Talk:Nick Adams (actor, born 1931)/Archive 2

Pre-2007 talk

Article dispute notice

{{EDITREVIEW}} DAKOTA, TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I HOPE THAT MY SYNOPSIS ON NICK ADAMS ANSWERED ALL OF YOUR QUESTIONS. SOMEONE WITH WIKIPEDIA (I ASSUME SHE IS WITH THEM) ERASED IT ALL. SO UNTIL MY MANUSCRIPT GETS PUBLISHED, YOU WILL HAVE TO JUST REMEMBER MY WRITINGS AS BEING THE TRUTH AND HOPEFULLY, ENTERTAINING. TOO BAD ALL THE BICKERING ABOUT NICK IS STILL LEFT HERE. BUT, SOMETIMES PEOPLE LET TITLES AND JOBS GO TO THEIR HEAD. LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH SMALL PEOPLE LIKE THIS.WILLIAM DAKOTA 05:34, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

{{Note to ZOE}}. This whole page should be deleted. It is based upon opinions and statements that are all contradictory and in my opinion, not respecting the life of a movie star who is no longer with us to defend himself against bickering which is, in all truth, slandering him by persons who have never even met him. I guess I could take it upon my own to delete it all, but I don't know if there could be legal ramifications or not. Seems like outer space (the Internet) has no censorship or laws that can be incorporated against someone who deletes pages? Wikipedia should have ways to prevent erasures without edit approval. Wikipedia's disclaimer page backs up everything I have said about it. Should have read that before I posted.WILLIAM DAKOTA

• Toho's science fiction films from the 1960's are hardly B-movies. Can we please learn to grow up and drop the racism in regards to how we view foreign films? Both Monster Zero and Frankenstein Conquers the World were lavish (albeit extremely rushed) pictures directed by Ishiro Honda, wi[[th special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya -- a man, without whom, things like Star Wars most likely wouldn't exist. They were shot in full color and in anamorphic widescreen, whereas most American sci-fi pictures at the time were generally academy ratio black and white films devoid of any type of real effects work.

• Please take note that I have inserted a dispute notice regarding text placed by User:Onefortyone aka ANON 80.141. etc. in this article as well as that of Elvis Presley. Because the comments in the two articles are interconnected, the reason for the dispute notices is being stated first on Talk:Elvis Presley# Article dispute notice and will subsequently be dealt with in this article. Ted Wilkes 15:09, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Sources problem

• The Dee Presley manuscript doesn't appear to have ever been published, nor do excerpts relevant to this article appear to ever have been published in a tabloid as previously asserted.

This is not true, as the National Enquirer published a summary of the accusations by Dee Presley. Her claims have been discussed in books, articles and on webpages. Here are some excerpts from a discussion at "TCB-World, where Elvis fans meet":

Why Elvis didn't say bye bye to Colonel???

Look i refuse to believe what i am about to say, plus this is how rumors start, but...According to Dee (and apparently she saw it so she says) that she saw E having affairs with guys...stuned, man i was when i read that, and still i refuse to believe it, but apparently he and Nick Adams had a thing going, and this may be the reason why E never said good bye to the cigar muncher, and the one arm bandit, man has the colonel got a lot to answer for, i am not going to start a bitch here, but i have a lot of resentment for the whole crowd that was around him (although i do have a lot of respect for Red) but who knows, why he did not let the Colonel go, this is what i read on some web site, where Dee had been interviewed, mind you this is like late 90's so a lot of time has gone by, and you can now say what ever you like about the man, he is not here to defend himself, but then again if things had been different he would still be here...What a loss...

Dee Stanley appeared on the Geraldo show in America a few years ago claiming that Elvis and his mother had been lovers. It was the most sickening claim that has ever been made against Elvis. She appeared on the show with the owner of the National Enquirer who had run the story. She stated that the relationship between Elvis and Gladys had been incestuous and talked about Gladys having a drink problem because she couldn`t deal with it. She stated that a member of staff at Graceland had told her that she had seen them getting out of bed and that she knew something had happened and also that Vernon had told her about it and how he had always been an outsider in his own family. ... JD Sumner ... said she even claimed he was gay in the book. ...

There are also critical remarks by Ann-Margret concerning Dee Presley's claims that Elvis had homosexual relationships with men. Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• The 1972 Sal Mineo interview, hearsay about hearsay, appears to be the only source for all of the subsequent "Nick Adams was gay" rumours that have been published. The problems with the Mineo interview are given at Talk:James Dean.

Given that the Mineo interview is the only documented source for this rumour, and that Mineo himself seemed to downplay the credibility of it seconds later, I strongly suggest that any references to the "Nick Adams was gay" rumour be deleted from the article. Given my past informal mediation with 141, I'll await consensus. Wyss 18:45, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, there are several independent sources which prove that Adams was gay. Adams frequently appears on lists of famous gay people. See [1] or [2]

For Natalie Wood and the gay men in Hollywood, including Nick Adams, see Gavin Lambert, Natalie Wood: A Life. See these reviews: [3]

[4] [5]

In Hollywood Gays, author Boze Hadleigh writes that the diminutive yet reputedly well-hung actor Nick Adams may have "hustled while looking for acting jobs in the 1950s." See [6]

It is also suggested that Adams's friend James Dean was gay. See [7] Another internet source says:

The debate about Dean's sexuality rages passionately. He told a friend, "I've had my cock sucked by five of the biggest names in Hollywood...". He also claimed to have worked, with his friend Nick Adams, as a street hustler when he first arrived in Hollywood. When asked if he was gay, he replied, "Well, I'm certainly not going through life with one hand tied behind my back". See [8] Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Following the above, and 141's stated withdrawl from the discussion (as posted at Talk:Elvis Presley) I'll remove the disputed material from this article. Wyss 19:52, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Removal of dispute notice: Dispute notices must remain until the various issues have been dealt with. As I need to document them for precise clarification on the talk page, I have reverted this back to the point where I had inserted the dispute notice. The issues on this article with respect to certain edits need to be dealt with as I stated when I inserted the dispute notice. Once done, then we can always fix this up. Thank you. Ted Wilkes 02:31, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

NOTE: - In his quest to make Elvis gay,User:Onefortyone aka ANON 80.141. quoted gossip writer Gavin Lambert as referring to Nick Adams as gay in his book on Natalie Wood. Note that The Guardian newspaper [9] also opens their comments on Gavin Lambert's book on Natalie Wood by reminding readers it is high-class gossip. As such no encyclopedia would quote from it but I find it interesting that while there is a direct quote about Nick Adams asserted to be from the book, User:Onefortyone aka ANON 80.141. neglected to state the quote was made as offhand gossip without facts of any kind and with respect to Presley, did not mention the following from page 119:

• "Nick Adams, who happened to be in New York that week, had recently managed to ingratiate himself with Elvis Presley. He told Natalie (Wood) that the singer wanted to know if he might ask his favorite actress for a date. "Natalie was all shook up after Presley called and asked her to go out with him when she got back to Los Angeles"

Here are some significant quotes from Lambert's book:

p. 199: "Her first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams, whom the publicity department considered a more likely "beau" than Sal Mineo for the New York premiere of Rebel."

p. 199: ""Her next arranged date, after A Cry in the Night, was with Raymond Burr, who played the sophisticated Older Man of the World and escorted her to Romanoff's and La Rue."

p. 205: "On the third day, Natalie invented an urgent reason for returning to Los Angeles, where she assured Maria that "nothing happened," then braced herself for Louella Parsons, who demanded and got an interview on the Elvis situation. Parsons began by reminding Natalie that she'd "taken her to task" more than once for "cheapening herself with all this romance activity with Nick Adams, Tab Hunter, Raymond Burr and heaven knows who else."

So it is clear that Lambert has stated that Adams (and some other actors) were gay. Onefortyone 13:01, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Lambert's biography was highly praised by Natalie Wood's daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner. She calls Lambert's book "a wonderful biography on my Mom ... that we are all involved with - everybody that knew my Mom and was close to her - and that will really be the one I hope everyone reads. It will be the definitive biography on my Mother." In this biography, the author clearly stated that Nick Adams was Wood's first date with a Hollywood gay. Lambert, himself a homosexual living in Hollywood, certainly knew that Adams was gay. Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Here is a positive review of Lambert's book from Publisher's Weekly: "Lambert follows her [Natalie Wood] from such childhood triumphs as Miracle on 34th Street to her breakthrough adult part opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Wood's overlapping affairs with Rebel director Nicholas Ray and cast member Dennis Hopper, and brief romance with Elvis Presley, will be familiar material to aficionados. But Lambert reveals deep sensitivity and understanding of her development as an actress, and he's one of the few authors to capture the depth and beauty of her relationship with Robert Wagner. Lambert also effectively highlights Wood's shrewd professional moves, including her pretense to boss Jack Warner that she didn't want to star in Splendor in the Grass, because she knew he would refuse to let her appear in it if she displayed enthusiasm. The shooting of Wood's film with Robert Redford, Inside Daisy Clover, has special authenticity, since Lambert wrote the screenplay and witnessed her frustrations after several crucial voice-overs were cut from the final print. Details regarding Wood's tragic drowning are inevitably speculative and vital questions remain unanswered. But Lambert eloquently clarifies the self-destructive reasons behind Wood's addictions and insecurities, and in the end, readers will feel they truly know the subject more than they do in most biographies."

Certainly Lambert is a reputed biographer.

(More to come on various disputed text upon completion of the interconnected Elvis Presley page as stated above.) Thanks. Ted Wilkes 02:55, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

It's become rather plain Lambert's passing reference to Adams (as gay) was the result of his own sloppy research (or lack) and derives only from a rumour started by the Mineo interview in 1972. There is no basis for it, and including the reference in an encyclopedia article would be misleading IMO. Yes, it's possible NA told Mineo he'd had an affair with Dean, I've dealt with that in the James Dean article. I'm ready to remove the reference from this one. Wyss 13:12, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, Lambert himself was a homosexual and part of the gay circles in Hollywood. If he says that Adams was gay, then it must be true. Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I must laugh here, 141. Lambert was gay, therefore he knows NA was gay. Please... you wontedly do better than that. Wyss 18:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

If everyone is gay then John Lennons is gay according to Albert Goldman's book "the Lives of John Lennon" published in 2001 Goldman claimed that Lennon picked up male prostitutes.

Disputed text:

The disputed text will be dealt with in a step-by-step process as per my comments above and in conjunction with the disputed text as per Talk:Elvis Presley#Article dispute notice

THE ARTICLE STATES:

• In the quest to make Elvis gay, User:Onefortyone aka ANON 80.141. quoted the following statement verbatim made by User:Wyss from the Talk page [10] User:Wyss archived yesterday.:
  • "Her first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams... "

RESPONSE:

• Note that The Guardian newspaper [11] opens their comments on the Gavin Lambert book on Natalie Wood by reminding readers it is "high-class gossip." Newspapers do review gossip books, but no Encyclopedia ever references them. However, I find it interesting that while there is a direct quote about Nick Adams asserted to be from the book, neither User:Wyss nor User:Onefortyone aka ANON 80.141. bothered to state that the quote was made as offhand gossip without facts of any kind and with respect to Elvis Presley, did not mention the following from page 119:

Correction, I have referred to this as a passing remark many, many times. Wyss 16:12, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

• "Nick Adams, who happened to be in New York that week, had recently managed to ingratiate himself with Elvis Presley. He told Natalie (Wood) that the singer wanted to know if he might ask his favorite actress for a date. "Natalie was all shook up after Presley called and asked her to go out with him when she got back to Los Angeles" -- From page 119 of Natalie Wood: A Life (2004) by Gavin Lambert

Fine. This is a another quote from the book. It proves that Adams was keenly interested to be a close friend to Elvis, and that Natalie Wood was Elvis's favorite actress. Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

THE ARTICLE FURTHER STATES:

• "Boze Hadleigh's book, Hollywood Gays (1996) and William J. Mann's Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1910-1969 (2001), claim that before his success as an actor Adams was a male prostitute catering to men. This is related to similar rumours about James Dean who is claimed to have been involved in this with Adams."

RESPONSE:

• First, the last line in this paragraph is POV and rumor which is not acceptable in Wikipedia. This sentence is only there to aid the fabrication that Adams was gay.

These rumors exist. Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Correction, it is acceptable to mention published rumours in Wikipedia, if only to debunk them. Wyss 16:12, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

What's wrong with including this stuff in the "Rumors" section? Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Please quote the Wikipedia:Policy that states we can quote rumors because it contradicts Wikipedia:The perfect article that, among other things, states :

reflects expert knowledge; fact-based and rooted in sound scholarly and logical principles.

There are independent sources supporting these rumors. Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• Second, The claim as to a statement about Nick Adams in the book: Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 by William J. Mann is a total fabrication, Nick Adams is not listed [12] in the Index

O.K. The reference to this source should be deleted. However, there are several other sources supporting the fact that Adams was gay.

Given the above book reference fabrication, the claim as to a statement about Nick Adams in the book: Hollywood Gays (1996) by Boze Hadleigh is dubious. The index [13] lists Adams once on page 250 but that same index lists dozens of other heterosexual people. Nonetheless, quoting a book such as this is not acceptable at Wikipedia when peer reviews [14] call it gossip and cocktail-party repartee and whose choice of subjects are conveniently for legal purposes, all dead. And, another says: Hadleigh's work is somewhat suspect.

Nevertheless, I agree that unsupported gossip like this is in effect unacceptable as a source for the article's narrative. Wyss 16:12, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

The Publishers Weekly review said:

• Hadleigh who's evidently taking up where the great gossip columnists of yesteryear left off.
• There's nothing very surprising about his choice of subjects--Paul Lynde, Liberace, Randolph Scott, et al.--all of whom, conveniently for legal purposes, are deceased.
• Readers will find much cocktail-party repartee here and will relish the references to other stars of dubious sexual orientation.

From Library Journal:

• Like his earlier volumes, Hadleigh's work is somewhat suspect. He claims that for most of these interviews, he was not allowed to tape record or take notes, and frequently the questions seem stiltedly reconstructed.

- Ted Wilkes 15:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Although we may differ on minor items of detail, I endorse this analysis 100%. Wyss 16:12, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

You should also cite the positive passages of these and other reviews of Hadleigh's book:

"A series of 10 interviews with dramatic actors, romantic heros, comedians, and performers, three of whom died of AIDS; all prominent in the Hollywood/entertainment scene. The interviews are by turns frank, and depending on the comfort level of the interviewee, evasive and suggestive. Prominent features of the interviews include Hollywood's various constructions of masculinity, efforts to mask gay realities, studio response to homosexuality, and discussion of gay relationships. Many interviews include commentary on Hollywood figures not themselves in this collection. Each interview is preceded by a biographical sketch including relationship information and usually comments by friends and acquaintances. Index to persons mentioned in the interviews concludes the work." (Gays and Lesbians: Reference and Bibliographical Resources Annotated")

"In this collection of interviews, each preceded by a chatty introduction, that Hadleigh has conducted over the years with 10 Hollywood stars, the author continues his probing of the ever-popular topic of the sexual proclivities of Hollywood actors. There's nothing very surprising about his choice of subjects--Paul Lynde, Liberace, Randolph Scott, et al.--all of whom, conveniently for legal purposes, are deceased. And though hearing about these stars in their own words often proves entertaining, most of the book's gay readership will find little here they haven't heard before. Two exceptions are the touching interview with producer David Lewis, who talks freely about his longtime companion, James Whale (director of the classic 1931 Frankenstein and of The Invisible Man), who committed suicide in 1957; and the talk with William Haines, whose career was destroyed by Louis B. Mayer after he was caught with another man in his cot at a YMCA. The book's style is suitably straightforward, though Hadleigh's banter often verges on the cute or leering. Readers will find much cocktail-party repartee here and will relish the references to other stars of dubious sexual orientation." (Publishers Weekly)

"Hadleigh ... seeks to provide firsthand reports. An entertainment journalist since the 1960s, he conducted volumes of off-the-record interviews with celebrities reputed to be gay or bisexual such as Cary Grant, Paul Lynde, and Anthony Perkins, as well as less well-remembered actors like Randolph Scott and William Haines. In these interviews, often given only with the understanding that they would not be published during the star's life, Hadleigh attempts to get normally secretive actors to speak about their sexual lives. .... Cary Grant and Anthony Perkins ... proffer revelations about co-workers and peers. Like his earlier volumes Conversations with My Elders (St. Martin's, 1988) and Lesbians in Hollywood (Baricade, 1994), Hadleigh's work is somewhat suspect. He claims that for most of these interviews, he was not allowed to tape record or take notes, and frequently the questions seem stiltedly reconstructed. Still, the interviews are highly entertaining and provide an important, mostly undocumented view of the film industry's social history. Recommended for both general readers looking for dish and scholars of gay history and film studies." (Library Journal) Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

THE ARTICLE FURTHER STATES:

• 1) In 1972, gay actor Sal Mineo said Adams told him he had an affair with James Dean (although moments later Mineo may have hinted that many of these stories about Hollywood gays were exaggerated).

RESPONSE to 1):

• This is hearsay and not acceptable in Wikipedia under any circumstances. Ted Wilkes 12:04, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Note: A half dozen "hearsay" interviews from a half dozen different sources, all accepted by historical peer review because of the participants' reputations and the historical consistancy of their remarks, would generate citable and workable secondary sources. On the other hand, a single isolated interview such as this one, given both the problematic nature of its content, lack of detail or historical support and the rather discredited reputation of the author who published it, make it meaningless as a source and therefore unacceptable. So I agree with the conclusion and endorse it, but get there in a slightly different way. Wyss 14:28, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Are you able to present peer-reviewed sources concerning the life of Nick Adams? I am sure, the sources you have used are all tabloid publications. Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• 2) Given Adams' widely known (and sometimes salaried) friendship with Elvis Presley, David Bret's book Elvis: The Hollywood Years (2002) even claims Elvis Presley was intimate with Adams, matching similar claims by Elvis's stepmother Dee Presley. However, there are no court records, contemporary letters or statements attributed to the actor to support any rumours that Adams was homosexual.

RESPONSE to 2):

• The first sentence is illiterate and friendship has nothing to do with homosexuality. Before quoting any source, the person inserting it into the article must satisfy themselves as to the academic/journalistic integrity of the source. Bret's book was never subjected to peer reviews, a fundamental requirement for insertion into wikipedia. (See also above comments from a peer review on a gossip book by writer Boze Hadleigh and The Guardian warnings about Gavin Lambert's gossip book -- refer also to Wikipedia:Verifiability#Dubious sources). Even though User:Onefortyone aka ANON 80.141. etc. substantially watered down the Wikipedia article on David Bret, it nonetheless still shows he is a gossip writer with unknown academic credentials noted for a lack of research and numerous factual errors in his books. Wikipedia does not publish gossip or reference such unreliable sources. The same thing applies to quoting Dee Presley. (See: Talk:Elvis Presley) Adding, "however there are no court records, contemporary letters etc. is improper and a word game. That is like saying "John Doe" is a pedophile but there are no court records, contemporary letters etc. Ted Wilkes 12:24, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Query: Are there any authors writing on Hollywood stars who are not gossip book writers? Onefortyone 19:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

You know there are. Wyss 19:11, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The only source not written by gossip book authors is the article by Professor Dr Wall, but he has not written about Nick Adams's sexual preferences. Are there any other sources of this kind? Onefortyone 19:21, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Again, you know there are, and you also know there is zero documented evidence that NA was gay. Never mind that, we can keep the gossip in the rumours section as far as I'm concerned or care, it's helpful debunking. Wyss 19:30, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Here is a quote from Bret's book, Elvis: The Hollywood Years (2001) (p. 19):

"That Elvis was obsessed with James Dean during his formative years as an actor cannot be denied. ... He subsequently became involved with two of the late star's friends, Nick Adams and Natalie Wood. Adams, who since Jimmy's death had admitted that they had been lovers during the shooting of Giant, later claimed that he had had a brief affair with Elvis after Elvis had 'agreed to be his date' for a preview performance of his 1956 film, The Last Wagon."

Bret also mentions that Adams had sexual relationships with other men. Onefortyone 11:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Here is again the disputed passage which should be included in the "Rumors" section. I have removed the reference to Dee Presley. You may change the wording:

According to some sources, Adams had homosexual leanings. In his 2004 biography Natalie Wood: A Life, Gavin Lambert writes, "Her first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams..." In 1972, gay actor Sal Mineo stated that Adams told him that he had a big affair with James Dean. David Bret's book Elvis: The Hollywood Years (2001) even claims Elvis Presley was intimate with Adams. However, there are no court records, contemporary letters or statements attributed to Adams to support the rumours that Adams was homosexual. Onefortyone 19:40, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The article still contains that information, in the rumours section as we'd previously agreed. Wyss 19:57, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Aside from claims of illiteracy, I endorse this summary. Wyss 13:37, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

When an article is in dispute, one needs to see the article to understand its text, structure etc. The issues have been placed on the talk page and no consensus reached. So, please don't alter the disputed text. Thank you for your cooperation. Ted Wilkes 18:33, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

And, Onefortyone/Anon is bacjk to his editing my (and others) comments as User:Wyss complained about thereby hindering the consensus process. Ted Wilkes 18:35, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Disputed Status

I have some comments.

