was not remotely Jewish. He was, however, on a Nazi list of persons to be arrested immediately in the event of a successful WWII invasion of Great Britain. "The Great Dictator", Chaplin's satire, ruffled some feathers in Berlin. Final word: Chaplin mentions no Jewish ancestry in his autobiography. His recent biographers have found no such ancestry despite pretty massive digging. Is it possible that he had some Jewish ancestry? Of course it is possible. I have been cited a quote from one performer's memoir in which he supposedly said "I'm Jewish"--this contrasts with a quote from another memoir in which he said he "wasn't." So, what we are left with is one quote versus everything else. Just look at this way--in the common sense of being Jewish--raised by a clearly Jewish parent(s)--with a sense of Jewishness--Chaplin was not Jewish. Whether he had some Jewish ancestry will never be resolved to an absolute certainty. And while it may seem odd in the context of Jewhoo, we find the debate beyond tedious at this point. Chaplin was a staunch opponent of fascism and an enemy of prejudice. Let's just call him a citizen of the world and leave it at that. (Update April 2003: David Robinson, the author of the biography referred to in Syd Chaplin's entry, recently contacted us. He assured us that his exhaustive research found no evidence of Charlie Chaplin having Jewish ancestry. Charlie, he tells us, did not have the operation that most Jewish boys have when they are about a week old. He does tell us that Chaplin liked to dine at "Blooms," a kosher restaurant in London, after the war. However, a taste for Jewish cooking does not make one Jewish---otherwise anyone who ever enjoyed an overstuffed hot pastrami sandwich at a good Jewish deli would be Jewish. Mr. Robinson's book, "Chaplin: His Life and Art," has just been re-published in a Penguin edition. Order from our on-site Amazon.com affiliate link and we can, in turn, order ourselves a pastrami sandwich or two.][The original Bloom's, in the East End of London, closed in 1995. But a branch remains opens in the Golders Green neighborhood of London. Frank Sinatra was reportedly also a big fan of Bloom's and had lots of food sent over to his hotel/theater whenever he played London. The potato pancakes and noodle pudding are supposed to be particularly good.] Final note: Because Chaplin was such a famous figure---and because he had so many Jewish connections---and because we could reasonably post him in our "Righteous Gentile" category--we don't mind setting the record straight in his case. However, if all you want to do is pop names of actors and actresses in the search engine and expect a "no" answer--leave the site. We will no longer note when someone is not Jewish if it has no real relevance to an entry on someone who is. You can assume whatever you want--you know better or we don't know--assume away. You can read the category or pop all the names you want. Your choice. Our choice is not to give "no" answers." Vulturell 00:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Andy Samberg

I think he probably is Jewish. This guy certainly seems to think he is, anyway [6]. But he hasn't been famous for all that long, so it doesn't look like there's a concrete source out there. Vulturell 16:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Will Ferrell

Will Ferrell is frequently described as being Irish (-American). I've also seen him described as a "WASP". I'm guessing he's basically both? Vulturell 21:55, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your questions

Sorry for the delay. Andy Kindler is Jewish.[7]. I believe Gore Verbinski is of Polish descent, but I haven't seen it anywhere for sure (although someone added him to the Polish category in his Wiki entry). Vulturell 21:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly unfree Image:Kaavya.jpg

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