Talk:Frank O'Connor (actor, born 1897)

photographs

Are there any photographs of Frank O'Connor?

Notability

This article seems to say more about Ayn Rand than about the man Frank O'Connor. Apart from his association with Ayn Rand, is there anything that Frank O'Connor is particularly noted for? If not then I think this article should be merged with the Ayn Rand articleGodfinger (talk) 11:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTINHERITED, I would agree that O'Connor is not notable on his own. --RL0919 (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I think before we attempt to redirect or delete this we really need to get wider community input. It's certainly a plausible redirect to Ayn Rand though, if we decide he lacks notability. TallNapoleon (talk) 20:10, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I was watching a movie today called 'The Passion of Ayn Rand' after the biography by Barbara Branden staring the wonderful Helen Mirren. I have only recently been acquainting myself with Rands ideas and life so I am no expert on this subject, but I really can't find much about Frank O'Connor the man, although he certainly played an important role in Rands life, and he seemed to be a talented painter and was a bit part actor at one stage but that's all I can find.Godfinger (talk) 20:19, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I recommend redirecting to Ayn Rand.-RLCampbell (talk) 03:32, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

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 Cielquiparle (talk) 15:24, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that California rancher Frank O'Connor could grow Lipstick and Halloween in a greenhouse? Source: "In a greenhouse he bred delphiniums and gladiolas and over the years developed two new hybrids, one called Lipstick and another called Halloween", see Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 108.
  • ALT1: ... that although there are several Wikipedia pages about people named Frank O'Connor, Frank O'Connor was not among them until recently? Source: "There are nine Frank O’Connor’s of enough public note to merit their own Wikipedia page, for what that’s worth. Our Frank O’Connor is not one of them"; see Jennifer A. Grossman, "5 Things to Know About Frank O'Connor, Ayn Rand's Husband", Atlas Society, November 9, 2016.
  • ALT2: ... that Frank O'Connor raised alfalfa, bamboo, blackberries, chestnuts, chickens, flowers, fruit trees, peacocks, and rabbits on a ranch located in what later became Chatsworth, Los Angeles? Source: "The fields filled with bamboo, chestnuts, pomegranate trees, and blackberry bushes. In a greenhouse he bred delphniums and gladiolas", in Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 108; "he experimented with raising peacocks, chickens, and rabbits and grew gladioli and alfalfa", in Anne C. Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 165–166.
  • ALT3: ... that early sound film actor Frank O'Connor is not to be confused with early sound film actor Frank O'Connor? Source: "Another Frank O'Connor, one who had been a director during the 1920s (and an assistant director ca. 1919) turned from directing to acting… The many film credits one finds for 'Frank O’Connor' in these later years are for this other man"; see David P. Hayes, "Screen Credits of Frank O'Connor", 1998.
  • ALT4: ... that Frank O'Connor, Ayn Rand's husband, was remembered as having been "the only genuinely nice person in the Randian movement"? Source: "Rothbard recalls Frank, 'Mr. Rand,' as the 'only genuinely nice person in the Randian movement' "; see Jeff Walker, The Ayn Rand Cult (Chicago: Open Court, 1999), 261.
  • ALT5: ... that Cubbyhole could make Fluffy laugh? Source: "She and Frank, or 'Cubbyhole' and 'Fluffy' as they now called one another, drew closer. Though he never pretended to be an intellectual, Frank cultivated a dry wit that she found hilarious", in Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 31.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Le Thi Tuyet Mai
  • Comment: Article was moved from draft space into article space for the first time on January 29, 2023. Note that the article has been named following natural disambiguation, using a name for the subject that is still in use, albeit less commonly, because there are no satisfactory parenthetical disambiguations.

Created by Hydrangeans (talk). Self-nominated at 00:47, 30 January 2023 (UTC). Note: As of October 2022, all changes made to promoted hooks will be logged by a bot. The log for this nomination can be found at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Charles Francis O'Connor, so please watch a successfully closed nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Logging that I will be reviewing this article! Comments to come below. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 23:48, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

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: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: What a fascinating article and impressive selection of hooks! There's no problems that stick out to me about the article and, while I'm AGF on the hook sources that aren't online, I see that you've been kind enough to include the relevant quotes and page numbers so I see no reason to doubt their legitimacy. I think all the hooks are fine except ALT1 (as it doesn't really tell us anything about him) but I'm especially partial to ALT4 and ALT5 ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 00:29, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Charles Francis O'Connor/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) 18:32, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Another interesting one! This article is overall in respectable shape, though I have some queries about context/souring/quoting. Running through now...

