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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 69.248.229.206 (talk) at 17:28, 29 July 2008 (→One of the Youngest???). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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lynching rewrite needed

Seasick from reading it. Can someone intelligently rewrite this? I'd feel silly doing it as I am not logged in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.249.2.107 (talk) 01:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This has now been done. EchetusXe (talk) 17:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"The Last Days of Heath Ledger"

This is rubbish and should be vectored into it's own article if it's considered notable. If someone had written a biography about him we might quote it but should we devote a whole section to it? No.

Article Hijacked by publicist?

"The Last Days of Heath Ledger"

What is this self-serving garbage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronstock (talk • contribs) 03:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree that this section and references seem to be poorly written and at least a bit promotional. I suggest it be removed altogether as it's a fictionalized magazine article and if anything about the article itself or reaction to it is notable find a way to incorporate it into existing content. Banjeboi 09:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please remove Heath Ledger#"The Last Days of Heath Ledger" section and place here on the talk page? It's inclusion is a bit dodgy and may be more appropriate for another article like New Journalism. If we are going to include it I think we need to find a consensus of what about this fictionalized account is appropriate for this article. Banjeboi 18:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Text

  • A posthumous fictionalized account of "The Last Days of Heath Ledger," by Lisa Taddeo ("an associate editor at Golf Magazine and an aspiring fiction writer, [who] spent four days in restaurants and cafes and parks near where Mr. Ledger died,")[1] has raised some controversy prior to its print publication in the April 2008 issue of Esquire.[2] It covers Ledger's final four days, from January 19 through January 22, 2008, the day he died, whose entry is subtitled "The Final Curtain."[1] According to Edward Wasserman, Knight professor of journalism at Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, "The risk of a piece like 'The Last Days of Heath Ledger' is that the work winds up in a literary no-man’s land. The biggest problem I see is you are sacrificing the biggest strengths from each of the genres. You are losing the veracity of journalism, and you are losing the imaginative license of fiction. You run the risk of ending up with something that is neither true nor interesting."[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Lisa Taddeo (2008-03-05). "The Last Days of Heath Ledger". Esquire. esquire.com. Retrieved 2008-03-06. To write a conceivable chronicle of Heath Ledger's final days, writer Lisa Taddeo visited the actor's neighborhood, talked to the store owners and bartenders who may have seen him during his last week, and read as many accounts and rumors about the events surrounding his death as possible. She filled in the rest with her imagination. The result is what we call reported fiction. Some of the elements are true. (Ledger was in London. He was a regular at the Beatrice Inn and the Mirö Cafe. And he was infatuated with Nick Drake). Others are not. [Italics deleted.] {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ a b Tim Arango (2008-03-06). "Esquire Publishes a Diary That Isn't". The New York Times (Books). Retrieved 2008-03-06. After Mr. Ledger died from what was later found to be an accidental overdose of prescription medications, [Esquire editor-in-chief] Mr. Granger said he was surprised at the public's outpouring of grief for someone who, in Mr. Granger's view, was not a huge movie star. 'It was born out of curiosity,' he said of the assignment. 'I didn't understand what the fuss was all about.' Mr. Granger said he had read an unpublished novel written by Ms. Taddeo and had been looking for the right work to give her. When she first got the Ledger assignment it was unclear if the final product would be fiction or nonfiction. Mr. Granger simply wanted a writer on the scene. Some of what she wrote is true. Mr. Ledger was in London three days before his death. He did return to New York. He did like banana nut muffins from Miro Café, though it's not certain he ate one for his last meal.