• TW continues to misrepresent reversion numbers in his edit summaries. This is incredibly tiresome and boring. Readers are again reminded that TW has been blocked twice in the past for his own violations of 3rr.

• TW can use the article's history to refer to past versions.

• Meanwhile I think this article should reflect the source information as it evolves. Wyss 18:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

• Read first, comment later. I nerver claimed 3r rule, only the THIRD time.

And, we reflect nothing that you alone wants - we arrive at consensus. Thanks. Ted Wilkes 18:50, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Now, the 3R rule is in effect. Ted Wilkes 18:52, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you have much grasp on WP policy. This is not a personal attack, it's only my opinion and I apologize in advance if it seems confrontational. To make up for that appearance, if it has been given, and in the spirit of cooperation, which would include reasonable efforts to help you avoid embarassing yourself as you have so many times in the past, I'll defer, but I don't appreciate how you've reverted my careful work and am waiting for you to either state your dispute plainly or drop it. The rumours are characterized for what they are in the article and there is some evidence that the James Dean exploiting NA brought all this on himself forty years ago by shooting off his big lying mouth to Sal Mineo, who may not have even believed him. We are not here to protect anyone's reputation, but to report the documented record in an encyclopedic narrative. The NA article does this now (more helpfully so before you reverted it a second time). I see little basis for a dispute or a dispute tag. Wyss 19:00, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I already posted stuff above but Onefartyone/Anon violated (Again, and again, and again, the Energizer Bunny) Wiki policy and inserted signed/unsigned comments. Why don't you move them down to the bottom. BTW, like the User on your talk page asked, what is your first name? - Ted Wilkes 19:23, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

So why don't you restore it here, now? Why are you so curious about my first name? (Note to readers, he already knows it but is trying to distract the discussion away from the article) Wyss 19:26, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I have removed the disputed tag since no discussion surrounding it has taken place for several days. Further, I've updated the rumours section to make the context of the Sal Mineo interview (and its role in the subsequent rumours about NA) more clear. As always, discussion is welcome here on the talk page but please do not restore the disputed tag without immediately listing any disputed items here (thanks). Wyss 07:29, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

No discussion, because, as I stated hwerein, it connects to Elvis Presley which took up virtually all our time. Today I removed:

• A bitter court battle for custody of his children (which he won because his wife was shown to have had an affair with another man) is said to have interfered with his ability to get lucrative acting parts after 1963.

The User:Onefortyone edit about his divorce and wife's affair with another man is a fabrication, distorted totally from thi non-encyclopedic article. The rest is Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms and needs to Wikipedia:Cite sources. Ted Wilkes 13:46, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I removed the David Bret reference. It has already been established at talk:Elvis Presley in accordance with the established consensus achieved for C. A. Tripp and his book The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, that David Bret and his gossip book on Presley or similar such books discredited by peer review does not meets the level of Wikipedia requirements for academic/journalistic integrity to be referenced in Wikipedia articles. I also inserted the ActiveDiscuss notice because the Sal Mineo reference is hearsay and is not encyclopedic and peer reviews of the other works clearly define them as "gossip" and "suspect," making them unacceptable as a Wikipedia reference. - Ted Wilkes 13:59, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Looks like we simultaneously removed Bret. If Hadleigh can be fully discredited (and I think it's possible), we can do away with the rest, Mineo etc. I say this because all the rumours look like the reach back to Mineo and it's starting to look like he might not have even made the statement. I'm putting back the reference to his divorce. It was messy, acrimonious and expensive and the negative publicity does appear to have interfered with his career. I've seen it mentioned in "non gay canon" contexts. Wyss 14:05, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Er, note- 141/anon had been trying to spin it with the bit about NA's wife having an affair "with another man"... with the obvious single-agenda inuendo. Wyss 16:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

How did this get started anyway?

I've gotten to know a bit about our friend Nick Adams. He was a braggard. He habitually made up stories about his Hollywood experiences and associations. He consistently tried to capitalize on his friendship with James Dean. I suspect that someone (like Hadleigh or perhaps even someone before him) either twisted or "read too much into" Adams' endlessly repeated stories about his friendship with James Dean. With both of them dead by 1968, the rumours churned. The more I ponder the provenance of the Sal Mineo interview, the less comfortable I am with it. Hadleigh is widely criticized for making up his interviews, and this Mineo interview does seem to be the "ground zero" source of these rumours. At this point, the question for me is whether or not the article should play a debunking role or not bother to mention it at all, given the threadbare unreliability of the source. Wyss 14:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Adams never won physical custody (according to the True Crime non-encyclopedic source). His wife had custody, what he got was a tempory order against her boyfriend for abusive (verbal) conduct with his children. That order was immediately appealed and in the end, her custody was upheld. Crime magazine articles, by the way, are written by wannabe authors who are not paid but who accept the free internet publicly and can add it to their resumé. Their writrings have no credibility and are not peer reviewed. Note the blatant discrepancy in the article:

• "Nick was still in Japan when Carol was granted a divorce and custody of the children on Oct. 12." (1965)
• "On Nov. 26, 1966, Carol resumed divorce proceedings and obtained a restraining order against Nick."

- Ted Wilkes 16:41, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

CrimeLibrary is similar, some of it's reliable, some isn't- if one can't double or triple verify it from non-derivative sources, it's problematic. Anyway yeah, I've seen discrepencies on the divorce in other sources too. Wyss 17:11, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I removed the other references as detailed by me above and as noted by User:Wyss. Similarly, quoting one bit of hearsay from Gavin Lambert is unacceptable in an encyclopedia. Note, Lambert is not in a position to speak for the studio head. His remark most likely comes from the gossip by Sal Mineo et all. Justifying hearsay by putting a "disclaimer" after it is not acceptable. Ted Wilkes 16:49, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I'm convinced Lambert got his info from stuff derived from the Mineo interview and didn't bother checking it out. Wyss 17:11, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I also removed:

• "He met James Dean while working as an extra in a Coca-Cola commercial in Griffith Park." This needs a reliable source to be cited before being put back in. Based on an Internet Coca-Cola reference to James Dean and Griffith Park, someone may have made it up to fit their other stories. That Dean would associate with him was very unlikely as John Gilmore (writer) claimed. - Ted Wilkes 16:55, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

That's ok with me, I've seen it described as a Pepsi commercial, too, and I can't think of a non gay canon source that mentions it. Wyss 17:11, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

About the Dundy paragraph, I'm truly only trying to make the words flow more easily (and I guess more NPoV). "Film insider"... so tabloidish (but I know you've been asserting her credentials against the flood of 141 inuendo etc). Wyss 17:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I'll have to go back to the library so I can quote properly, but the Dundy book says Adams friendship with Presley ended, and he was fired by Colonel Parker, when he made an ass of himself while working at one of Presley's concerts. Ted Wilkes 17:19, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like him, truth be told. Wyss 17:33, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S. - Nick must be up (or down or wherever you believe in) loving this. He never got so much publicity in his life. Ted Wilkes 17:22, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Yep! I've had the sensation that his self-promotion and "creative" talk have looped around through the decades to give him another boost. What would likely have remained an article stub here has grown into a true bio, with pictures and everything, even in his favourite "rebel" hat! Wyss 17:33, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

So looking at Hadleigh's weak credentials and dreadful reputation among revewiers again, the purported Mineo interview (which even as published was both hearsay and way hedged) seems weak to the point of... unreliability. 141/anon should be aware that my prior informal agreement with him was based on the assumption that the sources he cited had at least marginal encyclopedic notability. Now that I've become more familiar with both those sources and the available documentation on Nick Adams, I see zero basis for any mention of the rumours at all. Wyss 17:33, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I removed the assertion that he bought a blue Thunderbird to match Wood's pink one. According to the True Crime non-encyclopedic source [15] it says:

• He even bought a black, convertible Ford Thunderbird.

As part of his image self-promotion, he would have bought a black T-Bird convertible to be seen in. Ted Wilkes 17:39, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

That does ring truer but it's minor trivia either way. Wyss 18:01, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Protected

I've protected this article, as there's lots of reverting going on but no discussion. Try discussing your changes and if you can't convince each other, take it to RfC. Once you've agreed, let me know or post a request for unprotection. --fvw* 23:52, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

The discussion is sufficient to fill a novel, literally. 141's cites have been thoroughly discredited on the Presley talk page, he is trying to edit by attrition. See his contrib history, his only interest is in skewing Google keyword searches to increase traffic to books by David Bret. RfC may be the only way now. Wyss 23:55, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Rumors section

The following passages should be included in the "Rumors" section:

In 1972 gay actor Sal Mineo, in response to a leading question, said Adams told him he had an affair with James Dean. However, Adams was well-known in Hollywood for embellishing and inventing stories about his show business experiences and had long tried to capitalize on his association with James Dean. Boze Hadleigh's book, Hollywood Gays (1996) claims that before his success as an actor Adams was a male prostitute catering to men. This is related to similarly unsupported rumours about James Dean who is claimed to have been involved in this with Adams. However, Hadleigh has been criticized for pasting together interviews from other published sources or even making them up.

In his 2004 biography Natalie Wood: A Life, Gavin Lambert, who was part of the gay Hollywood circles of the 1950s and 1960s, wrote that Wood's "first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams..." Given Adams' widely known (and sometimes salaried) friendship with Elvis Presley, David Bret's book Elvis: The Hollywood Years (2001) even claims that Adams himself stated that he had an affair with Elvis Presley. However, some readers criticize Bret's book for containing sloppily researched and sometimes invented material, and there are no court records, contemporary letters or statements attributed to the actor to support any rumors that Adams was homosexual. Onefortyone 12:52, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

No, the rumours are too unsupported and the sources cited so far are not credible (see the lengthy discussions above). The only reason it's mentioned in the James Dean article is that the rumours surrounding him are more widespread and someone wrote a direct (although unsupported) account along those lines. Wyss 16:28, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

HAVE DELETED THE RUMOURS SECTION. RUMOURS HAVE NO PLACE IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 203.202.144.223 02:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)MRMAGOO3203.202.144.223 02:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The rumors exist and are supported by several independent sources (books, articles, etc.) You cannot deny this fact. You and Ted Wilkes are the only Wikipedia users who try to suppress the facts provided by these sources. Onefortyone 23:47, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Removed "protected" tag

I've removed a "protected" tag that was on the article despite the article not being protected. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:10, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I deleted the bit about a "bitter custody" battle. This information comes from a questionable source and is extremely inconsistent in its presentation and with Adam's finances and references to him travelling to Japan.

The sources, quoted in my Crime Magazine article, are contemporaneous newspaper accounts of Nick Adams's divorce and custody fight. If The Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Herald Examiner aren't reputable sources suitable for your constantly repeated "peer reviewed" criteria, what are?

The reality of California divorce law c.1965 would make it impossible for him to have custody without proving beyond any doubt that his spouse was an unfit mother.

That is exactly what Adams's attorney did.

Fathers simply didn't ever challenge for custody.

Wrong, as proven by Adams's custody challenge.

That same article, from where the "custody" reference comes, states his wife had custody then he won it back, then she got them. That never happens. Period.

It happened, as reported by The Los Angeles Times and Herald Examiner. I have the copies of the original news stories, if you want to see them. Not only that, but Adams's' son Jeb Adams said, "He saw it as a competition, basically, more than anything of getting custody of us. But, a matter of a week or two later, he gave us back to my mom."

In 1969, California was the first state to institute "no-fault" divorce, nevertheless archaic automatic custody for mothers remained unchanged.

Obviously erroneous, as Adams's son said the his father won custody of his children. [Peter L. Winkler]

(See Bob Geldoff remarks on the subject at Fathers' rights.) Ted Wilkes 20:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Peter Guralnick confirms that Adams was a Hollywood hustler

NOTE: THIS IS ANOTHER DISTORTION BY ONEFORTYONE AS PART OF HIS SINGLE-THEME AGENDA.

Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick says Nick Adams was a Hollywood hustler (see [16]) and a close friend to Elvis. This is in line with Boze Hadleigh's book, Hollywood Gays and this web biography of James Dean, which also state that Adams hustled during the 1950s. These statements also support the view that Nick Adams was gay.

Earl Greenwood, in his book The Boy who would be King (1990) confirms that Elvis and Adams had an affair:

On pages 284-86 it is clearly said that Nick Adams was Elvis's "persistent friend." They "shared a mutual enjoyment of prescription drugs," and "Nick became a regular at whatever house Elvis was renting." "Elvis still hated sleeping alone, and he grew close enough to Nick to ask him to stay over on nights he was feeling particularly blue but not up to a sexual confrontation with a woman." When he heard that his friend had died, "Elvis's immediate reaction was to sit on the steps, frozen and mute, then his eyes welled with tears and his body shook, as he rocked himself back and forth, arms clutching his sides. Elvis was devastated and suffered through it for days. He sequestered himself upstairs and could be heard crying through the closed door. ... Elvis talked about how close they had been, particularly after a couple of foursomes, and admitted he had 'spurned' Nick's friendship later, saying he had needed 'room to breathe,' because Nick had wanted 'too much, ya know?'..." The author adds that "some pointed comments were made about the two of them years later by a disgruntled hand Elvis just fired..." "Regardless of any intimacies, Nick didn't kill himself over Elvis - it turned out he had a lot of demons haunting him. But Elvis beat himself over Nick's death for a long time." Onefortyone 12:18, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

You removed pool from the opening section, so I have reverted your edit as vandalism. Moreover, WP is an encyclopdia, not a gossip or tabloid magazine. Wyss 15:18, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

In his Elvis biography, the reputed author Peter Guralnick says that the twenty-five-year-old Nick Adams was a "Hollywood hustler". This is in line with similar remarks in Boze Hadleigh's book, Hollywood Gays. See above. Therefore, I have reinstated the following paragraph:

In 1972 gay actor Sal Mineo, in response to a leading question, said Adams told him he had an affair with James Dean. However, Adams was well-known in Hollywood for embellishing and inventing stories about his show business experiences and had long tried to capitalize on his association with James Dean. Boze Hadleigh's book, Hollywood Gays (1996) claims that before his success as an actor Adams was a male prostitute catering to men. This is related to similarly rumours about James Dean who is claimed to have been involved in this with Adams. In his 2004 biography Natalie Wood: A Life, Gavin Lambert, who was part of the gay Hollywood circles of the 1950s and 1960s, wrote that Wood's "first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams..." Given Adams' widely known (and sometimes salaried) friendship with Elvis Presley, Earl Greenwood's book, The Boy who would be King (1990) and David Bret's book Elvis: The Hollywood Years (2001) even claim that Adams had an affair with Elvis Presley. However, there are no court records, contemporary letters or statements attributed to the actor to support any rumors that Adams was homosexual. Onefortyone 11:28, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Retelling tabloid accounts is not encyclopedic. Wyss 16:34, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Further sources supporting the view that Adams had homosexual leanings

In 1950, after making a commercial, Adams and James Dean seem to have become lovers and worked the streets of Los Angeles as hustlers in the down and out days when both were struggling nobodies. Bill Dakota, Adams's friend and secretary since 1957, was told the story that Nick Adams and James Dean, who stayed with Adams, were once arguing about who would wear the one good pair of jeans they owned to go hustling.

In her autobiography, Rona Barrett says that Nick Adams "had become the companion to a group of salacious homosexuals."

See Crime Magazine: "Nick Adams: His Hollywood Life and Death", by Peter L. Winkler

Therefore, I have reinstated the rumors section, as we have now ten independent sources which prove that Adams was gay. Onefortyone 15:41, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Your use of the word proof is mistaken both in terms of scholarship and WP policy. Wyss 02:55, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

However there is a lot of information that suggests this is the case. That alone merits some mention in the article. We have stacks of people on Wikipedia who are referred to as possibly gay or homosexual, with no objections from anybody, and without anything like the discussion that Nick Adams has been subjected to. JackofOz 03:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The weaknesses of other articles shouldn't support putting gossip in this one. However, the problem here is deeper. 141 has been abusive in his edits to this article (following arbitration he is currently on probabation, barred from editing celebrity articles and seems to have already violated that probabtion). In the absence of 141's vandalistic behavior, I would have long ago supported (and did support) a qualified rumours section in the article. Sadly, 141 used this as an opportunity in an astonishingly persistent, attrition-based, months long attempt to leverage this article as a basis for seeding the Elvis Presley article with keywords implying EP was gay, apparently for the purpose of promoting a tabloid market book by David Brent. So long as abusive editors like 141 are actively abusing content, a much more wary approach to documentation and balance should be taken. Meanwhile since 141 appears to be violating his probabtion I think he should be blocked as per arbcom's decision. Wyss 03:16, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's a question of gossip per se. If it is a fact that his sexuality has been questioned/discussed/rumoured about for a very long time, and it is, then that fact merits some mention. That is simply saying what has actually happened, it doesn't take any position on his sexuality. We talk about the rumours of Tom Cruise's sexuality, and his legal actions about those rumours, while remaining NPOV. I wasn't involved in the issue about 141, however should we apply our writing policy differently in a given case just because of such a person? Seems like we'd become his intellectual hostages. JackofOz 03:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

To User:JackofOz

• I for one strongly object to the: "stacks of people on Wikipedia who are referred to as possibly gay or homosexual" that aren't fact-based in exactly the same way I object to any reference in this encyclopedia that is not fact based. - Ted Wilkes 15:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Please see my response below. JackofOz 02:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• Note too, that the "stacks of people on Wikipedia who are referred to as possibly gay or homosexual" without verifiable facts to support it are all dead so there is no possible legal ramifications. A prime example of this is on Alexis Smith and William Goyen plus many others I could list. - Ted Wilkes 15:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Isn't Nick Adams dead too? I don't see the point you're making. JackofOz 02:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• For the record, the Tom Cruise situation is entirely different because there are facts of an actual court record to refer to. However, adding additional gossip is not acceptable. Nick Adams is dead and even for books, never mind encyclopedias, Peer reviewers like Publishers Weekly warn readers here concerning any statements made about people "all of whom, conveniently for legal purposes, are deceased." - Ted Wilkes 15:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

See my response below JackofOz 02:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Yep, I should have been more direct. There is zero evidence Nick Adams was gay, tabloid inventions don't count as reliable sources, the end. See Liberace for an example of a celebrity who made lifelong denials that he was gay and yet is clearly presented as having been gay by simple NPoV references to court records. Meanwhile, has 141 been blocked yet? Wyss 01:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

This debate, whatever its outcome in Nick Adams' case, seems to have exposed a wider problem that needs to be focused on. We have a List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people. The rules state: "...please ensure that he or she has a Wikipedia article and that article contains reasonable documentation for inclusion on this list."

Various people appear on this list without any supporting references (let alone documentation) in their own articles. Some examples include:

• Dame Judith Anderson, Pierre Boulez, Algernon Swinburne and Luchino Visconti, whose articles contain no references whatsoever to their sexuality.

• Casanova's article is all about affairs with women, nothing about any gay life.

• Robbie Williams: His article refers to "speculation" about his ambiguous sexuality and romantic life being rampant in the British media. Also claims about "pushing the envelope re male nudity". One of the linked articles ("The second coming of RW") says: "Reports of trysts with women often give way to rumors of closeted gay affairs with men such as his childhood friend Jonathan Wilkes. Instead of squashing such gossip, Williams has delighted in watching reporters race to report stories of his queer canoodling, often baiting them with comments that intentionally provoke the question "Is he really gay?" "It's interesting to see how people will get all ruffled up about it," he says. "When you get to the whole idea of 'Is he or isn't he?' I have to say that I think there's a gay man in everybody."
  • None of this amounts to him being a confirmed gay person.

• Kurt Cobain: His article says: "He was friends with a gay student at his school, sometimes suffering physically at the hands of homophobic students for his friend, and for his small size, which led some to believe that he himself was gay. Although he once claimed in an interview with The Advocate that he was arrested for spray-painting a pro-gay slogan on a bank, Aberdeen police records show that the phrase he was arrested for in 1986 was actually "Ain't got no how watchamacallit." In a February 1992 interview with The Advocate, Cobain admitted that he thought he was gay while in high school and stated, "I could be bisexual. If I wouldn't have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle." In his journals, he wrote that he was heterosexual, but wished he was gay just "to piss off homophobes”.
  • To me, this means that he experimented with sex with guys while growing up, which is a perfectly normal phase for straight guys, and he even thought he might be gay at the time, but he went on to have only straight relationships, married Courtney Love, and as his journals indicate he did not consider himself gay. He does not belong on the list.

• Colm Toibin: His article says that he writes on homosexual themes, but there is no mention of his own sexuality. Just writing about cannibalism does not make you a cannibal. However, deeply buried in one the linked articles is the expression "confronting my own homosexuality". So, OK he is gay. If he’s on the list, the article should state explicitly that he is gay rather than make the reader assume this is the case, or dig around in linked articles for the tell-tale words.

Then we come to the list of Persons of debated lesbian, gay or bisexual orientation. This is probably where my "stacks of people" came from. The rules are equally clear: "The following list includes those who some people legitimately believe there is meaningful evidence the person is or was gay, lesbian or bisexual. This speculation should be supported by documentation or historical record. More information about what is known about each individual's sexuality should be available in the individual's biography.

