Talk:Edna May Sperl

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A fact from Edna May Sperl appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 May 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that actress Edna May Sperl's fiancé was arrested on the day of her wedding by a federal marshal because her fiancé's father opposed the marriage?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/May. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Edna May Sperl.

Wikipedia

Photos

A possible photo, though I hope to find a better quality one. Silver seren^C 00:50, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another option. Silver seren^C 00:45, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton talk 15:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that actress Edna May Sperl's raft began breaking apart during the filming of Caught in the Rapids and she had to be rescued? Source: "Holman Day Perils" - The Morning Call
- ALT1: ... that the fiancé of actress Edna May Sperl was arrested on the day of her wedding by a federal marshal because her fiancé's father opposed the marriage? Source: "Uncle Sam Separates Beauty And Soldier" - The Chattanooga News
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Chuck Eisenmann
- Comment: Article was moved to mainspace with this edit.

Created by Silver seren (talk) and FloridaArmy (talk).

Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 115 past nominations.

Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

Silver seren^C 20:32, 20 April 2024 (UTC).[reply]

I'll review this. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:31, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Looks good. Nice work. Either hook works. @Silver seren: Not necessary for approval, but were you really not able to find anything on when she was born and died? Aware that IMDb is unreliable, but it lists her as being born in 1899 and dying in 1981 ([1]). Wondering if you can find anything else confirming that. Not required for approval, though. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, I know the dates, but I don't have a source for any of it. I can also find her on Ancestry.com and am 100% sure it is the right person. But, per WP:RSP, that's not a reliable source. Silver seren^C 03:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So how did the story with her fiance end? What was the rest of her life like? When did she die, and when was she born, for that matter? With these articles about silent-film actors (and about the silent films themselves), I often get the impression that at some point in the 1930s, America was hit by a nuclear apocalypse, sunk into the ocean like Atlantis or something like that, so hardly a record was preserved and we know about people from these decades about as much as about your average individual from ancient Mesopotamia, whose name is mentioned on a random clay tablet.

IP editor see my summary below of what can be found via ancestry.com. Hopefully some of the information can be reliably sourced and added to the article. TSventon (talk) 17:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's more a commentary on the fickleness of the news media at the time, which wasn't as obsessive about forever following celebrities even after their retirement like it does now. I've found, from having made a large number of such actress articles in the time period, that the moment the person stops appearing in theater or films, they instantly stop being covered whatsoever by the news. It's as if they drop off the face of the world. Furthermore, the news coverage of the time only rarely covers the birth and childhood and early history of such celebrities. I suppose readers don't want to think about their actors having ever been anything other than the current celebrity they envision.

To answer your questions. She did marry him, a month after that incident happened. The news apparently declined to cover that fact. Her birth and death can be found in the section below, but we don't have proper sources to cover it yet to be able to put it in the article. Anything other than that about her life after is a mystery. Silver seren^C 17:30, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have added find a grave to Wikidata as they seem to accept it (and IMDB). TSventon (talk) 19:49, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ancestry.com

Silver seren I thought I would note the ancestry.com details for Edna May Sperl in case anyone can source them. The IMDB date of death, 1981, appears to be incorrect.

Birth 30 May 1899, Brooklyn, New York
Marriage William C. Coltingham [presumably Cottingham] 11 Apr 1919, Manhattan, New York
Marriage Charles Joseph Burke
Death 12 Jul 1957 Miami-Dade, Florida
Find a grave has a clipping of an obituary for Edna Burke saying she acted in D. W. Griffiths' films.

TSventon (talk) 16:36, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]