Discussion

Any ideas on what, if any of this should be used in the article and also if the content may be better elsewhere, if so, where? Banjeboi 18:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[Copying my own comment from above; I placed it there before I saw this section]:

I don't agree that this is "self-serving garbage"; I wrote the passage that you have removed from this article. I am not in any way Heath Ledger's or anyone else's "publicist", and the reason that I included it is because it was a pertinent controversy in the media that is relevant to the subject of the article. The statements are supported by the sources, which are reliable, third-party publications, and it is about a publication in Esquire, a notable third-party publication. I don't see any reason that information about this published "fictionalized account" is not "appropriate for this article"; its inclusion is consistent with both Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and WP:POV. Please cite some relevant WP:POL that justifies excluding this information. Thank you. --NYScholar (talk) 18:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Added the sources to Heath Ledger#Further reading sec. --NYScholar (talk) 03:02, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With the additions to "Further reading" sec., I do not think that the section of development that was removed earlier is necessary. People can read the sources themselves for more information. (Point of "Further reading" sec.; but since the title of the article by Taddeo could be misleading to some readers, it is important to have the annotation and the review by Arango listed too, in my view.) --NYScholar (talk) 03:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Calling it "garbage" wasn't terribly helpful but i tend to agree that maybe it's not helping things. When I trim it down I get
This is pretty lightweight considering all the other good work done so far. The extensive footnotes also don't help a lot. If there is evidence that this was seen as quite controversial then maybe; otherwise I think your linking in the "Further reading" area quite appropriate. Banjeboi 07:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Propose relocating award nominations out of first sentence

Hi, I propose that we relocate the long list of award nominations out of the first sentence. Rather than starting off with "Heath Ledger is an XXX-, YYY-, ZZZ-, and QQQ-nominated actor", I argue it would read better to start off just saying "Heath Ledger is an Australian actor...", and then weave in the nominations throughout the lede. Thus, we would hear "In 1999, he was nominated for the XXX and YYY awards for his lead role in FILM NAME...", and later in the lede we would read that "In 2004, he was nominated for the ZZZ and QQQ awards for his supporting role in FILM NAME2". I argue that starting off with awards or nominations is a style that is more associated with press releases or promotional blurbs than with typical encyclopedia writing style.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 17:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Quite sensible. His nominations could be written just as proposed with a chronological emphasis. Banjeboi 00:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The first sentence is extremely awkward and peculiar, as it stresses nominations when he actually won some awards; "award-winning" (with subseq. dev.) or "celebrated" (by both some awards and multiple nominations for awards) is briefer and more accurate. The awards are already listed in the infobox and the nominations, along with the awards, are already listed in the filmography section. If one scrolls way back to earlier editing history, one can find versions of the first sentence without that awkward feature. Offline after these comments. --NYScholar (talk) 18:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


References clean-up needed

If looking for something to do ... some of the references need work. There is extensive notes within a few that don't seem needed and at least a few other of the links are not to the actual online article but to the publication's main page instead. When possible we should link directly to an article. Banjeboi 19:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I won't be working any further on the reference to this article, but I thought I'd stop in to mention that perhaps someone might want to take the time to reorder the note numbers in lists of notes so that they are numerically in order. In the past I have done that, but I don't have time to do it anymore. After fixing the punctuation of direct quotations (see sec. below), I will be offline. Logging out. --NYScholar (talk) 18:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See the recent problem in subsequent citations created when someone arbitrarily deleted some citations from the article; the numerous citations related to a statement indicate how prevalent the attention to the subject of the statement was or is; that many third-party published verifiable sources discussed the subject of the statement provides evidence of both notability and further perspectives in those sources on that subject of the statement. One needs to examine each source citation (read the article cited) and decide case by case whether or not including it is useful; one cannot just delete source citations, since some are cited more than once and deleting them results in red error messages throughout the notes section of the article (and sometimes the text as well). The red error messages do not show up in "diffs."; one would have to click on the previous verson to see the problem and scroll through the notes section as well to see how it registers as missing citation information in the templates used. --NYScholar (talk) 19:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The Dark Knight

Wasn't he {going to be} nominated for an Oscar or something based on his performance as the Joker? I seem to remember something being said about it but I honestly don't remember the facts :\ I think if it's true, it's worth mentioning in the article. [[User:SonicNiGHT|SonicNiGHT]] (talk) 08:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia isn't a crystal ball so we can wait until the Oscars are announced or possibly if a reliable source declares his performance makes him amongst the strongest Oscar contenders. I would keep an eye on Dark Knight (film)#Reception as that's where the best information, IMHO, will be dug up and redigested. I see there is already some talk about Ledger being considered for the first-posthumous award since 1976 so that might help. Banjeboi 21:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]



Accuracy of infobox?