• River Phoenix’s article contains nothing whatsoever about his sexuality.

• Salvador Dali’s article contains nothing about his sexuality. But there is a quote: "I tried sex once with a woman and that woman was Gala. It was overrated. I tried sex once with a man and that man was the famous juggler Federico Garcia Lorca [the Spanish Surrealist poet]. It was very painful."
  • So, he tried sex with a man exactly once, found it very painful, and never tried it again. Does that make him a bisexual? I don’t think so. Does he belong on this list? Definitely not.

• Neil Patrick Harris’s article says: "While he has never publicly responded to questions pertaining to his sexual orientation, he is widely believed to be gay. Past reports from tabloid media have placed him in relationships with actors Max von Essen and David Burtka, although none of them have confirmed this. Also, rumors abound in the theater community that Harris' professional relationship with Sondheim — who is several decades his senior — led to a sexual one."
  • Does any of this amount to "documentation" and "historical record" (as required by the rules pertaining to the list), as opposed to rumour and gossip? I don’t think so. Is he is the same category as Nick Adams in relation to rumour, speculation and gossip? Yes. The difference is that Harris’s rumours are spelt out in his article for all to see, and we adopt a NPOV stance in relation to whether or not he is gay. Nobody seems to have a problem with this. But we don't do it for Adams. Sure, Nick Adams is dead, but so is Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare and many others, and we happily report, and endlessly debate how to phrase the speculation about, their sexuality. What makes Nick Adams so different? Is it only the threats of legal action from his estate that are stopping us from documenting the reported speculation about him?

Nothing makes Adams different. Vandals like 141 would presumably tend to put unsupported, undocumented (as in "no documented evidence") gossip into any celebrity article and abusively, insincerely claim it as NPoV. Meanwhile there is zero, repeat... zero evidence NA was gay. The only reason his name ever comes up is he was friends with Presley the mega-celebriy, and even the most unfounded gossip about mega-celebrities sells books. It has nothing to do with encyclopedic principles (and everything to do with them). Wyss 03:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

You're now debating his sexuality. I'm not debating, and have never debated, whether he was gay or not. I neither know nor care. And I don't support people making unsubstantiated assertions about the subjects of our articles, whether it's about their sexuality or whether they picked their nose. All I'm saying is that, just like a lot of other people, there have been rumours and speculation about Nick Adams - I've been hearing them for over 20 years. We generally report those rumours and speculations, even where there is "zero" evidence to support them. There is no evidence that Neil Patrick Harris is gay. Some people have reported that they think/believe he is, but he hasn't confirmed these reports, so only NPH knows for sure. But we report the rumours in his Wikipedia article. In the case of Lincoln, the "evidence" is extremely circumstantial and very flimsy indeed, and certainly does not prove anything, but it's still all there in his article. I still don't get what the basic issue with Nick Adams is. Why is he in some special category? BTW you confused me with "It has nothing to do with encyclopedic principles (and everything to do with them)". What did you mean? JackofOz 04:40, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Read the talk archive for this article. All of this has been repeatedly discussed, including why you've heard the rumour for 20 years (it's been around for 33). Anyway I'm not debating anything but takes like that are what distract these articles from encyclopedic principles. There is zero evidence NA was gay and this is an encyclopedia article, not a full-length bio or a tabloid story. Since there is zero evidence, any mention of it can throw the article into unhelpful and misleading distortion. An encyclopedia has a responsibility to provide balance to its readers based on reliable secondary sources and not to be a gossip data dump or sales platform for Google keyword searches leading to sales opportunities for books by tabloid writer David Brent. All the vandal is really interested in is Elvis Presley. NA is only a bit of groundwork. The vandal should be hard banned but as wonted, uses brilliant tactics and once again has an entirely fresh audience of admins and "experienced" editors most of whom seem too lazy to read a talk archive before jumping in and being manipulated in this constant loop of disruptive vandalism by 141. Anyway I'll say it one last time... there is zero evidence Nick Adams was gay. No letters, no court records, no statements, no nothing. Read that again please. I'm not saying he wasn't gay and I could care less. There's no evidence and the absence of evidence means any discussion of the rumours is strictly tabloid stuff. Wyss 06:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• Anne Heche appears on the list of "Persons of confirmed lesbian, gay or bisexual orientation" AND on the list of "Persons no longer identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual". One of these listings cannot be correct.

• So, this is not just about Nick Adams and what we say or don't say about him in particular. The bigger picture is about how we report the sexuality or rumoured sexuality of anybody we have an article about, dead or alive. We need to have rules that are consistently applied across the board. JackofOz 02:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • What I see here are two editors, Wyss and Ted Wilkes going massively overboard because of 141s potentially unsupportable edits to one article, Elvis Presley. While I agree on that specific article's issue, I cannot countenance the repeated and overboard blanket reversions and denials of everything else one he inserts on the supposed basis that "he's an abuser editor." In fact, I'd daresay that the behavior here is bordering on abusive. We *do* report documented and verified discussion, because it is part of the historical record. Speaking specifically of James Dean, there are voluminous reputable, mainstream publications which assert he was homosexual or bisexual. These issues have NOTHING AT ALL WHATSOEVER to do with Elvis Presley or any other article. In fact, speaking specifically of Memphis Mafia, I again agree there is not enough verifiable information to support his edits. But that does NOT mean that everything he is doing is wrong. Sourced, documented and published reports are encyclopedic, as long as it is not original research. Interestingly, Anne Heche can be both. She was openly lesbian with Ellen DeGeneres... and then she wasn't, and she got married. Odd, but encyclopedic. FCYTravis 07:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Your assertion that the 141's edits to JD have nothing to do with the Presley article (in all caps, no less) is mistaken and suggests you haven't read the talk page archives for Nick Adams and EP. Please do so before making such sweeping statements. Meanwhile, yet another well-meaning editor gets sucked into 141's cyclical vandalism by attrition. I mean, who wants to read a talk page archive anyway? Wyss 08:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Every article and every addition to every article is judged and scrutinized on its own merits. I have examined 141's additions to Memphis Mafia and found that they are not sufficiently sourced - an "official" site that appears to be a backup used as a portfolio for a Web design company and has no more pages... is not really verifiable. I support not adding that information to the Memphis Mafia article. But I examined his proposed James Dean paragraph and found it to be beyond well-sourced, verifiable, factual and clearly relevant to the life of a film star. I even added *another* verifiable source to the list. Dean's potential bisexuality is clearly an issue that deserves to be discussed in an encyclopedia article - it is no "tabloid gossip," it is documented and sourced claims by many people close to the man, including none other than someone who says he was his former lover. 141 has the right to edit articles on Wikipedia. He is not blocked or banned. I will monitor any changes made to Elvis Presley and other articles to ensure that they conform to Wikipedia standards and take necessary action if they violate the terms of his probation. If you feel any of the changes he makes violate those terms, please bring them to my attention or that of another member of the Mentoring Committee assigned to 141's case. We are here to help enforce the ArbCom's rulings and work to make 141 a better editor who will not run afoul of the ArbCom in the future. FCYTravis 09:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Hearsay and unsupported claims about intimate relationships with celebrities, especially mega-celebrities like Dean or Presley (and Nick Adams is of interest to 141 only because of the EP link) aren't usually considered documentation: Money can be made from all sorts of dodgy tabloid books about dead people like EP and JD. Every editor (and that's aside from TW and myself) who has stepped into this and tried to deal with 141 has eventually rejected the totality of his abusive edits. Anyone who bothered to read the talk page would know that. Wyss 09:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The EP link is not verifiable. I agree. That means you work to keep out the EP link, you don't remove every single thing attached to it. I AGREE with you that any Elvis Presley link is not sufficiently sourced and I will work to keep it out of any article. But the remainder of the assertions - including one that claims Adams himself claimed he had an affair with Dean - are encyclopedic if verified. I will work to find sufficient verifiable sources, as will 141, I hope. FCYTravis 09:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no evidence other than dodgy hearsay which Mineo himself deliberately diminished after he was pushed into mentioning it during an interview. That's the one, single solitary source of all these rumours. Have you bothered to read the talk archive yet? Why are you so reluctant to educate yourself on this topic? Wyss 00:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Rumors, gossip or speculation contravene official Wikipedia policy

Wikipedia has an Official policy with respect to article content that states:

• Wikipedia:Verifiability - "For an encyclopedia, sources should be unimpeachable"
• Wikipedia:The perfect article - "reflects expert knowledge; fact-based"

Verifiability of information from unimpeachable sources is official policy and is not open to anything less being inserted in an article based on someone's intrepretation. If any contributor to Wikipedia wishes to have official policy changed, there are procedures and I encourage them to do so rather than enter into meaningless and endless debate on article Talk pages. The policy was created to avoid exactly that. This Wikipedia:Verifiability requirement was reinforced by the Arbitration Committee's unanimous ruling against Oneforty with the Committee's further reminder that: "In the case of unusual or scandalous assertions this becomes even more important, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Exceptional_claims_require_exceptional_evidence"

- Ted Wilkes 15:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

• There is nothing unusual or scandalous about being homosexual or bisexual. To claim otherwise is pretty much nothing but homophobic. FCYTravis 07:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

With all due respect, User:FCYTravis, the British Courts have in fact ruled that such labelling is in fact and in law scandalous in the Tom Cruise case. And, it is not based on being homosexual, it is based on claiming a certain type of sexual conduct. And, when only a small percentage of the population has had a homosexual encounter, it is quite proper to refer to it as not the usual form of sexual activity which in no way is either derogatory or condemning, it is just plain statistical fact. Please also refrain from intimating that I am homophobic. - Ted Wilkes 14:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• • I'm not in Britain and this isn't a court of law. We report sourced allegations - it is far from exceptional to claim that an actor had homosexual relationships. You have still not presented one shred of rebuttal evidence that suggests otherwise. FCYTravis 20:21, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

All allegations are not equal, all sources are not equal, see my note below about your mistaken notions concerning the need for rebuttals. Wyss 00:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I reverted the edit by User:FCYTravis. - I suggest he should have first read this and the archived talk page before making his edit on behalf of User:Onefortyone. Hearsay quotes and Boze Hadleigh are not a reliable source as was documented with quotes and links to peer reviews already on this page. The content belonging to Onefortyone that User:FCYTravis altered slightly and reinserted was fully discussed here and in the Arbitration Committee case. The text you inserted contravenes Wikipedia:Policy for reliable sources. Hearsay is not Wikipedia:Verifiability. - Ted Wilkes 15:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

User:FCYTravis reinserted the same text in disregard of the facts stated here that it violates Wikipedia:Policy for reliable sources. It has been reverted. - Ted Wilkes 18:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

FCYTravis, you've got it backwards. No rebuttal is ever required... ever. The original assertion only needs a credible documented source. There is no credible documented source (such as a court record, a verified statement by NA, a letter etc) providing even a shred of evidence NA was gay. As Ted Wilkes mentioned, hearsay is not evidence (it's tabloid content). I (rather strongly) suggest you familiarize yourself with the talk page archive for this article before you participate any further here. Wyss 22:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

<remove copyrighted material> - User:Zoe|(talk) 01:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

You are a damned jerk. Better not to say such things around here; people with thin skins might get offended. Why are you doubting everything I say? WP:V "Hoary" is not my real name and I claim no credentials. If I did claim any, you should be very wary of them. But if I wanted to make you believe my claim that, say, I was XYZ, a famous biographer of Nick Adams, I could link here to some page within a site that indubitably was run by XYZ, a page on which I stated that I edited on WP as "Hoary". I hate computers and most of the Internet and definitely talk programs, where jerks like you show up. That's interesting. I too hated talk programs (of the celebrity interview kind) the last time I bothered to watch any, which was years ago. (One reason is that celebrity gossip and revelations don't interest me.) I hate most of the internet and I'm getting pretty sick of computers too. -- Hoary 04:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Rumors section

The following passage may be included in the Rumors section:

In his book, Hollywood Gays, Boze Hadleigh writes that Nick Adams may have "hustled while looking for acting jobs in the 1950s." Onefortyone 21:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

A recent Playboy article written by Byron Raphael and reputed author Alanna Nash says that

(Natalie) Wood was not the only one to think Elvis and the guys [i.e. the men from the Memphis Mafia] might be homosexual, especially since Elvis often wore pancake makeup and mascara offstage to accentuate his brooding intensity, a la Tony Curtis and Rudolph Valentino, his favorite movie actors. There were also rumors that Nick Adams swung both ways, just as there had been about Adams’s good pal (and Elvis’s idol) James Dean. Tongues wagged that Elvis and Adams were getting it on. But Elvis was frightened of homosexuals; the Colonel had told him to be on the lookout for them in Hollywood. He was even scared of Lizabeth Scott, the icy blonde who played romantic scenes with him in 1957’s Loving You, since Confidential magazine had recently outed her as a lesbian with a busy little black book. (See [17])

This quote clearly shows that there were indeed rumors during the 1950s concerning Nick Adams's affair with Elvis Presley. It also supports the other claims by Dee Presley, David Bret and Earl Greenwood that Elvis had a sexual relationship with Adams. Perhaps the deleted passages relating to these claims may be reinstated. Onefortyone 18:39, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

In Elvis and Gladys (University Press of Mississippi, 2004), Elaine Dundy says: "Of all Elvis' new friends, Nick Adams, by background and temperament the most insecure, was also his closest" (p. 250). According to the same source, "Elvis' friend Nick Adams [was] suddenly grabbing the microphone to announce, 'I was a friend of James Dean'..." (p. 260) Onefortyone 19:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I removed the following text from the Nick Adams article

"In 1972 gay actor Sal Mineo said Adams told him he had an affair with James Dean. However, Adams was well-known in Hollywood for embellishing and inventing stories about his show business experiences and had long tried to capitalize on his association with James Dean. Reputed Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick also called Adams a "Hollywood hustler." Bill Dakota, Adams's friend and secretary since 1957, was told the story that Adams and Dean, who stayed with Adams, were once arguing about who would wear the one good pair of jeans they owned to go hustling. In his 2004 biography Natalie Wood: A Life, Gavin Lambert, who was part of the gay Hollywood circles of the 1950s and 1960s, wrote that Wood's "first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams." In her autobiography, Rona Barrett says that Adams "had become the companion to a group of salacious homosexuals." However, there are no court records, contemporary letters or statements attributed to the actor to support any assertions that Adams was homosexual. "

I removed this text because it is unacceptable referencing and has also been deliberately manipulated .

• Wikipedia:Verifiability#Dubious sources states "For an encyclopedia, sources should be unimpeachable"
• Wikipedia:The perfect article states "reflects expert knowledge; fact-based"

Note this edit on this Talk page of 19:21, 18 August 2005 (UTC) that User:Onefortyone himself refers to "gossip book authors" stating:

• "The only source not written by gossip book authors is the article by Professor Dr Wall, but he has not written about Nick Adams's sexual preferences."

Line by line reason for deletion:

• 1) In 1972 gay actor Sal Mineo said Adams told him he had an affair with James Dean.
  • First, this statement is intended to deceive. It is hearsay and deliberately incomplete. Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online sources says: personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, are not acceptable as sources. This partial statement is taken from this personal website belonging to John Seger & Karen Hardcastle and copied by Crime Magazine], another personal website belonging to Pat O'Connor. Note that the interview is supposedly by Boze Hadleigh, a source whose claims were discredited by Publishers Weekly and the Library Journal (see below):

Question attributed to Boze Hadleigh:

• James Dean and Nick Adams were roommates, as I'm sure you know. Were they also lovers?

Here is the full reply attributed to Sal Mineo:

• I didn't hear it from Jimmy, who was sort of awesome to me when we did Rebel. But Nick told me they had a big affair- I don't know if it was while they were living together or not. But there's always the roomie thing in Hollywood- Brando and Wally Cox, Brando and Tony Curtis, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott- and there are always rumors about them, even if they aren't true. I think Hollywood secretly wants to think it's true.

Note that the Revision as of 19:45, 13 November 2005 by User:FCYTravis with the edit comment (rm male prostitute bit) rightfully and properly removed another quote by Boze Hadleigh.

• Boze Hadleigh's book, Hollywood Gays (1996) claims that before his success as an actor Adams was a male prostitute catering to men.

Already posted on this Talk page, which User:Onefortyone was aware of, was these facts cited for not quoting Hadleigh:

The Publishers Weekly review said:

• Hadleigh who's evidently taking up where the great gossip columnists of yesteryear left off.
• There's nothing very surprising about his choice of subjects--Paul Lynde, Liberace, Randolph Scott, et al.--all of whom, conveniently for legal purposes, are deceased.
• Readers will find much cocktail-party repartee here and will relish the references to other stars of dubious sexual orientation.

From Library Journal:

• Like his earlier volumes, Hadleigh's work is somewhat suspect. He claims that for most of these interviews, he was not allowed to tape record or take notes, and frequently the questions seem stiltedly reconstructed.

• 2) Reputed Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick also called Adams a "Hollywood hustler."
  • The term hustler when referring to a male is always to a wheeler dealer, con artist as depicted in the Paul Newman film The Hustler. A huster has historically been used on occasion to describe a female prostitute after the term was made popular by the 1975 TV movie Hustling (see IMDb ) starring Lee Remick. In recent years, hustler may have been used by the Gay male community to refer to a male prostitute. User:Onefortyone inserted it as a deceitful tactic to infer Adams was a male prostitute as part of his attempts to assert Nick Adams was gay. NOTE how Onefortyone then goes to Talk:Elvis Presley and declares as absolute fact that Nick Adams was gay and declares here: there is some evidence that he had a sexual affair with his gay friend Nick Adams.

• 3) Bill Dakota, Adams's friend and secretary since 1957, was told the story that Adams and Dean, who stayed with Adams, were once arguing about who would wear the one good pair of jeans they owned to go hustling
  • Once again, Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online sources says: personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, are not acceptable as sources.

This reference to someone named "Bill Dakota" is taken from the same Crime Magazine], a personal website set up by Pat O'Connor as mentioned in No.1 above. O'Connor's website says: Dakota became acquainted with a Mr. Federici, who told Dakota quite a story about Nick Adams and James Dean. Federici told Dakota that he once owned an apartment house where Nick Adams lived. Federici said that he once overheard Nick Adams and James Dean, who stayed with Adams, arguing about who would wear the one good pair of jeans they owned to go hustling. --- This is quoting hearsay by someone totally unknown whom a personal website calls "Bill Dakota" and who is then said to be quoting more hearsay from a third party, the mysterious "Mr. Federici". This is an insult to Wikipedia.

Note that here User:FCYTravis removed this next fraudulent line:

• This is related to similar rumors about James Dean who is claimed to have been involved in this with Adams.

• 4) In his 2004 biography Natalie Wood: A Life, Gavin Lambert, who was part of the gay Hollywood circles of the 1950s and 1960s, wrote that Wood's "first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams."
  • This book is gossip as warned by The Guardian newspaper here, and the author's unsubstantiated remark provided no proof or a reference and was made in passing, most likely quoted from the 2003 Crime Magazine personal website referred in No.3 above. The author, Gavin Lambert, cannot speak for the film studio as he was neither a studio owner or executive. Gossip is not an unimpeachable source as required by Wikipedia:Verifiability#Dubious sources an is not fact-based as required by Wikipedia:The perfect article.

• 5) "In her autobiography, Rona Barrett says that Adams "had become the companion to a group of salacious homosexuals."
  • This quote is hearsay from the same Pat O'Connor Crime Magazine] website as per No.3 above. Rona Barrett is a gossip columnist, not an encyclopedic source.

Note that User:Ted Wilkes never inserted statements from less that unimpeachable sources that in fact contradicted these statements by the Crime Magazine personal website etc. Instead, I put them on the Talk page with detailed rebuttal that was ignored by Onefortyone.

At Cyber Sleuths website, a similar website as the Crime Magazine quoted (deceptively) by Onefortyone. Cybersleuths also did an article on Nick Adams. In fact, while I would never quote this website in any Wikipedia article, Cyber Sleuths author Bill Kelly actually has some credibility as a journalist working for many years with reputable newspapers etc. In referring to Nick Adams sexuality, journalist Bill Kelly stated: "Nick was straight."

Further, another source that is not unimpeachable is John Gilmore (writer), but at least his friendship with actors James Dean and Dennis Hopper is a documented fact, stated here With Nick Adams it had been the same way, even with Natalie Wood—Jimmy avoided them. Once off the set, he went out of his way to go in the opposite direction.

User:Onefortyone was fully aware of ALL this. Note how he quotes John Gilmore (writer) here at both Talk:James Dean and in the James Dean article but on Nick Adams deliberately and with the intent to deceive, makes no mention of what Gilmore said about Nick Adams and Dean.

If one wants to quote gossip columnists as Onefortyone did with Rona Barrett as third party hearsay, then note what this article in the extremely popular Modern Screen magazine said about Natalie Wood and Nick Adams.