Lead

• "For several years" re. the ranch seems superfluous -- the idea it wasn't permanent is gotten across by their later move.

I can understand how you might conclude that, however I think noting the duration helps make "manage" sound less abrupt. Otherwise, the sentence states, When O'Connor and Rand moved to California [...] O'Connor purchased and managed a ranch in the San Fernando Valley. The move was a discrete event that happened once, and so was purchasing, but managing was an ongoing event that involved a duration. O'Connor didn't only manage a ranch at the time of the move; he managed a ranch for several years thereafter. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

• Robert L. Campbell and John Galt both have linkable articles (curiously, Roarke doesn't). Considering just how many substrains of psychology there are and that clinical and counselling psychology tend to be the most familiar to the general reader, it may also be worth giving Campbell some context; I believe "cognitive psychologist" would be most accurate (he identifies himself as cognitive and developmental).

Thanks for pointing that out; I have linked both and identified Campbell as a "cognitive psychologist". Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Early life

• the brothers moved to New York -- on a first read, this seems like it's referring to O'Connor's brothers rather than O'Connor himself. Would "the four of them moved" be accurate, or is it unclear if they all moved?

Burns on page 23 is clear about it being all four of the O'Connor brothers, so I have rephrased that to "the four of them moved". Thanks for that catch. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits)) 03:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

• When filmmaking moved to Hollywood, he moved there as well, sometime around 1926 is a "sources are wrong" conundrum. The West Coast became the centre of American film about a decade before this. If this is synthesis between "Rand arrived in 1926" and "O'Connor followed the studios", it's possible Burns is the one misunderstanding a primary source; is it possible to chase up what sources she used to get a sense of when he actually arrived? If nothing can be found (I'll take a look myself if you can't find anything), some rephrasing is probably worthwhile.

Burns doesn't provide specific sources for her sense of when the film industry shifted from New York to California; most of her footnotes focus on the information about the focus of her monograph, Objectivism, American conservatism, and the people in Rand's life. In this case, I think my phrasing implies more than she actually said. "O'Connor followed the studios" could be Burns meaning that O'Connor went to where the studios had already gone. I have rephrased that as O'Connor moved to Hollywood, where most American film studios were by then, sometime around 1926. How does that revision sound? Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm happy with "where most were by then" (and am willing to accept the argument re. the ranch). I've gotten hold of Burns' book and was a little annoyed to see the setup of the bibliography didn't make this easier to chase up, but these sorts of tricky "someone who is an expert on X makes an inaccurate statement about Y in passing" come up a lot. I'll be able to go through the rest of the article soon -- hoping to look at a couple of the other sources too to cross-reference. Vaticidalprophet 05:16, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

More to come. Vaticidalprophet 18:32, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Remaining biography

• this dismayed his wife Rand -- she's established to be his wife by this point :)
• highly complimented the film's entire cast in its review -- do we need 'highly'?
• There are a couple cases of attributing statements to specific authors that may not need attribution. It's a better tendency than the opposite, but when discussing something other than an attributed opinion, it tends to disrupt the sentence without gain. "Journalist Anne C. Heller reports" stands out to me most of these uses; it gives the impression of a celebrity-interest story sneaking into an encyclopedia article. If there's a desire to keep that specific attribution due to its direct-quote status (not required for this specific quote, I'd say), it's probably better to just not quote the "imaginatively and beautifully" line -- it's a little peacocky and doesn't get across anything more than the rest of the sentence does.
• summer stock theater -- is there a reason to go out of one's way to avoid the direct link here?
• Should Massed evergreens be capitalized (rather than, if it's the beginning of a sentence, just rendered as [m]assed)? I've made a few minor copyedits, but haven't touched this in case I'm missing a term of art.
• Could the parenthetical sentence regarding the end of Rand's affair be restructured into the text, or turned into a footnote?