While fixing a quotation above (scroll up to that disc.), I also attempted to correct some other problems in the infobox and text relating to it. According to some alerting me to the problem in discussion of another film-related article, one cannot cite a "trivia" section of IMDb.com listing as a "reliable source"; I substituted another more reliable source citation; but others may need to scrutinize uses of IMDb.com throughout this article as source citations and find more reliable and vetted third-party published sources wherever IMDb.com is used as a source for statements in the article. Other more reliable sources that are not peer-edited (as Wikipedia is) are needed; see WP:V#Sources. There is no source listed in this article that supports including Heather Graham in the "domestic partner" parameter of the infobox. If one has a reliable source (not a trivia section of IMDb.com) to substantiate that HL and HG were actually "domestic partners" (in the sense defined in the parameter of infobox actor template page), then the documentation needs to be added to the statement about them dating in the text. One should not insert names of people that someone "dated" [but may not actually have lived with (co-habited)] to the infobox parameter "domestic partner". Please see the template for further information, explanation, and talk page discussions. I'm offline after this again, but I thought it important to correct these problems and alert people here that other corrections may be necessary to improve the accuracy of this article and its documentation. --NYScholar (talk) 19:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC) [clarified in brackets before going back offline. --NYScholar (talk) 21:14, 24 July 2008 (UTC)][reply]

I don't know if the E! True Hollywood Story of Heath Ledger counts, since its noted that he did have a relationship with HG, but I don't know if she was a "domestic partner". I found this and People magazine is really a reliable source, but not sure if it counts much. --  ThinkBlue  (Hit BLUE) 17:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The requirement for including a name in the "domestic partner(s)" parameter is at Template:Infobox Actor; the timeline that you list as a source does not support the inclusion of Heather Graham in that parameter in the infobox: Please consult what it states at the template link (scroll down there for explanations of meanings of the various parameters (fields), specifically "domester partner(s)":

Insert the names of the person's long-term domestic partner(s), meaning a partner(s) in a committed romantic relationship where the couple live(d) together, whether legally recognized as domestic partners or not. Use the format:

FirstName Surname (Year–Year)

If still together, use "present" in place of the end year. Separate multiple entries with a line break (<br />).

Thanks. Offline again after this response to comments above. --NYScholar (talk) 18:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, I wasn't sure if HG was a "domestic partner" of HL. That's what I said. --  ThinkBlue  (Hit BLUE) 21:03, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If one has no source to substantiate that a person was a "domestic partner" of Heath Ledger, the person should not be included in the infobox, as per the template. That's the point. Someone had included Heather Graham in the infobox; I removed that due to lack of documentation substantiating her inclusion. --NYScholar (talk) 19:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One of the Youngest???

Heath Ledger was the youngest person ever nominated for a best lead actor Oscar at the time he was nominated for Brokeback Mountain. Although, he most likely will not be, if he were to be nominated for his role of the Joker in The Dark Knight, (I feel he should but that's just personally opinion), I believe he'd be the youngest to win if that were to happen. But I'm not sure on that part. But if he does somehow get nominated for the Joker (which was the best acting performance so far this year) would he be nominated as a lead actor or supporting actor? The movie is the Dark Knight and Christian Bale played Batman, the main character, who is referred to as the Dark Knight. But I think they may be pretty close in screen time? Who knows, let's wait and see if he gets the nomination first. But anyway, Heath was the youngest nominated for lead actor Oscar.