- Ted Wilkes 02:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Then by all means, add that segment to it. I added your Cybersleuths source to the page - doing your work for you. Kelly is a source which refutes the other claims and adds to the debate. Hence, a balanced and NPOV telling of the controversy. Let me reiterate - on Wikipedia, we REPORT on controversy. We do not get to decide which side is right or wrong. Whether I believe Nick Adams was gay or not - heck, I don't even know. What I do know is that plenty of material has been produced which reports that there is something of a debate over his sexuality. Given that he lived in a spectacularly closeted and repressed time, clearly there aren't going to be any statements from him one way or another - and even if he had made such a statement, the fact that today his sexuality is a subject of debate would be encyclopedic. The fact of the matter is, some biographers think he was straight and some think he was gay. We report. You decide. FCYTravis 23:35, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Passages deleted by Ted Wilkes and reinstated by FCYTravis

User:Ted Wilkes has returned to his old tactic of denigrating all sources which are not in line with his personal view. Here are the facts:

• The Crime Magazine article has been written by an expert on Nick Adams.

• Talking about James Dean and Nick Adams, Boze Hadleigh cites Sal Mineo: "Nick told me they had a big affair." This is a clear statement published in a book entitled Conversations with my Elders. See [18]

• The Libary Journal clearly says, as a summary, about Boze Hadleigh's book, Hollywood Gays: "Still, the interviews are highly entertaining and provide an important, mostly undocumented view of the film industry's social history. Recommended for both general readers looking for dish and scholars of gay history and film studies." It is very interesting that Ted Wilkes did not cite this passage.

• See also this commentary on the same book: "A series of 10 interviews with dramatic actors, romantic heros, comedians, and performers, three of whom died of AIDS; all prominent in the Hollywood/entertainment scene. The interviews are by turns frank, and depending on the comfort level of the interviewee, evasive and suggestive. Prominent features of the interviews include Hollywood's various constructions of masculinity, efforts to mask gay realities, studio response to homosexuality, and discussion of gay relationships. Many interviews include commentary on Hollywood figures not themselves in this collection. Each interview is preceded by a biographical sketch including relationship information and usually comments by friends and acquaintances. Index to persons mentioned in the interviews concludes the work." (Gays and Lesbians: Reference and Bibliographical Resources Annotated")

• Ted Wilkes confirms that "In recent years, hustler may have been used by the Gay male community to refer to a male prostitute." If Peter Guralnick says that twenty-five-year-old Nick Adams was a "Hollywood hustler" in a book published in 1994 (see [19]), he certainly refers to a male prostitute. Other sources also confirm that this was the case.

• Ted Wilkes continues to disparage reputed author and Hollywood chronicler Gavin Lambert who has clearly stated that Natalie Wood's first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams.

• Ted Wilkes tries to denigrate reputed gossip columnist and Hollywood expert Rona Barrett who also confirms that Nick Adams was gay.

• In his book, The Boy who would be King: An Intimate Portrait of Elvis Presley by his Cousin (1990), Earl Greenwood says that Elvis and Nick Adams had "intimacies" and that Nick Adams had wanted "too much." See [20]

• In a recent Playboy article, Byron Raphael and reputed author and Elvis expert Alanna Nash write: "There were also rumors that Nick Adams swung both ways, just as there had been about Adams’s good pal (and Elvis’s idol) James Dean. Tongues wagged that Elvis and Adams were getting it on." See [21]. Onefortyone 21:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • This is not an anonymous, unsourced allegation or an allegation printed in the National Enquirer. This is an allegation printed in, apparently, several different published works and Web sites, by several different people, none of whom seem to have anything to necessarily gain by saying it. There is so much that it would violate NPOV to omit it. We have a duty to report verifiable claims, no matter how disputed. The fact that there is a dispute over his sexuality is, itself, encyclopedic in itself - one could probably write an interesting article about the politics of homosexuality in Hollywood over the years. Such an article would include the fact that there were closeted actors, that some actors never came out of the closet, that some actors may have been gay but may not have been, and that their sexuality is a matter of dispute among biographers. FCYTravis 21:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

False accusation

Ted Wilkes does not say the truth. He accuses me of being a deceiver (which is surely a personal attack) and falsely claims that

User:Onefortyone was fully aware of ALL this. Note how he quotes John Gilmore (writer) here at both Talk:James Dean and in the James Dean article but on Nick Adams deliberately and with the intent to deceive, makes no mention of what Gilmore said about Nick Adams and Dean.

I have never before visited the John Gilmore website. The fact is that on 15 August 2005 Ted Wilkes himself included John Gilmore's statement in the James Dean article. See [22] and [23]. A few minutes later, this passage was rewritten by Wyss. See [24]. Months later, I only reinstated the Sexuality paragraph including the Gilmore passage written by Ted Wilkes and Wyss. My quotes on the Talk:James Dean page are from Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography. Onefortyone 00:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

True accusation against User:Onefortyone, a liar on Wikipedia:Probation

I'm the one who created and wrote the Gilmore article. The John Gilmore quote was already discussed and you were fully aware of it before. Nonetheless, I 'never said you originated the Gilmore quote, I said you used it and deliberately omitted the part about Nick Adams when you did. - Ted Wilkes 14:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

USER: BILL DAKOTA,Ted: You are the person who wrote the John Gilmore article? Well, you had better read the discussion pages on him. I personally knew John Gilmore. I clarified some of the errors on the John Gilmore site as well. "WILLIAM DAKOTA 11:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)"

It should be noted that Ted Wilkes calls me "a convicted liar". This is certainly a personal attack. Onefortyone 23:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

That's not a personal attack, its stating a fact. - Ted Wilkes 23:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

You are not telling the truth, Ted. I did not deliberately omit a part about Nick Adams. I only reinstated a passage that was originally written by you on the James Dean page. This was not related to Nick Adams. Onefortyone 23:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It's certainly not. Onefortyone has not been convicted of any crime. An ArbCom ruling is not a finding of fact in a court of law. For someone who has such a fetish for libel laws, you, of all people, should know that. I'd suggest you remove the "convicted" bit. FCYTravis 23:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Passages inserted by FCYTravis that contravene Wikipedia policy

You edit without dealing with facts, again. Your statement is nothing but empty rhetoric intended to avoid the fact that this information, as I spelled out above line by line, contravenes Wikipedia policy. Wikpedia does NOT insert anything just because you can name the source -- read Wikipedia:Verifiability#Dubious sources which states "For an encyclopedia, sources should be unimpeachable" and Wikipedia:The perfect article states "reflects expert knowledge; fact-based." As stated above, Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online sources says: personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, are not acceptable as sources. Deal with it. - Ted Wilkes 22:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The source is unimpeachable - there is no doubt that the person said it. These are books we refer to, not Usenet posts. FCYTravis 23:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

What book? As detailed in full above, you took the information from the personal website of Pat O'Connor [here called Crime Magazine which is not acceptable as a source for Wikipedia. - Ted Wilkes 14:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

And, as also detailed above, when peer reviews by the most reputable of critics say that Boze Hadleigh's work is "suspect" and points out numerous reasons to question its autheticity, an encyclopedia most certainly does not quote that author. Wikipedia:Policy is absolute: sources must be unimpeachable, no ifs and or buts. - Ted Wilkes 14:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

In an effort to avoid an edit war with someone who has displayed a deliberate agenda and someone whom the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee has found to be lying and fabricating information, I clarified the half-quotes from these dubious and non-encyclopedic sources. This is temporary only, I intend to pursue this further to have such unreliable sources removed. Unimpeachable doesn't mean the source exists. Wikipedia Official policy is that the souces must be unimpeachable. Stop playing games. Wikipedia had enough problems with lies and diastortions in biographies this week. - Ted Wilkes 14:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

• • I notice that you added a quote from a 1957 "Modern Screen" gossip magazine. Aside from the fact that, as a gossip magazine, it's as "impeachable" as everything you've accused me of including, such a quote can hardly be considered definitive, given that in 1957 no actor would admit to being homosexual because it would be career-killing in the extreme. Whether he was gay or straight, what a film publicist wrote to give to a gossip magazine would surely not reveal the truth. Such a source should, of course, be in the article as a point of discussion, but it hardly refutes anything. FCYTravis 20:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

RESPONSE to FCYTravis by Ted wilkes: So suddenly after repeatedly inserting the Rona Barrett crap. now you delete it? In this vein, "Modern Screen" was put in because you said to insert it. Note that I have repeatedly, and on this page several times, objected to any form of gossip as non-encyclopedic. And, do not continue to "quote out of context". I note you removed some of that distortion but not all. I inserted the full statement by Sal Mineo as well as the misleading statement by Hadleigh. Note that Library Journal pointed out this Hadleigh tactic, stating his work was "suspect" and said "frequently the questions seem stiltedly reconstructed." In other words he faked them.

You statement here is your Personal Opinion that contravenes Wikipedia:No original research.

• "However, such statements would have been career-killing if made during that time, so many of the era's gay actors remained closeted until the 1990s."

Note too, Boze Hadleigh is not a biographer as you claimed, he has never written a biography and is called a "gossip writer" by Publishers Weekly. He is not a credible source under any circumstances. It may be fact that Hadleigh wrote a book, and it may be fact he wrote certain things, but that does not represent academic/journalistic integrity required for an encyclopedia. When Peer Reviews totally discredit him, Wikipedia under no cicumstances should quote him.

A linguist with the ability to converse in five languages, Hadleigh has an M.A. in journalism. According to Midwest Book Review, his book, Conversations With My Elders (republished as Celluloid Gaze)

is a ground breaking collection of interviews with six men who share a common and unusual trait relevant to their success in the movie-making industry: they were gay, and during their lifetimes, they concealed their sexual orientation from the public. Yet these interviews are remarkably open and candid about how these men's sexuality affected their lives and careers. ... Celluloid Gaze is an informed and informative contribution to Film History and Gay Studies academic reference collections and supplemental reading lists, as well as highly recommended reading for fans of the film work of Sal Mineo, Luchino Visconti, Cecil Beaton, George Cukor, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Rock Hudson.

So much for the reliability of this source. Onefortyone 11:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting how you keep agreeing with me and have begun editing out ever single thing I objected to here and on other Onefortyone article edits. You're slowly moving towards the truth but why do I have to keep after you to simply tell the facts, insert encyclopedic material, and don't quote iout of context? You do want to avoid another disgraceful and damaging character assassination as was done to John Seigenthaler, don't you? Because it is in fact the exact same thing except that Nick Adams can't hire a lawyer or defend himself. - Ted Wilkes 20:29, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not character assassination to present sourced claims that someone was gay. Being gay isn't illegal or wrong. Hadleigh's reputation is up for dispute. What is not disputable is that in published works he has a sourced quote from a reputable person who said Adams told him he was gay. It's up to the reader to decide. We present the evidence on both sides. I removed the quote from Rona Barrett because I don't think it adds anything. "Being seen with salacious homosexuals" isn't evidence of being gay - whereas a quote from Sal Mineo saying Adams told him he was gay, is. FCYTravis 20:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I will also add that I am working toward a compromise because I assume good faith. I assume that, as I am, you are working in good faith to create an NPOV article which covers the dispute over Adams' sexuality in a balanced and dispassionate fashion. The fact that you didn't remove several of my additions and sources, and the fact that I am not removing all of your additions, speaks to the idea that we are working to craft a compromise that is acceptable to both of us. FCYTravis 23:59, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

No, Sal Mineo never said any such thing about Nick Adams. Discredited writer Boze Hadleigh said he said it, and only after Mineo was dead. Hadleigh's reputation is up for dispute? Huh! Are you stating that Publishers Weekly and Library Journal made false statements? Did I say being gay was illegal or wrong? I repeat, contrasry to your statement, just because someone puts it in a book doesn't make it an "unimpeacheabkle source." As to Rona Barrett, you inserted it repeatedly along with the other unacceptable gossip from a personal website. Thank God, you have now admitted your poor research and deleted it. Albeit, I recognize it is disgraced former lawyer Fred Bauder who told you Pat O'Connor's personal website was perfectly acceptable. - Ted Wilkes 20:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The Library Journal recommends Hadleigh's "Hollywood Gays" "for scholars of gay history and film studies." So much for "discredited." FCYTravis 23:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleting the additional comments by Sal Mineo in fact distorts his meaning to the question, a statement that in itself is in doubt. No encyclopedia will allow the creation of a misconception by omission - they always and without exception clarify it or they don't insert it. In this case the comment is from a discredited author by the most respected of Peer reviewers and shouldn't be there, a matter that must be recognized as stated several times by me and others here and elsewhere. - Ted Wilkes 22:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Further, because the Hadleigh writings are dubious at best, an Encyclopedia should not be quoting them. However, as I said, I'm going far out of my way to cooperate here but at a minimum we must, as Publishers Weekly did so no reader is misled, and point out the legal ramifications of statements made about a dead person vis-a-vis if they are alive. - Ted Wilkes 22:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

FCYTravis, you also removed my John Gilmore (writer) comment here but still have not removed it from the James Dean article. Please do so. Thanks. - Ted Wilkes 22:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Hadleigh's reputation *is* up for dispute. Just because two literary publications talk about his gossip writing doesn't instantly make his writings damned and worthless. The OPINION of Publishers Weekly and Library Journal is just that - their opinion. Their opinion is noted in the Boze Hadleigh article. You do not get to call his works "unacceptable gossip" because they have an opinion about his writing. FCYTravis 23:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

REPLY to FCYTravis: Did you not read the Peer reviews? They are repeated on this page several times with an external link. But, again I repeat them: His work was called suspect. Are you declaring that work called "suspect" by such peer reviews is encyclopedic to be quoted? And, they pointed out that "frequently the questions seem stiltedly reconstructed." Are you declaring that an Encyclopedia should quote something where the author is suspected of doctoring the text? Notice, Hadleigh neither sued or repudiated these statements from Publishers Weekly or the Library Journal. Thank you. - Ted Wilkes 23:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but some of your rewording is titled towards giving the appearance Adams was gay. That is PoV. When I say claims are unsubstantiated, that is a NPOV fact. - Ted Wilkes 23:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you have a link to a source which supports the claim that Nick Adams was known for making stuff up? That's a good piece of info that sounds to me like it's true, and supports your belief that his statement to Mineo was potentially just embellishment. If we could get it sourced, it strengthens your argument. FCYTravis 23:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

" None of the claims of homosexual relationships have been substantiated by direct evidence, such as court documents or personal letters from Adams or his alleged lovers. The basis for the claims, thus, are personal interviews with third parties, the veracity of which are subject to much debate and interpretation." does not sound to me like it gives the appearance that Adams was gay. In fact, it goes out of its way to say that they are CLAIMS, which have not been SUBSTANTIATED - based on interviews with third parties, the VERACITY of which are subject to much DEBATE and INTERPRETATION. All of those clearly spell out that this is an issue which is not in any way determined, nor will it probably ever be determined either way. FCYTravis 23:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I think User:Wyss inserted that and unfortunately our convicted fabricator Onefortyone and disgraced lawyer User:Fred Bauder drove her away. But, amidst all this garbage somewhere, I do remember seeing that or the same thing elsewhere. Will be glad to try and find it as soon as I get a chance. However, first, in light of the serious nature of the John Seigenthaler fiasco, I think you will agree we should all cooperate in defining whether Boze Hadleigh and other such sources are acceptable as an encyclopedic quote, don't you? This most important of issues to credibility with the public goes beyond biographys to sources on all kinds of events, places etc. We are an encyclopedia, not a list of references who quotes anybody in the world. hank, you are beginning to show a sense of intergrity that Wikipedia must have. I hope it is sincere and lasts. - Ted Wilkes 00:00, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

(moved from above, in re: edits) I will also add that I am working toward a compromise because I assume good faith. I assume that, as I am, you are working in good faith to create an NPOV article which covers the dispute over Adams' sexuality in a balanced and dispassionate fashion. The fact that you didn't remove several of my additions and sources, and the fact that I am not removing all of your additions, speaks to the idea that we are working cooperatively, if contentiously, to craft a compromise that is acceptable to all sides in this matter. FCYTravis 23:59, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The comment about Adams applying for custody is extremely relevant. It is in fact evidence in support of the prior statement. As the law then allowed, all his wife had to do was accuse him of homosexuality and he would have 1) never applied for custody if true, and 2) would have guaranteed the loss of custody because of (what today we see as archaic) laws in existence at the time. Just as a matter of interest, at that same time, forced sterilization for "sexual promiscuity" was legal in California as well as many other states and countrys as was sodomy. - Ted Wilkes 23:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Not at all. How would his wife have proven the claim, or even necessarily known to make the claim? As you noted, there were no reports or suggestions that he was homosexual at the time - obviously, it's something that any actor at the time would have kept well-hidden. The art of closeting oneself deeply was quite well practiced, for as you note, it was at risk of career and liberty that such relationships became public. The fact that nothing ever suggested he was gay at the time is relevant, but not proof of anything. FCYTravis 23:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

In those days, she did not have to prove it. Divorce never was, and still isn't subject to standards remotely close to other civil or criminal procedures. It is 99% pure mudslinging. As I said, just stating a spouse was homosexual was admissible at the time and a woman was considered then (and still now) the automatic suitable parent. If she stated he was gay and said he did this in her house with a man she saw but did not know etc. etc. and the tears flowed and the poor thing was frightened, even without proof a judge noted it was not proven but still allowed it. Today the sex life of either partner cannot be mentioned at all in custody, but with all due respect to honest wives, the "child molestor" charge has replaced it. See (I think) Bob Geldoff?

Re: "Alleged" - All interviews are in fact and in law "alleged" to have happened (hearsay) unless confirmed by the party interviewed. That was part of the peer review complaints about Hadleigh that also applies to any deceased celebrity. - Ted Wilkes 00:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort here. I'm going to get something to eat. Tomorrow, if I have time, I'll start on the reliable sources work and look forward to your help and input. - Ted Wilkes 00:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Modern Screen article

The following quotes from the Modern Screen article (which seems to be one of the primary "peer-reviewed" sources for Ted Wilkes) indicate that Natalie Wood's "relationships" with men (several of them gay, such as Nicholas Ray and Raymond Burr) during the 1950s were just fun or publicity ploys in order to attract attention:

...she's rowdy with fellow teenagers at a beach party. And she's always alive, friendly, interested.

"What I like is to go out, just me and six men!" The more men, the more attention, the more she loves it. If Elvis Presley and Nick Adams are both with her an afternoon, that's twice as good as if she were alone with either. And as far as what you read about her being serious with either, well, serious is a word for later. Or maybe serious is too painful to think about.

...with Nick Adams, she's more an equal, and their relationship has been mostly for fun. He calls her Chort, which means little devil in Ukrainian. They're both of Ukrainian descent. They share a tendency toward moodiness and unpredictability. They've read Thomas Wolfe together; they've given joint interviews to MODERN SCREEN in which they admitted they adored each other; they even came terribly close to getting married.

It happened in Las Vegas. The two of them and another couple had driven out to the desert, seen Judy Garland's show at the NEW FRONTIED, posed for innumerable publicity photographs - that was the real reason for the trip - and swam, danced, laughed.

And if you have any doubts that Natalie's a girl who is all things to all men, listen to Nick Adams: "I don't know any man who has ever had a bad word to say about Natalie," he'll tell you. "She's like a little puppy, just enjoying life and dating so much that you get a life out of hearing her tell about it. You laugh a lot when you go out with Natalie -- and you laugh with her, not at her." If, for a heartbeat, in Las Vegas, Nick Adams had hoped the prankish puppy might suddenly grow up and be all his, he's no longer brooding about it. Right now, both Nick and Natalie are inclined to deny the whole Las Vegas episode.

An acquaintance, trying to sum up Natalie's attraction, the charm which keeps dates interested, put it this way, "She's a ham. She loves to act, off-screen as well as on. So she relishes playing different roles with different men. But she doesn't just act being different types -- she feels it. She is different with different men. One night she's a bundle of fun with Nick Adams, the next night she's being elegant and sophisticated with Nick Ray or Raymond Burr."

So much for the reliability of these stories. It is very interesting that Ted Wilkes, who accepts this article as a reliable source, continues to denigrate the books by Boze Hadleigh, an expert on Hollywood's gay scene. The Library Journal clearly states, as a summary, about Boze Hadleigh's book, Hollywood Gays: "Still, the interviews are highly entertaining and provide an important, mostly undocumented view of the film industry's social history. Recommended for both general readers looking for dish and scholars of gay history and film studies." Onefortyone 23:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Repeated distortions & insertion of non-encyclopedic material by editor on probation

Onefortyone continues his pattern of repeated insertions that contravene a consenus achieved by Ted Wilkes and User:FCYTravis, appointed by the Wikipedia:Mentorship Committee to monitor User:Onefortyone who is on Wikipedia:Probation. - Ted Wilkes 00:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

FCYTravis. Thank you for the minor edits however, I think you would agree that it is misleading to say that Gavin Lambert "wrote" etc. - that makes it appear he was writing about Adams when it is in fact only a remark made in passing as I inserted. Thanks again. - Ted Wilkes 01:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Please take note that as a result improper references and distortions repeatedly being inserted while on Wikipedia:probation by User:Onefortyone in defiance of his appointed mentor, FCYTravis, I have notified the other two Wikipedia:Mentorship Committee members, User:Marudubshinki and User:NicholasTurnbull of this continued misconduct, requesting they examine the matter and take the appropriate action. - Ted Wilkes 07:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, Ted, you are still accusing me of "improper references and distortions", although I am frequently citing my sources. What you are doing I would call unencyclopedic. You are the only editor who repeatedly tries to swamp the Wikipedia article with expressions such as "gossip book" or "discredited gossip writer", "not supported by any evidence", "alleged", "all unsubtantiated claims ... possibly repeated one from another" etc. in order to denigrate sources you don't like. See [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31]. You also wish to suppress independent sources which all state that Adams was gay simply because they are not in line with your personal view. I have never seen edits of this kind before.