I find I don't have any comments on other sections, and I don't see any content issues, having read some decent chunk of Burns in the last week. An excellent article on a not-well-recognized figure (I liked the Atlas Society quote about him not having an article in 2016). I suspect this is not too far from FAC, even; it would need more prose work, but I've little doubt it's comprehensive. Vaticidalprophet 05:56, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Good catches all around. I've trimmed "his wife" to "dismayed Rand"; trimmed the "highly" that preceded "complimented"; trimmed "imaginatively and beautifully" and "Journallist Anne C. Heller reports""; de-piped "summer stock" so as to just make "summer stock theater" a direct wiki link; swapped "Massed" to "[m]assed" (it was not a term of art; it was as you suspected quoted from the beginning of a sentence in the original source); and brought the parenthetical sentence about the end of Rand's affair into the preceding sentence.

I had been under the impression that any direct quotation of words from a source requires attribution to the source or author. I trimmed the direct quotations from Anne C. Heller per your feedback that "imaginatively and beautifully" was excessive. I had included it as a case of attributed opinion about the quality of O'Connor's decorating. Attributed opinion is the reason for other attributions, such as, for example, Lisa Duggan's attributed opinion that O'Connor was "mesmerizingly handsome" (possibly not something we would say in Wikipedia's voice, or so had been my impression, but relevant to understanding O'Connor's acting career and relationship with Rand and therefore worth including via attributed opinion).

Thank you for your compliments about the article and for taking the time to review. With the page having been revised per your latest suggestions, is there anything else needed, or is it ready? Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Quote attribution is complex, and the style you go for is certainly better than not attributing, though as noted in the Heller sentence it's often a red flag of "I probably shouldn't have quoted here". There are contexts where quotes can be made without specifically in-text attributing the individual, however -- you see this most often in leads, where naming an individual might be out-of-scope, but the quote is repeated with full attribution in the body (the lead of Elisabeth Geleerd does this, to pull the first example I see in my own articles). But certainly I don't penalize an abundance of caution.

Great to see the work here, and happy to pass. Vaticidalprophet 06:27, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 22 February 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Frank O'Connor (actor, born 1897). The initially proposed disambiguator, "(actor)", would have been a WP:PDAB. Participants were split on whether this article's subject would meet the standards for using a PDAB; it was noted that the pageview gap between this article's subject and Frank O'Connor (director) was low by usual PDAB standards, but also that PDABs with lower pageview ratios had been maintained (in cases such as Bhavana (actress)). If the discussion were purely measuring one disambiguator against another, I'm not sure I would have found consensus here; however, nobody in the discussion supported retaining the current title ("Charles Francis O'Connor"), leaving us in a WP:NOTCURRENTTITLE scenario. In this situation, I feel that it's best to avoid a PDAB unless an affirmative consensus for it is reached, so I've opted to close in favor of the more fully disambiguated title. (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 19:26, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

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Charles Francis O'Connor → Frank O'Connor (actor) – When I first created the page, I wasn't familiar with the WP:MIDDLE policy advising that Adding given names, or their abbreviations, merely for disambiguation purposes (if that format of the name is not commonly used to refer to the person) is not advised (italics from the policy page), and "Frank O'Connor (actor)" already directed to a different actor named Frank O'Connor. As "Charles Francis O'Connor" is not the common name for this person, after learning about the policy I wanted to bring the page in line with it. I explained the reasons on a talk thread for the other actor O'Connor, moved said O'Connor article to Frank O'Connor (director) (as he was also a director, and Charles Francis wasn't), and replaced relevant wikilinks with "Frank O'Connor (director)" so as to avoid any incorrect piping. Now all that remains is to move Charles Francis O'Connor to Frank O'Connor (actor). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). EdJohnston (talk) 03:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. asilvering (talk) 16:22, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

