Talk:Elaine May

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography: Actors and Filmmakers

	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.

Radio Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Radio, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Radio-related subjects 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.RadioWikipedia:WikiProject RadioTemplate:WikiProject RadioRadio articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

To-do List:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Create: Missing years and articles in radio, National Association of Radio Distress-Signalling and Infocommunications (Hungary)
Assess : Unassessed Radio articles; Unknown-importance Radio articles
Cleanup : Radio articles needing attention
Expand : Midweek Politics Bob Crane
Maintain : Portal:Radio
Stubs : Expand: Radio stubs
Verify : Unreferenced BLPs
Other : Collaboration of the Week:
Requests for Radio peer review:

Screenwriters Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Screenwriters, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of screenwriting, screenwriters, and related topics 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.ScreenwritersWikipedia:WikiProject ScreenwritersTemplate:WikiProject Screenwritersscreenwriter articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Comedy Low‑importance

	Comedy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Comedy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of comedy 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.ComedyWikipedia:WikiProject ComedyTemplate:WikiProject ComedyComedy articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Women writers Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women writers, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women writers 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.Women writersWikipedia:WikiProject Women writersTemplate:WikiProject Women writersWomen writers articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Chicago Low‑importance

	Chicago portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chicago, which aims to improve all articles or pages related to Chicago or the Chicago metropolitan area.ChicagoWikipedia:WikiProject ChicagoTemplate:WikiProject ChicagoChicago articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

A fact from Elaine May appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 April 2004. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that, together with Mike Nichols, Elaine May founded the trail-blazing comic troupe The Compass Players, which later became Second City?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2004/April.

Wikipedia

The Green Heart musical

There was previously a sentence about 'A New Leaf' being turned into a musical. This is wrong. The movie was based off of a short story by Jack Ritchie named 'The Green Heart', but the movie did not follow the story & only used a part of the actual plot. The musical is based off of the short story & is more faithful to Jack Ritchie's short story. So in short, the statement about the musical does not belong on Elaine May's page. It would be more fitting to mention this in the movie page, but not on Elaine May's page. Since she had nothing to do with the musical & the musical was not based off of her film, it doesn't belong here. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC)Tokyogirl79[reply]

Comprehensive Update

Friday, April 28th, 2006

As part of a class assignment, I did a tremendous amount of research to expand the knowledge on the underrated filmmaker and comedic writer Elaine May. I consulted academic published works such as "The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia" by Amy L. Unterburger and essays derived from my "Women in Film" college class to expand the previous information already in the article. As always, if you notice any grammar mistakes or accuracy in facts, please edit them.

- Schwenkstar

Tuesday, May 9th, 2006

Added section about May's stage partnership with Mike Nichols, an excerpt taken from the Foreward, written by Mike Nichols for The Birdcage shooting script (1997)

- Schwenkstar

Thank you for your additions! --Arcadian 21:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nichols & May really deserve a page of their own. I recall reading a wonderful article some years ago, but my googling efforts to track it down were unsuccessful. -- Joey Harrison —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.8.46.4 (talk) 03:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Poorly organized

This article is unworthy of Elaine May, a major cultural figure. I hope some astute editor will give it a thorough reorganization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.101.195 (talk) 05:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Filmography cites?

Note: Elizabeth Taylor filmography or Richard_Burton#Filmography, which don't include a cite for each film, instead relying on wikilinks. I would like a specific guideline about not using wikilinks in the Elaine_May#Film_career sections, which only uses them to verify facts in the film articles. --Light show (talk) 05:55, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are also tags at the top about a single source and incorrect formatting. Both those topics should be discussed since both seem appropriate and don't warrant a tag. There are 25 sources in the article, and the one major book source, Nachman, covers 44 pages. --Light show (talk) 06:31, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll remove the tags pending any guideline discussion on the talk page as none of the tags seem warranted. --Light show (talk) 17:53, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reference to attractiveness

Under "Stage career: The Compass Players", it is claimed: "Because she was physically attractive, some members of the group, including Nichols, became distracted during workshops." I find the first words of this sentence problematic for two reasons. First, it assumes that you can state attractiveness as an objective fact. Undoubtedly she was seen as very attractive by many of the people who met her. But attractiveness cannot be measured objectively, such as height and weight can. Second, her attractiveness is described as "physical", suggesting that it was (is) a quality residing solely in her body – ie that she would have been found equally attractive had she been a dull and unimaginative person. You might argue she would – but I do not believe it can be taken as an undisputed fact. I suggest that this sentence be rephrased thus: "Some members of the group found her to be very attractive, which caused them to become distracted during workshops". Anyone against? Wdanbae (talk) 16:35, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Where's Jeannie?

She seems to have gone off to Chicago soon after giving birth to her daughter. Who was raising Jeannie while Elaine was in Chicago auditing classes, acting, and living life on the wild side?

Maria Ouspenskaya died in 1949

It is not possible for Elaine May to have studied with Maria Ouspenskaya in the frame referenced, as Ouspenskaya died in 1949. The current sources on the internet have been written since this Wikipedia article was written, perhaps picking up the erroneous information from here. — Maile (talk) 11:53, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever does this sentence mean?

‘before transitioning her career regularly breaking the mold’

It smacks of feminist rhetoric and/or a bad New Yorker profile. 2001:8003:303D:BC00:CCD3:150C:7CDD:103E (talk) 22:27, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Opinions of Women

Do any of the WOMEN who worked with May have opinions, thoughts or insights? 2A0A:EF40:1036:BA01:9A71:C6F9:30EE:73E3 (talk) 12:00, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]