You have also tried to disparage authors such as Gavin Lambert. Certainly this Natalie Wood biographer is a reliable source, as the author, who died some months ago, was a reputed Hollywood biographer and screenwriter and much involved in Hollywood's gay scene during the 1950s and 60s. See also Sharon Waxman's article, "Gavin Lambert, 80, Writer Who Chronicled Hollywood Life, Dies," in The New York Times, 19 July 2005 [32]. He must have known that Wood's friend Adams was gay, as he mentions, in his Wood biography, several details about the life of Adams. See pages 182, 199, 203-4, 205, 242 and 262. See [33]. He also says, on page 200, that "Natalie had no problem accepting something still taboo at the time, and formed many lifelong friendships with gay men. And she was always totally loyal, never talked about their private lives." On Natalie's gay friends, see, for instance, pages 199-202, 272-74 and 302 of Lambert's Wood biography. See [34]. It should also be noted that Lambert was a close friend to Natalie Wood and Nicholas Ray, director of Rebel without a Cause, and that he was the only biographer who had access to the diaries and other private papers of Wood. He certainly knew lots of things going on behind the screen at that time. See also this photograph showing Elvis Presley, Natalie Wood and Nick Adams: [35]. Onefortyone 19:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup prose in sexuality sub section

I cleaned up the prose in this section but was extremely careful not to change any content. Please feel free to revise. I don't think some of this gossip has much of a place in an encyclopedia article about this guy but as worded (both before and after my cleanup) it does seem to debunk more than promote dodgy tabloid notions which have sold some print but for which there continues to be zero documented evidence (only hearsay years after his death). Anyway I hope my cleanup has made the section a breezier read. Thanks. Wyss 21:00, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up the prose. It seems to be O.K. to me. And welcome back to Wikipedia. Just an additional question. Which source says that Adams called himself a "pool hustler"? Onefortyone 18:40, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Some additional notes: There are similar passages in Wikipedia articles on other stars, for instance, on the Cary Grant page:

In 1932 he met fellow actor Randolph Scott on the set of Hot Saturday, and the two developed a close friendship, sharing a rented house for twelve years. The beach house they shared was known as "Bachelor Hall" and was frequently visited by women guests. However, rumors ran rampant at the time that Grant and Scott were actually lovers and that the name "Bachelor Hall" was made up by the studio to keep their two valuable stars from being thrust into scandal. The story is dismissed by many fans and by at least one of his wives, Betsy Drake, as unfounded. Biographers disagree on whether Grant was bisexual. While Elliot as well as Higham and Moseley are clear as that Grant was bisexual, McCann dismisses the claims as simply rumors.

On the Randolph Scott page we read:

Scott shared a beach house with Cary Grant for twelve years in California , known as "Bachelor Hall" that was frequented by many female guests. It is however rumored that Scott and Grant were actually romantically involved, and that the moniker of "Bachelor Hall" and supposed parade of women were invented by the studio who wanted to keep their valuable actors away from any public scandal.

Interestingly, there was no such long dispute about these rumors on their talk pages. Such rumors are part of the history of celebrity stars and should be mentioned in the related articles, especially if they are backed up by several independent sources. Onefortyone 18:40, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh heh. Hey Onefortyone. I'm sure you'll remedy that. Have fun! :) Wyss 19:17, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

More on the sexuality section

• Does anyone notice (including my good friend Onefortyone) that the sexuality section represents about half of the text content comprising this article?

• Given that it contains published but wholly unsupported gossip for which there is no documented evidence in fact, does this represent reasonable encyclopedic balance, or does it have potential to mislead readers?

• I have zero problem with this material being noted in a rumours/sexuality section (I was the one who first implemented this solution, many months ago).

• I propose that Onefortyone and I, without urgence or any rush, think about how this section can be shortened to a more reasonable length without losing any significant information. We could even come up with a draft here on the talk page and then transfer it into the article once an informal consensus was assured.

• The disputed tag could be removed if the section were cleaned up and made concise.

• I do appreciate the work everyone has done to make this section balanced and accurate, my only concern is that it's too long.

• Comments are appreciated. If for whatever reason, it's not possible to tidy up the length at this time, that's ok. Thanks for reading this. Wyss 15:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

This version is much shorter:

Nick Adams' sexuality

His sexuality is a matter of debate. Long after his death, some biographers and writers claimed Adams may have been gay or bisexual and may have had relationships with actor James Dean and singer Elvis Presley. In his 1986 gossip book Conversations With My Elders, chronicler of gay Hollywood Boze Hadleigh said that actor Sal Mineo told him in 1972: "I didn't hear it from Jimmy (James Dean), who was sort of awesome to me when we did Rebel. But Nick told me they had a big affair." In his 2004 biography Natalie Wood: A Life, biographer, screenwriter and Hollywood chronicler Gavin Lambert, who was a member of the gay Hollywood circles of the 1950s and 1960s, wrote in passing (p. 199) that Wood's "first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams." Some authors such as Boze Hadleigh and Peter Guralnick called Adams a Hollywood hustler (although Adams called himself a pool hustler). In her autobiography Miss Rona (1974), Rona Barrett says Adams "had become the companion to a group of salacious homosexuals." According to Byron Raphael and reputed Elvis biographer Alanna Nash, "There were ... rumors that Nick Adams swung both ways, just as there had been about Adams’s good pal (and Elvis’s idol) James Dean. Tongues wagged that Elvis and Adams were getting it on." Similar claims about the close relationship between Presley and Adams can be found in books by Earl Greenwood and David Bret.

However, Adams was known in Hollywood for embellishing and inventing stories about his show business experiences and had long tried to capitalize on his associations with James Dean and Elvis Presley. In his brief online biography of Adams, journalist Bill Kelly wrote, "(Adams) became James Dean's closest pal, although Nick was straight and Dean was bisexual." Kelly also stated that Adams wrote in his diary that he taught actress Natalie Wood the art of love making. Furthermore, there are no court documents or personal letters from Adams or statements by alleged male lovers which undoubtedly prove that Adams was gay. On the other hand, being outed as homosexual at that time could instantly end an actor's career. Thus most gay and lesbian actors in America were forced to keep their sexuality a secret and lead double lives. Onefortyone 14:50, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey Onefortyone,

• I added one little bit ... (although Adams called himself a pool hustler)

• Always subject to input from other editors, I think the shorter version you posted here is still too long but nevertheless is far more succinct and helpful. If you're ok with the "pool hustler" qualifier, I propose we agree to insert this text as a replacement.

• Again, others are encouraged to comment and edit. Wyss 19:32, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Divorce... what divorce?

Thank you for having discovered this document, Ted. I am not sure what this means. Could it be that Carol Nugent is mentioned as Adams's official widow because the divorce was not through at the time of his death? If so, this information may be added to the article.

The likeliest explanation why Carol Adams was listed as Nick's spouse on his death certificate is that the divorce had not become final when he died. My name is Peter L. Winkler. I am the author of the article about Nick Adams available at Crime Magazine. I am appalled at the way this "discussion" has proceeded, including the way in which the credibility of my artice and my sources has been questioned.

My article (originally published in Filmfax magazine)derives from such shabby, unreliable sources as The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, The Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Herald Examiner, as well as interviews with Adams's friends and colleagues and E!'s 1999 episode of Mysteries and Scandals featuring Adams's son Jeb Adams, Robert Conrad and Jay Bernstein (Adams's friend and publicist). I inserted the quote of Jeb Adams on his father's custody dispute as well as referencing the Los Angeles newspapers in an effort to make it not just clear, but indisputable from reliable sources that Adams and his wife were engaged in divorce and custody proceedings from 1965-1968. I have researched Adams's life and career and don't have to fabricate sources, since they are easily available and verifiable. The article by Bill Kelley that has been referred to is unreliable, to say the least. It was once carried by the Crime Magazine web site until I demonstrated to the sites' publisher that Kelley's article was erroneous. He removed it and published mine. [Peter L. Winkler]

On the other hand, Nick Adams's divorce from his wife is mentioned on the several webpages:

• "... he had waged a long and tedious divorce and custody battle with his ex-wife, Carol Nugent... Nick won an expensive custody battle after proving that Carol was an unfit mother because she was having an affair with a fellow named Paul Rapp." See [36]
• "He had a troubled life, which included separating from his wife (but retaining custody of his 2 children)..." See [37] and [38]
• "His personal life was in turmoil as well, as he and wife Carol Nugent became increasingly estranged." See [39]
• "... unfortunately by the time he got back to the states it had already severed his marriage with actress Carol Nugent." See [40]
• "Married to actress Carol Nugent, and his divorce from her was expensive. However, he won the case, since it was proved Nugent had an affair, and he was given custody of their two children." See [41]

Here is the best account of Adams's divorce from his wife:

• "While appearing on 'The Les Crane Show' the following evening to plug Young Dillinger, Nick shocked audiences by announcing that he was leaving his wife. ... After that announcement, Nick's career and personal life went into a tragic free fall. Nick and Carol publicly announced a reconciliation a week later, on Jan. 19. ... Alienated from Carol, Nick fell in love with actress Kumi Mizuno and even proposed marriage to her later. ... Nick and Carol's reconciliation didn't survive Japan. At the end of July 1965, they decided on a legal separation. Carol filed for divorce in September. Nick was still in Japan when Carol was granted a divorce and custody of the children on Oct. 12. On Jan. 26, 1966, Nick and Carol announced another reconciliation on a local television show, 'Bill John's Hollywood Star Notebook.' It wouldn't last. ... On Nov. 26, 1966, Carol resumed divorce proceedings and obtained a restraining order against Nick. Carol alleged that Nick was 'prone to fits of temper' and in a special affidavit charged that Nick had 'choked her, struck her and threatened to kill her during the past few weeks.' 'I'm going to fight this thing all the way,' Nick said. 'I want to keep possession of my home and possession of my children.' It was the beginning of an acrimonious, contested divorce and child-custody battle. Nick became enraged after discovering that Carol's boyfriend was physically disciplining his children and telling them that Nick was 'a bad man' and a 'bad daddy.' Nick hired an attorney, former L.A.P.D. officer Ervin Roeder. Robert Conrad says, 'He (Roeder) was a very, very tough guy and he was a kind of man that was tough to like.' Nick got a restraining order prohibiting Carol's boyfriend from coming to the family home and being in the presence of the children. On Jan. 20, 1967, while waiting for a court hearing to begin, Nick was served with an $110,000 defamation suit by the boyfriend. Ervin Roeder's job was to wrest custody of Allyson and Jeb Adams from their mother. It was one he did well. On Jan. 31, Nick won temporary custody of his children. It was a hollow victory in his tug of war with his wife. Jeb Adams said, 'He saw it as a competition, basically, more than anything of getting custody of us. But, a matter of a week or two later, he gave us back to my mom.' She later regained legal custody of her children." See [42] Onefortyone 01:26, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I've interpreted every source I've ever seen on this as meaning they did divorce. Now I'm looking at a death certificate that says NA was married to Carol Nugent when he died. It could be a mistake by whoever supplied the information to the coroner, but the language on the certificate is not ambiguous: It does not list Nugent as the "official widow." It lists Nick Adams as "married" and the "spouse" is Carol Nugent. Wyss 01:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

You are right that Nugent is not listed as "official widow". Therefore, could it be that the person who filled out the death certificate did not really know that Nick Adams got a divorce or at least had started the divorce process? Onefortyone 00:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

REALLY? - The Death Certificate "Informant" is Nick Adams' wife, Carol L. Adams but you are using meaningless diatribe to obfuscate matters (again) to hide from your libelous fabrication that Carol L. Adams was an "unfit mother". - Ted Wilkes

I've seen this certificate before by the way, but was looking at the cause of death and didn't pay any attention to Nugent being listed on it. Wyss 01:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Findadeath.com doesn't say they were divorced, only that they were separated [43]. Wyss 02:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Crimemagazine.com seems to contradict itself, saying Carol was granted a divorce on 12 Oct 1965, but a few paragraphs later says that after a failed reconciliation, on "Nov. 26, 1966, Carol resumed divorce proceedings." [44] Wyss 02:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The author of this article seems to know a lot about Nick Adams's life and divorce. Is there a chance to contact the author and ask him for additional details? Onefortyone 00:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The author of that article sounds confused and sloppy, not knowledgeable at all. Wyss 01:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, I kind of hate to say this but the only documented evidence we have is his death certificate which says they were still married when he died in Feb 1968. Wyss 02:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Onefortyone continues to play games and waste other good contributors time by massive text filled with references to sources that he was already advised were not acceptable as per Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online sources which says: "personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, are not acceptable as sources. " Crimemagazine.com is one of these, it is the personal website of someone calling himself Bill Kelly and it is filled with errors and deliberate misinformation. Other web sources do what Onefortyone does and merely repeats some of these same claims but without facts. A death certificate is an absolute and irrefutable fact and it is no "mistake". Note that the death certificate "informant" who supplied the medical examiners office details was Carol L. Adams. However, the issue is the libelous statement that Onefortyone knowingly and deliberately inserted into the article that said: "He won this bitter court battle after proving that his wife was an unfit mother because she had an affair with another man." - Ted Wilkes 14:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Ted, the truth is that this information comes from journalist Bill Kelly: "Nick won an expensive custody battle after proving that Carol was an unfit mother because she was having an affair with a fellow named Paul Rapp." See [45]. As you may know, there are no books about the life of Nick Adams. Such publications are the only sources we have. Onefortyone 00:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Carol L. Adams is clearly Carol L. Nugent, using her married name. The overwhelming evidence provided by this certificate is that they were still married, but separated, when he died. Wyss 14:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Where does it say they were separated? - Ted Wilkes 15:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

His rented house was on Robles in BH (where the body was discovered, as listed on the certificate). El Roble (no s in the name btw) is a short street off Coldwater Canyon Dr. Her address is listed as Robin Drive, which is a few hundred yards southeast in Bel Air (in effect, walking distance, or a two minute drive... I've been in that neighbourhood many times and although the streets curve around a lot, those two houses are pretty close to each other). We know they were separated and that there was some sort of a custody battle for the two kids (note: Do we know this? How do we know some garden variety marital problems weren't blown all out of proportion after he died?). I've also read that he was still supporting her and the kids when he died. I must add, however, that this death certificate calls into question almost everything I've read about his personal life during the 1960s. There have clearly been so many layers of distortion regarding this obscure actor's personal life through the years that most of what's been written about it seems rather suspect to me. I'll add there's still zero evidence to support the more "gossipy" assertions carried by many dodgy websites and asserted by a certain editor here (which the WP article at least does mention as having no substance... if the reader can wade through all the spurious speculation and generalising). I think a rumours section in the article would still be helpful since these rumours are so widespread. Seems to me they need some serious debunking for what they are- tabloid cruft. Wyss 15:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

You are right about it being tabloid cruft. The death certificate was in fact issued well after his death. Note, there was an autopsy then the certificate says the body had been shipped to Pennsylvania and was buried. On the night he died, Carol Adams and her children were visting her sister Judy Nugent-Taylor at her ranch in Montana. Like most normal human beings, she would not add to their horrific trauma and move herself and her young children back into the house where he died. When the death certificate was issued weeks later, she was living (temporarily) on Robin Drive arranged by Buck Taylor, Judy Nugent's husband. Buck Taylor commuted back and forth between his ranch and Los Angles where he kept an apartment because he was then part of the regular cast on Gunsmoke. - Ted Wilkes 15:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think those are apartments on Robin Drive. I'm pretty sure it's all houses there (and would have been back then, too). However, the Robin Drive address isn't necessarily where she was living when he died. Also, I don't think they were living together on El Roble in the house where he died but Ted Wilkes, I'm suspect of everything I've read. Are you saying you can document she was living at El Roble with him and the kids but they were away when he overdosed? Wyss 16:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Note, the certificate is dated sometime in March (the number is obscured), about a month after he died, plenty of time for Carol to change her address. It seems to confirm they were still married. I do agree that in itself, the cert provides no evidence they were even separated at the time. Wyss 16:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I said Buck Taylor "arranged" a living place for them. However, he may well have been the tenant in a duplex apartment house rather than a "highrise" apartment and being near her sister for visting makes sense. I'm quoting a member of the family. Nevertheless, if Onefortyone's fraudlent claim that the Supreme Court of California declared Carol Nugent an "unfit mother" isn't removed, a lawyer will see that it is. BTW, IMDb has ceased accepting "Trivia" on their website as a result of a lawsuit. - Ted Wilkes 16:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• It's unlikely those were apartments of any kind on Robin drive, but renting out guest houses in that neighbourhood (small structures out back originally built for servants or elderly relatives) is common.

• Ted WIlkes, please please please take back your remark "a lawyer will see that it is" immediately. Do this right now!

• Were Nick and Carol separated or not when he died? Was there a legal custody battle? What's your source? Wyss 16:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The only reference to an unfit mother in the article is:

"No such claim was ever filed in court and it is reported that Adams fought for custody of his two children and won a bitter court battle after proving that his wife was an unfit mother because she had an affair with another man."

Nothing about the California Supreme Court there. However, as I noted above, I've become rather skeptical about everything I've ever read about NA's marriage to and "divorce" from CN, other than the fact they had two kids and some marital spats. They do not seem to have been divorced. There is some evidence of a separation since one of the kids have been quoted as saying after NA won custody of them, he turned the kids back over to her. I'll say this, it appears that the article's current presentation of NA's marriage may be deeply flawed. Wyss 17:16, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Custody is ONLY heard in the Superior Court of California. (my error, not Supreme as it is in some other jurisdictions) Onefortyone, as I stated in my complaint to the ArbCom, asserted "unfit mother" in a divorce paragrah as an absolute fact. What is the source quoting his kid - another trash personal website. You, Wyss, as I stated to the ArbCom, aren't allowed to edit his lies so did your best by inserting "reported." Had you done more, the ArbCom would have banned you. I have found nothing that verifies they were ever separated. It's irrelevant, anyway. The issue is the deliberate insertion of false and libelous information by Onefortyone. I believe this so-called "custody battle" is pure fabrication but I certainly don't know and only court documents would show that. What we know for an encyclopedic fact is his death certificate with her as "surviving spouse" and as the "informant" listing herself as Carol L. Adams. We waste too much time allowing Onefortyone to spin us in circles with nothing but unsubstantiated nonsense to support his mission. Note how he put David Bret in the article in violation of his Wikipedia:Probation. And there is more... coming. - Ted Wilkes 17:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw 141's edits. Anyway they clearly weren't divorced and sad to say, if 141 is the source of the Jeb Adams quote, his past editing history (as characterised by arbcomm I might hastily add) indicates that the Jeb Adams quote may be (or is even likely to be) made up from whole cloth. Without that quote, there is zero evidence they were even separated (even the gossip web sites talk about her traveling to Japan with Nick and lots of back and forth between them). Even without the additional info you're asserting here, the death certificate unambiguously refutes certain statements made in the article. As I noted on the admin noticebaord yesterday, I do think arbcomm should re-open the RfA. Wyss 17:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Just a question. Who is Jeb Adams? Onefortyone 00:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Onefortyone?! You support an increasingly dubious assertion that NA and CN were separated/divorced by tossing out a cite attributed Jeb Adams and now claim you don't know who he is?

Sorry for confusing the names. I was thinking you were talking about Nick Adams. However, I am still of the opinion that this passage from the Winkler article is important:

Ervin Roeder's job was to wrest custody of Allyson and Jeb Adams from their mother. It was one he did well. On Jan. 31, Nick won temporary custody of his children. It was a hollow victory in his tug of war with his wife. Jeb Adams said, 'He saw it as a competition, basically, more than anything of getting custody of us. But, a matter of a week or two later, he gave us back to my mom.' She later regained legal custody of her children. Onefortyone 01:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I used to give that crimemagazine article some creedance, but when every bit of documented evidence or verifiable secondary source material contradicts everything published on these gossipy websites about Nick Adams' personal life, I've come to the obvious conclusion: None of it is very reliable. We don't really know what Roeder's role was (and he was shot dead with his wife in 1981, so he hasn't been available for a couple of decades), and actors need lawyers for stuff other than custody battles. They also sometimes become friends with them. Wyss 01:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, the article seems to be well sourced. Your argument is only based on the fact that the death certificate says that Adams was still married at the time of his death. There is no information about a divorce process which may have been started in 1965 or 1966. It could well be that the legal procedure of divorce was not completed at the time of Adams's death. Winkler relates so many details on different aspects of the actor's life. He must have talked to many people who knew Adams well. Is there a chance to contact this man by email? Onefortyone 01:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

My remarks are based on the cold, hard reality that there is zero documented evidence to support any of your assertions, which now include your assertion that NA and CN were divorced. Absent a verifiable copy of a court document pertaining to a divorce or custody battle or whatever (a copy in a verifiable, published secondary source would be ok), the death certificate trumps the gossipy websites (which by the way also infer lots of other stuff wholly unsupported by the documented record, like winking hints that NA was murdered and so on, when the death certificate records the autopsy conclusion that he died of an overdose either accidently or through suicide). Wyss 01:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

For interested readers, Jeb Stuart Adams is Nick Adams son. There is now some doubt whether the quote provided by 141 is accurate (or perhaps it was offered wholly out of context, since the quote itself doesn't contain the words "separation," "divorce", "unfit mother," "court case" or anything like them). Wyss 00:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't our use of the death certificate to make statements about Adams amount to original research? Unless someone has already published it, we're not supposed to paying it any attention at all. There was a similar issue over at James Robertson Justice. It appears we're perpetuating inaccurate birth information about him (wrong date, wrong place), but our policy is to use only published sources even if we're pretty sure they're wrong. JackofOz 20:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• What false information? The birth date on the cert matches that listed in the article, same for birthplace (Pennsylvania).