Nominations of Leading vs. Supporting have nothing to do with technicalities. Those who are eligible to vote for nominations simply decide whether or not they are nominating an actor for Lead or Supporting, it could go either way in many cases. We'll just have to wait and see. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 19:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion: If one wants to document the (I think "notable") statement "Heath Ledger was the youngest person ever nominated for a best lead actor Oscar at the time he was nominated for Brokeback Mountain." then one needs to figure out a way to develop and integrate it effectively in the article (in the lead and/or text?) and to provide a reliable source in prevailing citation format of the article for it (in the lead and/or text of the article), or provide the source here for further discussion of that kind of editing by other editors (I won't be here to discuss this further).
Since back online momentarily, returned to state: according to the chart List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees#Youngest nominees 2, as listed in the "See also" section of this article (click on the link there), the statement made by Gwynand as quoted above and another later one quoted below are not factually correct or supported by sources. Heath Ledger was not "the youngest nominated for lead actor Oscar" when he was nominated for his work in Brokeback Mountain; please see the details in the chart. The discussions cited in sources pertaining to The Dark Knight concern the possibility of his being nominated posthumously for "Best actor in a supporting role" for his work as the Joker. He was 28(+) when he completed that role and that would not make him the "youngest" nominated in either Oscar category (posthumously or not); James Dean was 25 [Ed. according to that linked chart; according to the Wikipedia article, he was "24" when he died] for one of those nominations for "Best actor in a leading role" (the chart lists years and days for ages of those listed). Please see that article for related dev. and sources cited there. Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 02:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC) [Added ed. note due to discrepancies in Wikipedia-linked chart in "See also" section and James Dean infobox and article. --NYScholar (talk) 21:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)][reply]
Otherwise: Please see the guideline for talk pages of articles: focus on editing not on speculations about the subject: see top header: "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Heath Ledger article. ... This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject." --NYScholar (talk) 20:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay? so all that gibberish just confused me. So, is/was Heath Ledger the youngest actor to ever receive a nomination for a lead actor oscar? and if he were to win something for the joker what would that mean? (which most likely not get a nomination. though it should) and yes we know this is a talk page and not a forum to discuss the article. but the article is for knowledge on the subject. and since you "wiki-authorities" or wiki-think their so cool people are always on the talk pages giving out rules that have nothing to do with them in the first place, the articles become all whacked with BS and are completely inaccurate. so us normal people have to come to the talk page and ask for the right information because you people acting like you know everything are too busy trying to dictate a website other than improving or editing a page. THANK YOU. oh, noooo, please go ahead, suspend me.

Applicability/accuracy of section headings

Recently, a section heading was changed to non-neutral language, incorporating a phrase from a source (Williams) in the section heading (without quotation marks); that is not a neutral presentation and it did not account for the material in the whole section, which goes beyond only "bouts of insomnia" (Williams' phrase). The section includes the information about his suffering from some kind of respiratory infection (a "cold" or some kind of "pneumonia") just prior to his death (and possibly still at the time of his death), as the subsequent report on the medications in his system included both over-the-counter sleep and cold medications (see the sources, as cited) [Also: Please see previous discussions already archived]. Came back from offline to correct this and some documentation errors in other articles, but going back offline after this comment and previous comments to do my own non-Wikipedia related work. --NYScholar (talk) 20:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC) [strike out. --NYScholar (talk) 19:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)][reply]

I have no idea what you're referring to but please fix it if it's not correct. Also please keep in mind that the vast majority of editors to articles don't seem to read the talk pages so some of your advice aimed at them may never be heard. Banjeboi 21:31, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's something about dead Australians

If Heath Ledger is nominated for Dark Knight, and wins, that would mean that the only 2 people ever to win a competitive acting Oscar posthumously were both Australian males - Peter Finch for Network (1976), and Ledger. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:24, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If he wins we certainly could mention it. Banjeboi 21:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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