Talk:Edmund Gwenn

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers (assessed as Mid-importance).

London Mid‑importance

	London portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

California Mid‑importance

	California portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CaliforniaWikipedia:WikiProject CaliforniaTemplate:WikiProject CaliforniaCalifornia articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Theatre Mid‑importance

	Theatre portal This article is part of WikiProject Theatre, a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of theatre on Wikipedia. To participate: Feel free to edit the article attached to this page, join up at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.TheatreWikipedia:WikiProject TheatreTemplate:WikiProject TheatreTheatre articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

New York City: Theatre Mid‑importance

	New York City portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject New York City, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of New York City-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New York CityWikipedia:WikiProject New York CityTemplate:WikiProject New York CityNew York City articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject New York City/Theatre (assessed as Mid-importance).

How hard is comedy?

It is popular (but presumably mistaken) to attribute to him

Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.

This may be based on the following, which would be easy to quote misleadingly: (I've fixed the formatting from where i found it at KCET "Life and Times" transcript, 6/30/03.)

Patt Morrison: Although there are contradictions sometimes, the most dramatic role may be something that's easy to get into, but you may have heard this. Edmund Kean, the English actor, on his deathbed, his relatives gathered around waiting for his last words, he said "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard". Do you find that to be the case?

Jack Lemmon: There's no question about it. Also that line was repeated by Edmund Gwenn, you know, "Miracle on 34th Street", who played Santa Claus.

Patt Morrison: Yes.

Jack Lemmon: He also repeated that to George Seaton who wrote and directed that film. George told me that personally. He was with him when he died at the actors' home.

Patt Morrison: I see. A transmission of --

Jack Lemmon: He remembered it. He said to George -- he had told George that he didn't like this at all. He didn't look forward to anything and that disturbed him. Maybe he now should have been within himself more religious or whatever, but anticipating at least some peace, something beyond, and it disturbed him. George said, well, I guess dying can be very hard, and he said, yes, but not as hard as comedy, and he died right then and there.

(His "Personal Quotes" on IMDb quotes him as Lemmon does, but says only that he "reportedly" told Seaton, so (despite Seaton having had 20 years to repeat the story elsewhere) Lemmon's 2nd hand version may be the best basis.)

Good that we don't so attribute, but if no one else does it, i'll work something about the confusion in sometime.
--Jerzy•t 23:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yorkshire accent

I'm impressed. He's the only actor in Lassie Come Home to make a half decent stab at a Yorkshire accent. Not bad for a Londoner! -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nationality

The nationality was previously listed as 'English' - this makes perfect sense considering that he was born in London, and evidence has been given to support this. I have, however, noted that research suggests that his parents were Welsh (see the reference next to 'British' in main article), and therefore have changed his nationality to British, thus avoiding confusion either way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.11.209.229 (talk) 20:13, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually there is no such nationality as English (or Scottish or Welsh, etc.), as the only internationally recognised nationality of those citizens of the United Kingdom is British so you are correct anyway. This also applied to Canadians until around 1928, and Australians until the late 1940s, as well as to other citizens of what was then the British Empire, who would all have been British Subjects prior to these counties gaining greater independence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.67.228 (talk) 20:42, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable sources

Wikipedia does not accept IMDb biographies as a reliable source (except for those supplied by the Writers Guild of America). The IMDb biography of Gwenn is plainly not reliable: it is damagingly and demonstrably inaccurate. It states that his marriage lasted a matter of hours, whereas contemporary press reports (cited in the WP article) show that he and his wife lived and worked together from 1901 until the marriage broke down during the First World War when Gwenn was serving in the army. It is not clear how many other statements are similarly inaccurate. – Tim riley talk 15:26, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Edmund Gwenn. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:45, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Edmund Gwenn. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:28, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]