• The death certificate is published by secondary source Findadeath.com, we can look at it and draw from it.

• For that matter, a death cert published by Los Angeles county would be a suitable source. WP policy specifically does not forbid the use of verifiable primary sources, it forbids original research (which is to say, drawing or extrpolating inferences or secondary conclusions, i.e., "NA was born in a Pennsylvania coal mining town during the Great Depression, therefore it is likely that his father was a poor coal miner.")

• Reading the word "married" off a published death certificate is not original research, nor would be ascertaining other basic facts like birth and death dates, spouse name etc, especially if the certificate is cited. Wyss 23:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with that assessment. Birth certificates are verifiable, especially when published by 3rd parties. The only thing we need to avoid is drawing conclusions from source material, which would be original research. But the bare facts are not. -Will Beback 23:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I was referring to James R Justice's birth certificate, not Nick Adams' certificate. What we currently say about JRJ's birth date and place does not match his certificate at all. Someone tried to correct it last year, but it was reverted on the basis of the "no original research" policy. Clearly, interpretations of that policy differ. I prefer yours, and I will copy your arguments above to support a correction of JRJ's article. Thanks. JackofOz 23:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh! Thanks for clearing that up :) Feel free to let me know on my talk page if you need any help over there on this. Wyss 00:07, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Will do. I've made the changes. Thanks. JackofOz 01:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

More Fabrications by Onefortyone while on probation

Note what convicted liar Onefortyone says on this talk page with a large bold heading: "Peter Guralnick confirms that Adams was a Hollywood hustler" and put it in the Wikipedia Encyclopedia biography. "Hustler" was never used by Peter Guralnick in reference to Nick Adams sexuality as Onefortyone fraudulently inserted in the article. Nowhere in his book did Guralnick ever refer to Nick Adams sexuality. Guralnick's statement, in "Last Train to Memphis" was deliberately quoted out of context by Onefortyone in order to deceive, states on page 328: "On his second day on the set he met twenty-five-year-old Nick Adams, a Hollywood "hustler" who had originally brazened his way into the cast of Mister Roberts two years before by doing impressions of the ... " On page 410 Guralnick says that Nack Adams close friend Russ Tamblyn saw Nick as something of a "hustler." – In the same book on page 328, Guralnick also refers to famous Disc Jockey Bill Randle as a "hustler."

Would you please stop calling me a "convicted liar", as this is certainly a personal attack. Guralnick clearly says that Nick Adams was a "Hollywood hustler." In his book Hollywood Gays, author Boze Hadleigh writes that the diminutive yet reputedly well-hung actor may have "hustled while looking for acting jobs in the 1950s." Adams expert Peter L. Winkler says that "Nick Adams and James Dean may have become lovers and worked the streets of Los Angeles as hustlers in the down and out days when both were struggling nobodies." Other sources also state that Adams worked, with his friend James Dean, as a street hustler when he first arrived in Hollywood. See, for instance, [46]. Onefortyone 00:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Note in the Elvis Presley article it says:

• Marty Lacker, a lifelong friend and a member of the Memphis Mafia, says he thought of Parker as a "hustler and scam artist" who abused Elvis's reliance on him.

Further, both Peter Guralnick and Alanna Nash, like most people, frequently use the term "hustler" in their writings and without exception it is only to describe a type of self-promoter

Merriam-Webster Online definition "Hustler (Hustle)" –

• to obtain by energetic activity <hustle up new customers> b : to sell something to or obtain something from by energetic and especially underhanded activity <hustling the suckers> c : to sell or promote energetically and aggressively <hustling a new product> d : to lure less skillful players into competing against oneself at (a gambling game) <hustle pool>

NOTE: "to engage in prostitution" is TENTH in Webster's order of definition but again, Guralnick never once used the word in that context – ever.

Alanna Nash uses the term huster multiple times in "The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley," all of which describe a type of self-promoter:

• page 1 - from Parker's hope to impress Eddy than anything else, since Eddy still hadn't made up his mind about this uneducated "hustler" with the faulty English.

• p. 38 - more impressive than a carny (circus performers traditionally look down their noses at carnival workers, whom they consider merely cheap hustlers ), he was far more modest in recounting his pachyderm past to Byron Raphael in the late 1950s.

• P.73 - the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas, that summer day, Andreas van Kuijk unmasked Tom Parker for what he was, the "hustler" extraordinaire

• P. 319 as the ambitious young sideshow "hustler" Stanton Carlisle, encounters his first gloaming geek.

• P. 326 The Bear was a "hustler" to be reckoned with.

The text of the Nick Adams article further deliberately misleads with the following in the so-called "Sexuality" section:

• "though Guralnick says about the nights Elvis spent in Hollywood that "Nick Adams and his gang came by the suite all the time."

This incomplete reference comes from Page 72 of Guralnick's "Careless Love : The Unmaking of Elvis Presley" and has zero to do with "Sexuality." Nick Adams "gang" included his roommate Dennis Hopper and close friend, actor Russ Tamblyn (mentioned above) plus another good friend Red West, a Memphis Mafia member and actor and stuntman who was a stuntman on Adams TV show, The Rebel. Red West married one of Elvis's secretaries. Note that Adams was equally as much a friend of the members of the Memphis Mafia as he was Presley. On page 179, Guralnick refers to Nick Adams as "Their" old pal movie actor Nick Adams. It also says Sammy Davis, Jr. hung out with Presley in those days.

- Ted Wilkes 17:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

In her recent Playboy article, Alanna Nash clearly says that "[Natalie] Wood was not the only one to think Elvis and the guys might be homosexual, especially since Elvis often wore pancake makeup and mascara offstage to accentuate his brooding intensity, a la Tony Curtis and Rudolph Valentino, his favorite movie actors. There were also rumors that Nick Adams swung both ways, just as there had been about Adams’s good pal (and Elvis’s idol) James Dean. Tongues wagged that Elvis and Adams were getting it on." Onefortyone 00:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

To put this all in context, readers are strongly urged to read 141's first edit ever to this article on June 1 2005. Readers will note that every substantive assertion it contains about NA (never mind his original characterisation of Natalie Wood, which he quickly backed down from) has been shown on these talk pages to either be wholly unsupported or outright fabrication. Wyss 17:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Wyss, you are wrong. The information I use for my contributions comes from Web pages and published articles and books. For lists of famous gay people including Nick Adams, see [47] or [48]. Gavin Lambert, in his book, Natalie Wood: A Life, says that Natalie Wood dated many gay men in Hollywood, including Nick Adams. When Lambert was asked "why did Wood have so many gay men in her life?" he replied: "I have two answers to that. One is specific to her, and the other is specific to a lot of actresses. Actresses like gay men because they know there's going to be no problem of them making a pass, and therefore they feel that they are not being used and all that stuff." See [49]. James Dean claimed to have worked, with his friend Nick Adams, as a street hustler when he first arrived in Hollywood. See [50]. Onefortyone 00:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey 141, I do feel bad that I always have to contradict you and I'm sorry about that. I know you'll likely never concede the notion that according to WP written policy there is a docking difference between "published articles and books" and verifiable secondary and primary sources, never mind the spin you tend to put on every sentence you write (I refer to your unceasing distortion of the term "hustler" as it was applied to NA during his life- he was a bullshit artist, which for actors is considered a legitimate if tacky way to get work, not a male prostitute). There is zero documented evidence to support any of your claims, only tabloid hearsay and gossip which are not acceptable sources under WP policy. Maybe you truly believe this shite, but it's wholly unsupported. The only reason there has been any open-mindedness at all about discussing this stuff is that Adams was so relatively ignored and obscure that there isn't that much reliable source material available on him, and what exists is wontedly conflated with codswallop gossip. However, the more verifiable information I see on this guy, the more I'm forced to utterly discount your assertions. Moreover, although I'm sure they had their marital spats, even those look much less serious than what the gossip mongers have been churning out in the years since his death (all to link him with tabloid book-selling, wholly unsupported and often fabricated gossip about Elvis Presley and James Dean, two long-dead and very famous celebs by the bye). Wyss 00:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Readers are also invited to read this current exchange over at the Village Pump about the use of tabloid sources in WP articles. Note that the consensus of remarks is that tabloid sources are unreliable and unacceptable. Wyss 18:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

This page at IMDB states that Nugent was married to Adams until his death. Wyss 18:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Further questions

Just a question. Are you sure that the person who filled out the death certificate really knew that Nick Adams got a divorce? Further, could it be that the divorce process had been started but the legal procedure of divorce was not completed at the time of Adams's death?

From the California Divorce Guide:

Divorce begins when one party makes a decision to go forward and files a Petition for Dissolution on Judicial Council Form No. 1281. The other party answers with a document called a Response on Judicial Council Form No. 1282. Both documents request certain statistical information and a specification of the relief that the parties want from the court. Although much of the information appears to be innocuous, some of the blocks or blanks, such as date of separation, can, in many cases, require some fairly sophisticated legal analysis and have a profound impact on the property division in the case. The next phase is one where orders or agreements are reached which will stabilize the situation during the divorce process. It is common to file a notice of motion on order to show cause (OSC) seeking temporary support, custody orders and temporary restraining orders. These orders or agreements are necessary to be certain that neither party takes any actions that will adversely affect the community during the divorce process. Failing to establish these temporary ground rules in the beginning can tremendously prejudice one of the parties down the line and can also make it much more difficult and expensive to resolve the case. During the discovery phase, both parties need to ascertain what assets and obligations exist, whether they are community or separate, their values, the income they will produce, and any other claims or allegations which are likely to have an impact on the division of community property, custody of children, or support obligations. The amount and form of discovery is usually commensurate with the anticipated size of the estate and the likelihood that one of the spouses may have hidden or mischaracterized assets. If your spouse is seeking long-term spousal support, you may want to do some discovery as to the nature of his or her claims, prospects for future employment, verification of living expenses, etc. Once the parties feel they have enough information to settle the property and support aspects of their case, the negotiation phase can begin. There is no "standard" way that this occurs, it varies with the facts of the case and the personalities of the participants. Many times, it will begin with exchanges of written settlement offers in the form of letters that may attempt to resolve individual issues or achieve a global settlement. The letters attempt to resolve or narrow the issues, until, hopefully, a total agreement is reached. There is no magic formula for settling a family law case. It varies with the complexity of the case, the personalities of the parties, the relationship of the attorneys and the general circumstances of the case. Many courts want pretrial statements or trial briefs that provide evidentiary road maps and legal argument for the court to follow during the trial. All in all, a lot of attorney time goes into trial preparation. Many cases that are going to settle wait until the courthouse steps to do so. If attempts at a complete settlement fail, then unresolved issues are submitted to a family law judge for resolution. This is done in a contested trial in which the rules of civil procedure will be followed and the rules of evidence more or less adhered to. Many times, evidence is admissible by one party, but not by another; admissible for one purpose but not for another; admissible if one person is present to say it, but not admissible if someone else testifies to it; and appropriate if a question is asked one way but not another. Lawyers spend years mastering the nuances of the rules of evidence.

No judgment of divorce is final until six months have elapsed from the date the respondent was served with a copy of the summons and petition or the date of appearance of the respondent, whichever comes first, etc. etc.

Divorces in California are recorded. Address:

Office of Vital Records
Department of Health Services
MS: 5103
P.O. Box 997410
Sacramento, CA 95899-7410

Cost of copy: $13.00. Fee is for search and identification of county where certified copy can be obtained (years 1962 thru June 1984 only). Onefortyone 00:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The death certificate for Nick Adams was issued after a frickin autopsy, a month after he died, 141. It says he was married when he died and his wife, Carol L. Adams, is listed as an informant. In absence of verfiable documentation that he was divorced, the death certificate is overwhelming evidence NA was married to CN when he died. Wyss 00:49, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

However, the death certificate does not say that there was no divorce process. Onefortyone 00:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Very funny 141 :) It also doesn't say how he liked his eggs cooked, or how much money he had when he died. It does say he was married. Wyss 00:59, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

To put this bluntly, I'm none too happy with myself, either. I saw that death certificate months ago but had read on so many different web sites (maybe half a dozen) that they were divorced I didn't even think to read the whole thing... I was only interested in the cause of death. I always assumed they were divorced, which according to the death certificate is not true and the websites all got their sloppy information about this relatively obscure actor from the same corrupted tabloid sources. Wyss 01:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not think that all this information comes from corrupted tabloid sources. Is it really so important to know that Adams may still have been married at the time of his death? There is much evidence that his married state existed on paper only, especially during the last years of his life. More important is that Adams seems to have had homosexual leanings. Reputed author and Hollywood chronicler Gavin Lambert, for instance, clearly says that Adams was gay. Adams expert Peter L. Winkler, who also mentions such claims, seems to have had access to several primary sources including some persons who knew the actor well, as there are so many details mentioned in his article. Onefortyone 02:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

You're still citing unsupported, hearsay tabloid sources. The notion that they're "published" is insufficient under WP guidelines, which state that sources must be reliable and verifiable. It seems that, whenever we run across an assertion of yours that turns out to be verifiable, it also turns out to be false, fabricated, or distorted beyond recognition.

There remains zero documented evidence to support your assertions about his personal life, which have included a claim that he was divorced. This claim, divorce, is also included prominantly in the gossip sources you cite. His death certificate states that he was married. Yet again, one of your assertions have been shown to be mistaken. Yeah, I'd say that's rather important. If more editors gave a luzz about this particular topic (Nick Adams), which they don't, your assertions would have been removed by overwhelming consensus long ago, like they were over at Elvis Presley.

As flawed as WP can be in the social sciences, and while a determined editor can distort an obscure article for months on end, I do agree that WP articles do tend towards scholarly accuracy over time. I suspect that eventually, one way or another, the encyclopedic aspects of WP's process will prevail over WP's traffic generating bloggishness here, too. Maybe you think all this codswallop about NA is true but the evidence indicates it's not. What the evidence does indicate is that this gossip has been made up and gradually built upon over the past 38 years by sundry, opportunistic creative writers in order to pitch worthless tabloid books with mega sales potential, not about Mr Adams, but about his friends Elvis Presley and James Dean (whose article, I might add, has once again descended into a meandering and unscholarly blog entry). Follow the money and all that.

I've no hope of ever convincing or swaying you, so I should add that I'm writing this for other editors to ponder. Hey, by the way, these very hours, LA time, are the 38th anniversary of his tragic, likely accidental death. Way to go Nick, someone's still talkin' about you ;) I feel like watching Picnic (movie), which is how I originally got involved in this mess of an article. Wyss 03:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

You should remember, Wyss, what the arbcom says about sources for popular culture:

Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources do not specifically address the reliability required with respect to popular culture such as celebrity gossip, but it is unrealistic to expect peer reviewed studies. Therefore, when a substantial body of material is available...the best material available is acceptable...

The arbcomm members who were responsible for that statement were sadly mistaken and uninformed as to scholarly methodology. However, I respect arbcomm's decision on principle and trust they'll eventually fix their botch. Meanwhile, I support arbcomm and the WP process. Wyss 05:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Ted Wilkes and Wyss's view of the standard of editing

Ted Wilkes and Wyss have repeatedly insisted on an unrealistic standard with respect to negative information regarding celebrities that is current in popular culture, gossip and rumor Talk:James Dean#Removal of "Rumors" section [51] and Talk:Nick Adams#Rumors, gossip or speculation contravene official Wikipedia policy

Support:

1. Fred Bauder 14:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
2. ➥the Epopt 14:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
3. James F. (talk) 22:38, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
4. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
5. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
6. Raul654 19:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
7. Neutrality^talk 21:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a clear statement. Onefortyone 04:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Stark. I know it makes them look bad (for example, I never viewed your edits as "negative information" about Mr Adams and certainly don't consider the exclusion of wholly unsupported, often fabricated gossip as "unrealistic") but I'm sure it was only a lapse, a glitch. Please don't generalize your opinion of Wikipedia over one dodgy decision. It'll work itself out. Wyss 05:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I mean, look at it this way. If Mr Adams, as you originally asserted, did happen to have "the biggest piece in town" and was a successful male prostitute, intimately sharing a special pair of blue jeans with his film idol roommate James Dean with whom he was madly in love, don't you think a blowhard bullshit artist (er, sorry... I mean, "hustler") like Mr Adams would be proud of his prowess? I for one think he'd be tickled pink that everyone at last knew how adept, popular and successful he was. However, given that the evidence ever more indicates that all these gossip assertions are fabricated codswallop, it's true he might mostly have some concern about how his kids feel about their dad being lied about in order to sell tabloid product about Elvis Presley and James Dean but that's not even why I'd like to see scholarly principles applied to the content of this article. Wyss 06:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

ONEFORTYONE'S HEADING: Ted Wilkes and Wyss's view of the standard of editing.

Of course I can't speak for Wyss but I do know that Onefortyone edits only a few articles and all are attempts to label someone as gay. I also know that MY standard of editing can be easily seen in the more than 650 new articles I've created without fabricating anything. Simply put, my work at Wikipedia speaks for itself. That said, User:Onefortyone has tried again to mislead everyone in an attempt to cover up his previous fabrications. He asserts that: "Adams expert Peter L. Winkler, who also mentions such claims, seems to have had access to several primary sources including some persons who knew the actor well, as there are so many details mentioned in his article."

Same old tactic: repeat the same diatribe over and over that has already been dismissed to try to obfuscate matters and wear others down. This was discussed already. See above section and text by Onefortyone above on this page titled

• Further sources supporting the view that Adams had homosexual leanings

And the factual rebuttal in the subtitle:

• Line by line reason for deletion: (3) and repeated again yesterday, 14:25, 7 February 2006.

Onefortyone knows that this reference is to the personal website belonging to Pat O'Connor, a matter dicussed in detail on this Talk page several times by various parties and that was not acceptable to Onefortyone's Wikipedia Mentor FCYTravis. Such a reference is contrary to official policy at Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online sources that says: personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, are not acceptable as sources. '' Not only that, O'Connor's website is filled with errors as pointed out on this Talk page by Ted Wilkes & Wyss and in fact is filled with ludicrous assertions already spelled out on this page that quotes the unheard of person supposedly named Bill Dakota who is quoting a mysterious "Mr. Federici" about Adams and James Dean. This amateurish Internet crap in fact epitomizes all the reasons for the Wikipedia disallowal policy.

And Gavin Lambert? Onefortyone must mean another of his edit fabrications here that was reported to the ArbCom where Onefortyone didn't like what his Wikipedia Mentor FCYTravis wrote in the aricle and later knowingly and deliberately doctored (in red) his Wikipedia Mentor's writing to falsely assert that gay gossip writer Gavin Lambert knew Nick Adams:

• The basis for the claims, thus, are "statements by gay people who knew Adams well such as Gavin Lambert and" personal interviews allegedly to have taken place with third parties, the veracity of which are subject to debate and interpretation.

In fact, gossip author Gavin Lambert made a passing comment without proof in a book written in 2003, a comment that was most likely plucked from the aforementioned article on Pat O'Connor's personal website.

- Ted Wilkes 13:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

All of the massive writing here by Onefortyone is a repeat of what he has done at Talk:Elvis Presley, Talk:Natalie Wood and others. It is all a concentrated effort to divert attention from the issue of Onefortyone's repeated fabrications in violation of his Wikipedia:Probation, fabrications that included the vicious and degrading libelous statement he inserted into the Nick Adams article that stated as fact that the California Court declared in a judgment that Carol L. Adams was an "unfit mother." - Ted Wilkes 13:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I must agree, 141 is again editing by attrition with the same flawed/fabricated sources and cites (even when observed under an assumption of good faith). Wyss 14:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Negative information?

141 reminded me of a fundamental error made by arbcomm in their handling of this article and the RfA. I never edited the article for the purpose of removing "negative" or "damaging" or "unflattering" information about him. Truth be told, when I first stumbled across 141's edits, I thought something along the lines of... "Wow. I didn't know Nick Adams was gay. I guess it makes sense, though." If 141's edits had been written in an encyclopedic tone I would have likely accepted them blindly as true but of course the writing was horrid ("biggest piece in town," etc) so the first thing I did was clean it up, leaving the assertion intact. The article was no more than a stub though and as I looked into the details more, hoping to expand it, I quickly realized the sources were unreliable.