• I totally get your logic, but moving to a partially-disambiguated title is almost never an uncontroversial move, and Frank O'Connor (director) is also an actor. This should be moved to Frank O'Connor (actor, born 1897), with Frank O'Connor (actor) going to the disambiguation page. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:44, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  I see what you mean about the director O'Connor also being an actor. However, between the two, I'm not sure the 1888-born O'Connor's 'actor-ness' has any more primacy than that of the 1897-born (which is what further disambiguating the 1897-born's but not the 1888-born's would seem to imply). I have struggled to find scholarly secondary sources about the 1888-born actor (others are free to attempt another a GoogleScholar search and see what comes up that isn't about the 1897-born O'Connor or about the Irish author); the American Film Institute catalog pages seem to be most of what there is (and looking at some of those pages, I'm not sure they even actually verify some of the information, like his purported birth date). And on more general Internet search engines like Google, it seems very possible Wikipedia has been inadvertently signal-boosting the 1888-born out of proportion to coverage in secondary sources. Contrast that with the 1897-born's coverage in several academic secondary sources (as seen on the existing article).

  I think Charles Francis O'Connor should be moved to Frank O'Connor (actor) with a hatnote there pointing people to the 1888-born's page if there's confusion. And the 1888-born could be moved to Frank O'Connor (actor and director) or Frank O'Connor (actor, born 1888). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 16:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  I am not proposing disambiguating the 1897-born's but not the 1888-born. I'm proposing disambiguating both. Frank O'Connor (director) is fine as it is because there are no other notable people named "Frank O'Connor" who are directors. "Frank O'Connor (actor)" isn't fine for either person because there are two people it could refer to and so it should go to the disambiguation page. The fact that the article was titled with (actor) for eight years is sufficient evidence that his actor-ness is not so insignificant it can be ignored. And the notability of the person is not a factor - unless his article gets deleted or redirected it counts just as much in my view.

  The threshold for partial disambiguation to be justified is widely agreed to be considerably higher than for an ordinary primary topic. Personally I'm against it in almost all cases.

  Anyway, this is clearly not an uncontroversial rename. You are welcome to click the "discuss" link above to take it to a full discussion. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:12, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Ohio has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 09:20, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support Frank O'Connor (actor, born 1897). We should always try to be as unambiguous as possible. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:44, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: Frank O'Connor (director) (formerly "(actor)") has been nominated for deletion which has the potential to alter the need for disambiguation. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:27, 23 February 2024 (UTC) (as I have withdrawn that deletion nomination, the comment is not relevant.) Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:01, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  Hopefully the page (that you took to Afd one day after the present requested move was contested...) will be kept, so I wouldn't count on it, personally. -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 22:01, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  In any case, after seeing another comment at the deletion discussion, I withdrew the deletion nomination. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:00, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  I saw that, thank you very much. -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 00:04, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: With Frank O'Connor (director) being kept, moving this page to Frank O'Connor (actor) remains appropriate, as per WP:PDAB, a PDAB itself can have a primary topic. The deletion discussion acknowledged that it's difficult to parse the information available about the director/actor O'Connor. Over the past few days, I've found no coverage of significance for the 1888-born O'Connor comparable to that of the 1897-born O'Connor. The 1897-born O'Connor receives five thousand page views in a month. The article about the 1897-born being newer does not necessarily mean the topic was less primary, as an existing article is not automatically the primary topic. A hatnote directing readers from the 1897-born O'Connor to the 1888-born O'Connor would be a suitable means of disambiguation. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:26, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  No, it does not remain appropriate. The page view ratio here is about 10:1. The entry at WP:PDABLIST#(actor) or (actress) with the lowest page view ratio is over six times higher. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:24, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  The entry at WP:PDABLIST#(actor) or (actress) with the lowest page view ratio is over six times higher. This is not true, though the error is understandable, as it was not explicitly listed in the entry. The lowest page view ratio is not between the Sunils but between Bhavana (actress) and Bhavana (Kannada actress). Based on average daily page views, the ratio is about 10:1, the same as what you describe existing between the Frank O'Connors (doing the math a second time, 1463 to 1244 seems to come out closer to 11:1, rounding down). The 1897-born Frank O'Connor constitutes a primary PDAB for Frank O'Connor (actor). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 05:43, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  That entry is currently being discussed at RM, and I already commented in favor of disambiguating it fully, so you can't really use it to convince me. I think it's clear at this point that neither of us will convince each other of their position. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:47, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  By way of information, the outcome of that discussion (permanent link) was that Bhavana (actress) was not moved to a different disambiguation and remains the primary topic of the PDAB. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 21:47, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.