I've edited lots of articles about GLBT celebrities and am swayed but by the documented record. There are cases where I've added new information about someone being gay or lesbian or whatever. As far as I can recall, 141's edits are the only edits along these lines that I've ever disputed.

I only care about accuracy and following the documented record and am indifferent to moral judgements or making a case for someone's "image" based on their personal life. Editors who know a bit more about me understand where I'm coming from when I say this. I could give a luzz if NA was gay. I do care very much, however, that this article has been used as a platform for fabricated gossip targeted at selling tabloid cruft about Elvis Presley and James Dean (and I don't care what they did in bed or whatever either, only that WP follow scholarly methodology in mentioning whatever it was they did). 141 can twist my words, careless admins can misinterpret them, but my contribution history speaks for itself. Provide viable, verifiable sources (not any "published" drek one can find) and I'm all for including their content in the article.

One is mistaken to think that scholarly methodologies cannot be applied to biographies in the social sciences. Information is either verifiable or it's not (in this case, statements or a widely documented and verifiable pattern of behaviour by the subject, verifiable interviews, published letters, verifiable statements by credible witnesses and so on, which 141 has never provided). WP has dozens if not hundreds of articles about GLBT people which are totally uncontested, because the sources aren't contested and the material is presented in a balanced way using encyclopedic language. Wyss 16:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

(Oops, I have disputed one other editor's assertion of this kind and my view to exclude the cited source was accepted by the consensus. I'll provide details if asked.) Wyss 17:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I certainly agree that material must be presented in a balanced way using encyclopedic language but before that, the fabrications must stop. As I said earlier, all of the massive writing here on this Talk page by Onefortyone/Anon 80.141. is a repeat of what he has done at Talk:Elvis Presley, Talk:Natalie Wood and others. It is all a concentrated effort to divert attention from the issue of Onefortyone's repeated fabrications in violation of his Wikipedia:Probation, fabrications that included the vicious and degrading libelous statement he inserted into the Nick Adams article that stated as fact that the California Court declared in a judgment that Carol L. Adams was an "unfit mother." - Ted Wilkes 20:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

NPoV issue, failure of RfA

The sexuality section of the article is far too long and violates WP Policy Wikipedia:NPOV, undue weight. This is aggravated by the reality that the published gossip sources cited there have zero support in the documented record, rendering the entire topic second and third person hearsay sourced to unreliable tabloid publications. It is also poorly written, which makes it somewhat incoherent. Moreover, the RfA on this article, which was premised upon and resolved through false (albeit presumably good faith) presumptions, has failed to bring this article into conformance with WP policies pertaining to NPoV, scholarly sourcing and encyclopedic tone, structure and balance. The issues are sufficiently severe (and have so distorted the main text of the article with citations and references intended as side-arguments) that the entire entry has become at least somewhat misleading and at variance with the documented record. I have accordingly placed a global dispute tag on the article pending resolution of the failed RfA and my proposal to fix it (along with any other proposals which may come up). Wyss 18:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

"Tabloid source?"

Dude, Steve Ryfle's book ain't no tabloid source. It's considered the best researched book on the history of Godzilla ever written in the West. He did interviews with literally hundreds of people, including, yes, Adams's daughter. Do you actually want me to go get the exact quote? Thanos6 06:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Dude?! Anyway, given the misinformation that has piled up on Mr Adams since his death, sourcing requirements here need to be followed. His daughter's quote should be presented verbatim and it needs to be verifiable. I'm not too comfortable with a book on the history of Godzilla making a passing assertion about the circumstances of NA's death, however if you provide the quote and the exact book title I'm ok with putting it in the article with a reference in the text as to where it came from. Thanks for your understanding. Wyss 18:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I should add that Tip Roeder was an ex LA policeman and his violent shooting death years later was the result of a dispute unrelated to his former friend and client Nick Adams. Some websites do have a go at innuendo about this but it's wholly unsubstantiated and this isn't the place for it. Wyss 20:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed the following four (4) statements:

• 1) "The basis for these claims are statements by people who knew Adams well, such as Gavin Lambert, and personal interviews alleged to have taken place with third parties, the veracity of which are subject to debate and interpretation."
  • Please provide the source which proves that Gavin Lambert, whose book mentions Adams in passing was labelled as "gossip" by the Guardian newspaper, knew Nick Adams.

• 2) "No such claim was ever filed in court and it is reported that Adams fought for custody of his two children and won a bitter court battle after proving that his wife was an unfit mother because she had an affair with another man."
  • As Nick and Carole Adams were never divorced, please provide proof that such a court case exists, with case number, and the verbatim juddgment that declared her an unfit mother and took her children away from her.

• 3) "Some authors such as Boze Hadleigh and Peter Guralnick called Adams a Hollywood hustler (Adams called himself a "pool hustler")."
  • Peter Guralnick never used the word "hustler" to describe Nick adams' sexuality and this deliberate misrepresentation is in the "Sexuality" section.

• 4) "On the other hand, outing was not an option for a gay actor at that time. From the 1930s on, the Hays Code censored "indecent" references in films, notably references to homosexuality. There were "Doom Books" of actors who were considered "unsafe" because of their personal lives. Being outed as gay could instantly end an actor's career. Thus most gay and lesbian actors in America were forced to keep their sexuality a secret and lead double lives. Many of them tried to conceal their sexuality by entering into "lavender marriages". (None of which should be interpreted as meaning that Adams was necessarily a secret homosexual.)"
  • Inserting a hypothetical "Pitch" to try to insinuate someone might be homosexual is non-encyclopedic and an attempt to create an impression not supported by any facts of any kind. - Ted Wilkes 18:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

More text removed:

• 1) "though Guralnick says about the nights Elvis spent in Hollywood that "Nick Adams and his gang came by the suite all the time."
  • This has nothing to do with Adams' sexuality. He was a friend to Presley and the members of his entourage, and as authors Guralnick and Elaine Dundy plus author John Gilmore, who knew Adams and hung out with him, shows in their writings they were friends and his "gang" included Gilmore, Red West, and Adams' roommate Dennis Hopper.

• 2) "In her autobiography Miss Rona (1974), Rona Barrett says Adams "had become the companion to a group of salacious homosexuals."
  • This is unsubstantiated and is not in her out-of-print autobiography. The information was taken from a Personal Website (an offshore one with no address or location) in violation of Wikipedia policy and in fact that unacceptable website does NOT say it is in her book.

The quotation comes directly from Barrett's autobiography. That's where I, Peter L. Winkler, read it before quoting it in my article.

• 3) "According to Byron Raphael and reputed Elvis biographer Alanna Nash, "There were ... rumors that Nick Adams swung both ways, just as there had been about Adams’s good pal (and Elvis’s idol) James Dean. Tongues wagged that Elvis and Adams were getting it on." Similar claims about the close relationship between Presley and Adams can be found in a book by Earl Greenwood."
  • This is deliberately taken out of context to fit Onefortyone's agenda for which he is already on probation. The full article shows the opposite of this. Neither Nash or Byron Raphael ever at any time claimed Presly or Adams was gay.

• 4) Furthermore, at the time of his divorce in 1965, laws in existence at the time meant that homosexuality was admissible grounds in court for denying custody of children.
  • Irrelevant - Nick and Carole Adams were never divorced.

• 5)"Long after his death, some biographers and writers claimed Adams may have been gay or bisexual and may have had relationships with actor James Dean and singer Elvis Presley."
  • Who asserted that about Presley? The only one is David Bret and his tabloid book did so without any facts of any nature and Bret has been ruled as a non-credible source for Wikipedia. What exact sources ever said Adams and James Dean had a sexual relationship? Mutual friend John Gilmore who was there at the time says his friend James Dean avoided Adams and in his book Gilmore says Adams took advantage of Dean's death to gain publicity for himself. And, Gilmore never once, anywhere, mentions Adams as being gay.

- Ted Wilkes 19:41, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I also removed the External link to the Personal Website of someone calling himself Pat O'Connor that cannot be referenced as a source in accordance with official Wikipedia Policy. Note too, this "offshore" website has no address as required by U.S. law and as such lawsuits are extremely difficult as they must be filed in the country where the website is located. - Ted Wilkes 20:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

A traceroute puts the server for crimemagazine.com somewhere in the greater Boston MA USA area, so relative to WP's servers I don't think it qualifies for the term offshore. Moreover, Pat O'Connor is listed as the site's editor and although the site is clearly the work of a small business or publishing project, it's not a personal website. Reliability is another tale, but the reasons you give, Ted Wilkes, for deleting the link appear to be incorrect. Wyss 20:41, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

A traceroute doesn't mean a thing. All United States websites are required by law to post their full address and head office. It most certainly is a personal site. As Wikipedia:Reliable sources says: "At the other end of the reliability scale lie personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, which are not acceptable as sources." You, I. or anyone can create the same kind of crap website anytime and find/create "writers" who contribute without risk of lawsuit for libel because they don't provide an address. There is no way to know anything about this website or who Pat O'Connor is or any information of any kind about it. It is a website only. No more. - Ted Wilkes 21:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

A traceroute shows where a server is physically located, unambiguously. The server for that site resolves to the Boston MA USA region, you were mistaken when you said the site was "offshore" or whatever but that doesn't matter anyway in terms of WP linking and citing policy. Moreover, there is no evidence that website is personal, but plenty of indication it's a commercial small business or publishing project. The reasons you gave for removing the link are not only inaccurate as to fact, but they don't apply as to WP policy anyway. Finally, the possibility of bringing legal action against another website linked to from WP is of zero relevance. WP is not responsible for external links.

Now, I agree that the content about NA on that site appears to contain inaccuracies and for that reason alone it's not a helpful link. Wyss 23:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

"A traceroute shows where a server is physically located, unambiguously." - No it doesn't. Computer hackers and computer virus maniacs famously avoid them every minute of every day. A great many illegal sites operate on the Web from offshore and a few bucks of software will hide you or redirect a million times. If my memory is right, Tonga was the most famous for "anything goes" including no addresses and doing nothing about its websites hiding their origins behind a .com address. - Ted Wilkes 23:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

No, a traceroute will show any re-direct along with the major geographical hubs the packet has gone through. Even anonymous open proxies can't spoof their paths and general geographic location on a traceroute. That crimemagazine.com server is somewhere in the Boston USA area. A little more research could even yield a street address. Meanwhile, can you provide meaningful evidence the site is not in the US? As you ponder this, there are two more things you might want to keep in mind:

• The site maintainer could be uploading to the site from anywhere in the world, but the server is near Boston.

• None of this matters. Even if the site's editorial content originates outside the US, there is no WP policy against linking to non-US websites and/or non-US content. Wyss 06:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

New version of the Sexuality section

I have now included a shorter version of the Sexuality section which is based on published sources. It omits such parts of the text which are irrelevant. Let's discuss this version. It should be noted that, on 4 February, Wyss agreed to insert this text as a replacement. See [52]. Onefortyone 04:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I've learned more about the topic since then. I think the entire sexuality section is wholly unsupported and unverifiable, as discussed above. All the assertions and rumours stem from the single supposed "interview" with Mineo which is unverifiable (especially given the author's reputation). Wyss 07:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Source for Adams's daughter

Wyss wanted it, here it is.

The book is called Japan's Favorite Mon-Star: The Unauthorized Biography of "The Big G." The author is Steve Ryfle.

Nick Adams gets three pages, from 129 to 131. On page 130, Allyson Adams makes a few confirmations. One, on Mizuno:

"Yes, they [Adams and Mizuno] had an affair. That's one of the reasons my parents were divorced," says Adams' daughter, playwright Allyson Lee Adams. "My dad had a penchant for becoming infatuated with his leading ladies. It was a way for him to take on the role he was playing at the time. After the movie [Frankenstein] was shot, Saperstein threw a party in Tokyo and all the people from Toho were there, and we were invited. My dad was obviously infatuated with Kumi, to the point where the Americans there were embarassed for my mother."

And then, later on the page:

Nick Adams was just 36 when he died February 6, 1968, of an overdose of a prescription drug used to treat alcoholism. Because the actor had been on an emotional roller-coaster, his death was assumed a suicide, but Allyson Adams believes her father may have been killed. She says Adams had just returned from making a film in Mexico and was working out (he was an avid weight lifter) for another Hollywood comeback, and that the coroner's office changed the official cause of death from "natural causes" to "homicide" before finally ruling it suicide. Adding to the mystique is the fact that Adams' body was discovered by his attorney Irvin Roeder, who was gunned down in broad daylight on Wilshire Boulevard several years after Adams died. In the years since, Hollywood columnists have raised the specter of a plot to kill Adams, but it's a mystery that appears will never be solved.

Good enough, Wyss? Thanos6 06:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Nick Adams' death certificate says he was married at the time of his death (to Allyson's mother, who is listed on the cert as informant). Since the text contains such a fundamental inaccuracy, it brings into question everything else in the quoted passage. For example, Tip Roeder's death was unrelated to NA's. As I said before, I'm not comfortable with passing references to NA quoted in a Godzilla book anyway and now this. WP policy stipulates that article content must be verifiable. Since the Allyson Adams quote contains such a glaring error about NA's marital status, it doesn't seem reliable, much less verifiable. Wyss 06:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The text immediately preceding the Mizuno paragraph says that Carol FILED for divorce. The way I see it, while Carol filed for divorce, but it was not legally granted before his death, they never were actually divorced. However, if one's parents file for divorce, likely in your eyes that counts as divorced even if the law disagrees. Do you get what I'm saying? Sort of the Obi-Wan "point of view" thing. Thanos6 06:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

You know, I do like the first Star Wars movie and while I regard George Lucas as a highly skilled film maker, I don't cite him as an authority on scholarly sourcing.

Lots of short and dodgy NA bios and references mention that Carol filed for divorce, especially those relating to his Japan experience. Seems to me they all likely got that info from the same inaccurate source. I'm not ready to assert that the Allyson quote was fabricated by the author for the book (the author's source for the quote may have been bogus- is there a footnote somewhere saying where he got it? Did he interview her or take the quote from a tabloid or what?), but Allyson's quote is sparkling clear, "my parents were divorced," and that conflicts directly with the documented record.

Truth be told, I've never seen a credible citation even pointing to Carol ever even filing for a divorce. They do seem to have had marital problems but their extent is totally unclear. For example, some sources talk about a bitter custody battle. If there was, were they legally separated at the time? Some sources report that Nick got custody, yet the kids were clearly living with their mother when he died. There are lots of unanswered questions about this person and lots of dodgy sources asserting lots of unverifiable stuff.

Finally, since your cite includes the old codswallop innuendo about Roeder's death being somehow linked to Adams', its credibility truly tumbles IMHO. This isn't about perception, it's about following standard sourcing methodologies. If it's not verifiable, it doesn't belong in the article. Wyss 07:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ryfle interviewed Allyson personally. Thanos6 08:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to the wonderful tabloid world of Nick Adams, the gay, divorced and murdered actor who according to the documented record wasn't gay, wasn't divorced, wasn't murdered and according to many observers, wasn't much of an actor. Wyss 08:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Er, by the bye, there's another serious error concerning Roeder: He was shot in the lobby of his apartment building, not on Wilshire Boulevard. I don't trust Ryfle as a source on Nick Adams (and I hasten to add that most sources on NA are demonstrably replete with errors). Wyss 09:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I realize this discussion is stale now, but if anyone happens to read this - yes, I did interview Ms. Adams personally (and in person) for my Godzilla book. If you need to verify the accuracy of her quotations, I believe you can easily contact her via e-mail with a simple google search. As for the information on Roeder's death, my source was one of the daily Los Angeles newspapers - I believe the Herald-Examiner (I would need to check my files). I understand you have policies that must be followed, but I'd hate to think you'd damn my entire work as unworthy and inaccurate based on the Roeder information. --Ryfle 23:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Some additional sources

In one of his statements above, Ted Wilkes says that Nick Adams

was a friend to Presley and the members of his entourage, and as authors Guralnick and Elaine Dundy plus author John Gilmore, who knew Adams and hung out with him, shows in their writings they were friends and his "gang" included Gilmore, Red West, and Adams' roommate Dennis Hopper.

Peter Guralnick clearly says that Adams was a "Hollywood hustler" and that he and his gang often spent the night together with Elvis. It is no surprize that John Gilmore, who had a gay relationship with James Dean, didn't mention Adams's sexual relationship with Dean, as, in his book, he wants to put the spotlight on his own personal relationship with the famous actor. But it is interesting that, according to Gilmore's account of "Nick Adams' stupid party trip to honor Jimmy" after his death at the place where the collision had occurred (p.240), Nick Adams was seen with Jack Simmons at his side. When they arrived right about where James Dean hit, Gilmore says,

Nick was walking around with Jack Simmons at his side. They were looking at the ground, poking their toes into the soft dirt.

It should be noted that Jack Simmons was one of James Dean's documented gay relationships. He was a young actor and devoted to Dean. "Because the attachment was kept quietly in the background - Dean virtually lived with Simmons while filming Rebel Without a Cause but had his own apartment - studio officials did not seem to mind." See [53] There can be no doubt about the fact that Simmons and James Dean were close friends. According to Ronald Martinetti's The James Dean Story, Simmons "sometimes shared Jimmy's apartment and often followed him around." See [54] In an interview with Paul Waters, Gilmore says about Simmons: "Before Jimmy, he'd earned the dubious fame of being one of Hollywood's most flaming queens!" See [55]. Here is a snapshot showing bisexual Rebel director Nicholas Ray taking a photograph of James Dean and Jack Simmons. Onefortyone 17:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The load of crap that Onefortyone tries to insert about Peeter Guralnick was already documented by me in precise detail on this page but ignored by Onefortyone's sole editing agenda. Guralnick never referred to Nick Adams, ever, not once, never, as a Hustler in a sexual context. Stop repeating the same load of crap over and over. - Ted Wilkes

Yep, Onefortyone has consistantly distorted the term hustler as applied to NA: He was now and then referred to as a Hollywood hustler because of his reputation for aggressive tactics and even embellishing the truth in order to get acting jobs (his tactics along these lines after James Dean's death are well documented even on this talk page). In other words, he was a bullshitter, a teller of tales, a hustler for acting work (a tactic which is not openly encouraged but understood and often tolerated in the movie business). Onefortyone's usage of this term is entirely fabricated, one way or another. Wyss 19:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It seems as if you two are still continuing edit warring with me. Remember that you are placed on probation by the arbitration committee. See [56] and [57]. But let's return to the facts. In his book, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick clearly says on p.328: "On his second day on the set he met twenty-five-year-old Nick Adams, a Hollywood hustler..." See [58]. He adds that Elvis "was hanging out more and more with Nick and his friends" (p. 336) and that "Elvis was glad Colonel liked Nick" (p.339). On p.410, Guralnick says that Elvis

enjoyed being back in Hollywood. It was good running around with Nick again - there was always something happening, and the hotel suite was like a private clubhouse where you needed to know the secret password to get in and he got to change the password every day. On the weekend Nick called up his friend Russ Tamblyn, who had a small, one-bedroom beach house on the Pacific Coast Highway just south of Topanga Canyon, and asked if he could bring his friend Elvis over. Tamblyn, who at twenty-two had been in the business from early childhood on, both as an actor and as a dancer, and who saw Nick as something of a hustler, said sure, come on out.

In his book, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, Guralnick writes: "Nick Adams and his gang came by the suite all the time." See [59]. So it is quite clear that Elvis spent most of his time with Nick Adams. Interestingly, on p.347-348 of his book, Last Train to Memphis, Guralnick writes that June Juanico didn't doubt that Elvis loved her, but "she didn't know if she could ever get him back. Elvis told her he had just heard from Nick and that Nick was coming to town tomorrow or the next day. He started telling her all about Nick and Nick's friends and Jimmy Dean, but she didn't want to hear." This statement certainly proves that June was jealous of Elvis's friendship with Nick Adams. Onefortyone 20:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

• I am not edit warring with Onefortyone in any way, shape or form. See the article's edit history. I will not tolerate this form of personal attack and truth be told, would welcome an immediate re-opening of the RfAr against Onefortyone.

• Onefortyone, please stop the personal attacks. Please stop the false accusations. Your inclusion of my name in your latest edit summary for the article is nothing more than fabricated fraud. Moreover, you are violating your ban. Please stop that.

• Onefortyone's sources are published but unverifiable and wholly unsupported. This has been discussed endlessly here. Onefortyone's sources violate WP's already existing written sourcing policies and are unacceptable.

• I propose a two or three-sentence sub-section under Rumours which would be called Myths or Urban legends and would succinctly debunk these unverifiable, undocumented tabloid claims.

• I will repeat this again for the naive, the sloppy, the lazy, the gullible and the apathetic: I could care less about Mr Adams' sexuality, or his reputation, or how film and cultural historians or anyone else might remember him. I do care however, about appying scholarly methodologies to biographical social sciences articles in Wikipedia. Onefortyone's contributions are unhelpful, unscholarly, unobjective, unsupported and single-agenda-driven. This is not a personal attack against Onefortyone, but a constructive criticism, made in good faith after almost a year of dealing with Onefortyone's edits.

• Onefortyone tried the same nonsense in Elvis Presley but failed to gain traction because there are sufficient editors who give a luzz about that topic to revert his wholly unsupported contributions, almost on sight. Wyss 21:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Wyss, your aggressive statement above shows that you are still involved in the edit war. It is true that Ted Wilkes is the driving force in this edit war, but you are still on his side. Everybody can see that you are accepting his edits, as you have corrected some syntax errors only. See also your statement here in which you falsely claim that Hadleigh's interview with Sal Mineo is the only source supporting the rumors about Nick Adams's homosexual leanings. Onefortyone 21:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Even a casual glance at the article's edit history will show that your accusation that I am edit warring is transparently false. Meanwhile you have violated your ban and have resumed inserting unsupported and fabricated material into Wikipedia in violation of WP policy. I think the RfAr against you should be re-opened immediately. Wyss 21:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

You might want to take a moment to review WP:NPA, WP:Source and WP:TROLL. If you interpret this as a personal attack, I apologize in advance if you have that mistaken impression, it is not a personal attack, but a good faith expression of my opinion on your consistent behaviour. If you would like to file an RfC or request a reopening of the RfAr against you I'll be happy to participate as a way of assisting you to learn how to follow WP policy regarding sources and avoiding disruptive and unhelpful edits in the future. Wyss 21:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you remember what the arbitration committee said? Here is again their statement:

Ted Wilkes and Wyss have repeatedly insisted on an unrealistic standard with respect to negative information regarding celebrities that is current in popular culture, gossip and rumor Talk:James Dean#Removal of "Rumors" section [60] and Talk:Nick Adams#Rumors, gossip or speculation contravene official Wikipedia policy

Support:

1. Fred Bauder 14:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
2. ➥the Epopt 14:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
3. James F. (talk) 22:38, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
4. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
5. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
6. Raul654 19:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
7. Neutrality^talk 21:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

See also the commentaries here. Onefortyone 22:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I've already said they made a mistake and Fred Bauder has told me that RfAr probably needs to be fixed. I think the RfAr against you should be re-opened immediately. Wyss 23:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Onefortyone's conviction for fabricating information in Wikipedia articles

User:Onefortyone, on Wikipedia:Probation, asked:

"Do you remember what the arbitration committee said?"

Yes, everyone remembers what the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee said when Onefortyone was found guilty of fabricating information and deliberately inserting it into Wikipedia articles:

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Onefortyone/Proposed decision :

Verified information

1) Contentious facts which cannot be verified as having been published in a reputable source cannot be included in a Wikipedia article Wikipedia:Verifiability, see especially Wikipedia:Verifiability#Dubious_sources. Information should have been published in a reliable source Wikipedia:Reliable sources. In the case of unusual or scandalous assertions this becomes even more important, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Exceptional_claims_require_exceptional_evidence

Support:

1. Fred Bauder 16:02, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
2. ➥the Epopt 21:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
3. James F. (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
4. I've tweaked the above (information -> "contentious facts") →Raul654 21:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
5. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:46, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
6. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:09, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. 0

Abstain:

1. 0

Citing of nonexistent sources by Onefortyone

4) Onefortyone, in at least one instance, cites a source which does not exist in the form cited [61], see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Onefortyone/Workshop#Citing_of_nonexistent_sources_by_Onefortyone

Support:

1. Fred Bauder 16:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
2. ➥the Epopt 21:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
3. James F. (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
4. →Raul654 21:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
5. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:46, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
6. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:09, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. 0

Abstain:

1. 0

Onefortyone was found guilty on all accounts and all by unanimous votes by the ArbCom. - Ted Wilkes 14:52, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

That's right, Ted. I accepted their votes and I am now frequently citing my sources. Therefore, I have not been banned from any article. But truth be told, Ted, the arbitration committee did not mention in their statement that what I have cited was published on two different websites based on information from the World Entertainment News Network. Here is one of these internet sources: [62] or [63]. Further, did you mention that the arbcom also said that I am a good editor who sometimes went too far (in the past)? It is a fact, Ted, that you, according to the arbitration committee, are "banned from making any edit related to a person's alleged homosexuality or bisexuality". And there was good reason for this. Onefortyone 15:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Adams the Hollywood hustler

I removed the deliberate fabrication in the unencyclopedic "Sexuality Section" that referred to Peter Guralnick calling Adams a hustler. This information is already in the article in its proper place with a full quotation and page number reference. - Ted Wilkes 14:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

In his book, Peter Guralnick called the twenty-five-year-old Nick Adams a "Hollywood hustler". He adds on another page that Russ Tamblyn, a twenty-two-year-old actor and dancer and one of Adams's male friends, also "saw Nick as something of a hustler". Why should he have used this highly ambiguous term twice in his book to characterize Adams, especially in view of the fact that he must have known that some other sources say that James Dean has claimed to have worked, with his friend Nick Adams, as a street hustler when he first arrived in Hollywood? Though I am still of the opinion that Guralnick had a male prostitute in mind, I have now changed the text to avoid the problem: "Some authors called Adams a 'Hollywood hustler' or a 'street hustler'..." I hope this is satisfactory to all. Onefortyone 16:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Onefortyone, English is not your native language. The term hustler (see this dicdef) can mean several things and without some sort of specific qualifier is never interpreted as "prostitute," which isn't even the word's first slang meaning. Your interpretation of the term in the context used by Guralnick is both mistaken and linguistically unsupported. Wyss 18:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

According to the Webster's, hustler can mean "a prostitute; streetwalker". In view of the fact that others have mentioned that Adams worked, together with James Dean, as a street hustler in his younger years, Guralnick could well have used the ambiguous term in a sexual context. But you may have realized that I changed the text in order to avoid the problem. Onefortyone 18:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

You should re-read what I wrote. Your response indicates you didn't understand it. Although your English grammar is ok, you do seem to have comprehension problems. The "prostitution" usage of hustler is more or less the rarest. Your interpretation of this word is unsupported linguistically and historically. I have explained this to you countless times. Adams was referred to as a hustler because he elaborated stories about his acting experiences and went to other energetic extremes in order to get work. This is overwhelmingly the predominate usage of the word in English, and it is supported in this case by what the documented record has to say about Mr Adams' self-promoting tactics. Wyss 19:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I did understand, Wyss. Therefore I have changed the text to avoid the problem. On the other hand, you cannot deny that there are indeed some sources which claim that Adams worked as a street hustler, i.e. as a prostitute. Onefortyone 19:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

As has been discussed endlessly, your sources are not encyclopedic. Being published is not enough, a source must be based on the documented record and be verifiable. There is zero documented evidence to support the tabloid assertions you have included. Moreover, in my humble opinion, your only interest in Nick Adams is drawn from your desire to augment historically unsupported assertions that Elvis Presley was "gay." I think the RfAr against you has not worked and should be re-opened. Wyss 19:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

"Some" authors? Who exactly. Please quote the title of the "authors" books and the page number where this can be found.

Here are some authors: Boze Hadleigh, James Bailey, Peter L. Winkler, Matt Koymaski. For some sources available on the internet, see, for instance, [64], [65], [66]. Onefortyone, 18:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I am removing an unverified quote by Onefortyone taken from the fanclub personal website of John Seger & Karen Hardcastle as seen here and quoted from their personal page here. I also removed the External link to another Personal Website here that is operated by an unknown person calling himself "Pat O'Connor." Any references in this article to this website must be removed. This has zero to do with ****sexuality and is removed in accordance with Wikipedia:Policy and the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee ruling Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Onefortyone/Proposed decision (See Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Reliability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Personal websites as primary sources and also Wikipedia:Reliable sources# Personal websites as secondary sources.

- Ted Wilkes 17:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, this is unacceptable. Onefortyone 18:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I also removed the reference to David Bret reference as per the ArCom ruling.

In view of the fact that there are now many more sources which support the view that Adams may have had homosexual leanings, the book by Bret should be mentioned, as it is a published source. Onefortyone 19:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The following is a deliberate distortion inserted by User:Onefortyone who has been placed on probation for this type of conduct:

NOTE: This passage is taken out of context with the intent to deceive readers:

• "According to Byron Raphael and reputed Elvis biographer Alanna Nash, "There were ... rumors that Nick Adams swung both ways, just as there had been about Adams’s good pal (and Elvis’s idol) James Dean. Tongues wagged that Elvis and Adams were getting it on."

- Ted Wilkes 17:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a direct quote from a published article. You should not delete sources which are not in line with your personal biased view. Onefortyone 19:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The only solution to this nonsense is to reopen the RfAr against 141. Wyss 18:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Just a third-party view: It seems to me that Editor Onefortyone doesn't care what others have to say even when their arguments are reasoned and follow the definition of encyclopaedic or question that that she/he is quoting from sources that are not credible in line with my understanding of Wikipedia:reliable sources. Stating that someone said something in a book is not following the verifiability policy, again as I understand it. One must quote the book title, publishing year and always the page number so that others know you have actually read the statement. I would also think that if Editor Onefortyone, who seems to inspire considerable doubt about his sincerity, then if and when she/he quote an author/book/page, in a spirit of cooperation she/he might alleviate concerns by posting the exact full context on this page. Having said that, quoting a line or two that might give a false impression is not encyclopaedic and should always be clarified. I have read a lot of books on Hollywood including Rona Barrett’s bio and some by Boze Hadeligh who most everyone understands is a for-profit sensationalist writer and not a source any encyclopaedia would reference. However, referencing him is up the Administrators of Wikipedia, not me. I am removing the information references that require the Page number of the book referred to and to lay to rest any arguments, ask that the full context from the book be pasted here. Also, I agree with the Editor who wrote here that an Encyclopaedia does not provide reasons why someone might be gay. Proper references do that. Danny B. (usurped) 16:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Before deleting well-supported contributions by others, you should have read what administrator FCYTravis said on this discussion page above:

Let me reiterate - on Wikipedia, we REPORT on controversy. We do not get to decide which side is right or wrong. Whether I believe Nick Adams was gay or not - heck, I don't even know. What I do know is that plenty of material has been produced which reports that there is something of a debate over his sexuality. Given that he lived in a spectacularly closeted and repressed time, clearly there aren't going to be any statements from him one way or another - and even if he had made such a statement, the fact that today his sexuality is a subject of debate would be encyclopedic. The fact of the matter is, some biographers think he was straight and some think he was gay. We report. You decide. FCYTravis 23:35, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It is a fact that Nick Adams is regularly listed in lists of famous gay people. See [this one] by Mark Pope, Ed.D. As it is too boring to cite all independent sources again which support the view that Adams was gay, here is just one example: On p.284-286 of his book The Boy who would be King: An Intimate Portrait of Elvis Presley by his Cousin (1990), Earl Greenwood, Elvis's second cousin who paled around with the singer for many years before and after his success, refers to the death of Elvis's friend, Nick Adams and confirms that they "shared a mutual enjoyment of prescription drugs", that "Nick became a regular at whatever house Elvis was renting", that he asked Nick "to stay over on nights", that Elvis "talked about how close they had been", that they had "intimacies" and that Adams "had wanted 'too much'..." The author adds that "some pointed comments were made about the two of them years later by a disgruntled hand Elvis just fired... Regardless of any intimacies, Nick didn't kill himself over Elvis - it turned out he had a lot of demons haunting him. But Elvis beat himself over Nick's death for a long time." Onefortyone 20:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The only reason the RfAr ever happened was because here haven't been enough editors like Danny B. (usurped) interested in the Nick Adams article, pitching in to keep 141's unencyclopedic edits out of the text. The RfAr ruling compounded the problem and showed the unscholarly outlook of the arbcomm members who made it by asserting in effect that the use of scholarly sources in celebrity biographies was an unrealistic standard. So long as that flawed and unenecyclopedic ruling stands, WP is fair game for single agenda-driven tabloid editors who have zero interest in the documented historical record. Wyss 19:47, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It is very interesting that a relatively new user has deleted exactly those passages from the Nick Adams article which support the view that Adams had homosexual leanings and, at the same time, reverted the Elvis and Me article to exactly the version preferred by Ted Wilkes who is blocked for one week. See [67] and [68]. Furthermore, both Danny B. (usurped) and Ted Wilkes contributed to the following Wikipedia articles: [69], [70], [71], [72], [73], [74], [75], [76], [77], etc. Their editing interests are very similar. What a coincidence! Onefortyone 20:21, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your statements, Mr Winkler

I am happy that there are now some clarifying statements by Peter L. Winkler. See [78] and [79]. Thank you very much, Mr Winkler. Onefortyone 22:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

While interesting, Mr Winkler's posts don't add any new information or verifiable sources to this shambles of an article. Thank you very much, Mr 141. Wyss 00:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Wyss, Mr Winkler has indeed added some new information to this talk page. He says that there were articles on the custody battle in two serious newspapers, the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Herald Examiner. It is to be hoped that he can provide some direct quotes from these reliable sources. Onefortyone 00:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting sources concerning Nick Adams's sexuality

Here is the first issue of the Hollywood Star Magazine (1979). The cover headline says, "Elvis was bisexual: Nick Adams was his lover." Onefortyone 20:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC) Hollywood Star Magazine, vol 1 no 1, 1979.

There are lots of photographs which prove how intimate their relationship was. This photograph shows Elvis laying his arm around Nick Adams's shoulders. This one is a private snapshot of the two men riding together on a motorcycle. In this photograph they are sitting together in a car. Onefortyone 16:15, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Claim by Onefortyone, the ArbCom-convicted liar:

• Let's see: Published in 1979, two years after Presley died and after Nick Adams had been dead for eleven years. At the time its gay publisher William Kern was hiding behind the name "Bill Dakota" he was also hiding behind U.S. libel laws that allow anyone to fabricate anything about a deceased person. Thanks to this magazine cover, we now know where Byron Raphael got his information! - Ted Wilkes 17:21, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't call me a liar, Ted, as this is a personal attack! The source proves that there were rumours as early as during the 1970s about Elvis's alleged bisexuality. In their 2005 Playboy magazine article, Byron Raphael and Alanna Nash also mention these early rumors. They say that Natalie Wood (1938-1981) "was not the only one to think Elvis and the guys [from the Memphis Mafia] might be homosexual, especially since Elvis often wore pancake makeup and mascara offstage to accentuate his brooding intensity, a la Tony Curtis and Rudolph Valentino, his favorite movie actors. There were also rumors that Nick Adams swung both ways, just as there had been about Adams’s good pal (and Elvis’s idol) James Dean. Tongues wagged that Elvis and Adams were getting it on." This means that they are talking about rumors that arose during the lifetime of Adams and Elvis. Onefortyone 23:07, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

For more details concerning the topic, see this statement by Bill Dakota, former editor of the Hollywood Star magazine, which proves that Adams had homosexual leanings. Onefortyone 17:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

There is another source which proves that Adams was gay: Mike Connolly, gay gossip columnist for the Hollywood Reporter from 1951 to 1966. His homosexuality was widely known in Hollywood. Connolly was described by Newsweek as "probably the most influential columnist inside the movie colony," the one writer "who gets the pick of trade items, the industry rumors, the policy and casting switches." In his biography, Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip (2003), Val Holley writes on page 22:

According to [Lawrence J.] Quirk, Connolly would put the make on the most prominent young actors, including Robert Francis, Guy Madison, Anthony Perkins, Nick Adams, and James Dean. Quirk said there was rampant gossip at gay parties regarding not only Connolly's escapades with these actors but also a noteworthy pornography collection he would display to those he favored.

Lawrence J. Quirk is the author of more than thirty Hollywood biographies and certainly a reliable source. I have included a reference to Quirk's statement about Connolly in the article. Onefortyone 20:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

One of Nick Adams's letters shows how close he was to Hollywood star James Dean. Adams writes: "I think you're wonderful for thinking so much of Jimmy. I've just written a story about him in the Sept. issue of Screen Stars. ... He was the most wonderful, kindest guy in the whole world. The article about Jimmy and Vampira was not true. Jimmy smoked Viceroys most of the time. I'm enclosing a picture of Jimmy from a scene in 'Giant.' I wish I could send you something of his but I only have a few things of his and I would never part with them." See [80] and [81]. On page 135 of his book, The Next James Dean (2004), William Russo says, "Rumors began to spread that Adams was closer to Dean than a nicotine stain, something he was eager to exploit if it meant additional successes. ... Adams was so obsessed with Dean that he could imitate the voice of the Master." Onefortyone 15:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly, there is a new book by William Bast, James Dean's close friend, roommate, and first biographer [James Dean: a biography, 1956], who knew Dean throughout the last five years of his short life. This author has recently published an unexpurgated version of his first book, in which he now reveals that he and Dean were sexually involved, and describes the difficult circumstances of their involvement [Surviving James Dean, 2006]. In this book Bast also deals frankly with some of Dean's other homosexual involvements. I have not yet seen a copy of the book, but it could well be that the author also mentions Dean's relationship with Nick Adams. Onefortyone 17:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Ethnicity Issue

Most sources say that Nick Adams' father was a Ukrainian coal miner not Lithuanian. The two sources that were used to source that part in this article were not reliable - nndb and a Cyberslueths, community website are not reputable or checked sources. This source from a Crime Magazine quotes Adams as telling Jack Palance that he too was Ukrainian from Pennsylvania.[82]. Adams also says that he is Polish in this article. He might be Lithuanian mixed in there too but this article should be adjusted to reflect that his father was Ukrainian. Also the Ukainian-American organization has listed him as a Ukrainian-American.--IsisTheQueen 23:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Writer

The first paragraph calls him a writer - yet his only credit under that section is as creator of a TV series, and the text makes it clear he wrote nothing. I will remove the reference to writer. -- Beardo 14:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Assertions of copyright and personal testimony

Dakota Wikipedia states: If you are indeed the copyright holder, you may post such material where appropriate, but by posting it you are releasing it under the GFDL. If you are not the copyright holder, you may not post it: the copyright holder must first explicitly release it under the GFDL. Whomever erased (ZOE) my lengthy article of Nick Adams had better retrieve it.]]WILLIAM DAKOTA 13:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

No. You keep inserting a copyright tag on the material. Once you have posted the information here, the copyright tag is inappropriate. In addition, you keep inserting your name into the article, which is clearly inappropriate. And third, the material is reposted material that has previously been deleted as not being verifiable. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Dakota seems like you are one crazed person. I am entitled to write about personal knowledge about a personal (celebrity) friend, since someone has started a page on him. How else can this be done? You say I have reposted material that had been previously deleted as not being verifiable. Well, my postings "verified" almost everything that had been questionable about Nick Adams. By using my name, it is a necessity, other wise it would be called hearsay. I'll let Wikipedia handle this.WILLIAM DAKOTA 13:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

1. Articles: No, nobody is entitled to write about his or her personal knowledge about anybody, unless that knowledge is already published by a reputable source. Nobody: neither you nor me nor Zoe nor anybody else. NOR says that expert editors may not use their unpublished knowledge, which would be impossible to verify. It also says that this is one of three interrelated policies (one of which is Verifiability, which I urge you to read carefully and digest), and that These three policies are non-negotiable.
2. Talk pages: An article's talk page is for discussion of the article, and are only for discussion of the subject as this is reflected in the article. There is no point in posting personal reminiscences that can have no place in the article.
3. How else can this be done? you ask. In Wikipedia, it can't. There are other places where you can publish your material. -- Hoary 04:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

USER:DAKOTA, Well Hoary. Have fun with Wikipedia. I have spent entirely too much time on it, trying to clarify arguments over Nick Adams. Whomever did the Hollywood Star page, with covers from my publications are infringing on my copyright, also much of the story I had here on Nick, are contained in many issues of the newspaper as well as the magazine. I have been quoted in over nine hardback books, as a verifiable and knowledgeable writer. I guess this isn't verifiable material either. ZOE have a ball. I assume you aren't even getting a paycheck from your "power-mind" over articles submitted or printed here. Yes, I am going on 69 years of age, and have more knowledge on what I write, than you will ever learn. To err is human, to forgive divine. If I were looking for self-importance publicity, there is MYSPACE as well as many other sites I could post on. Did President Reagan ever phone you and talk about James Dean? Have you had a headline in a major newspaper? Has CNN interviewed you? Toodle do! WILLIAM DAKOTA 13:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Removed paragraph...

I removed the following paragraph from the Sexuality section:

Significantly, Adams regularly dated actresses with whom he made movies, but in most cases seems to have had no sexual interest in them, as Olive Sturgess relates: "When Nick and I went out, it was a casual thing – no great love or anything like that. ... I thought he was very troubled ... You could feel he was troubled. It was the manner he had – that was the way he was in real life, always brooding. ... When we went out, it was never on his motorcycle! That's one trick he couldn't pull on me. We always went in a car!"

Firstly, I find this to be highly speculative and open to many interpretations. Where is the source that says that "he never had no sexual interest in them"? Maybe he simply didn't have a sexual interest in Olive Sturgess? Or, maybe they did indeed have a sexual relationship - she merely stated that they went out causally and they had "no great love". That doesn't mean they weren't sexually involved.

Lastly, how does a quote by this woman stating he was "troubled" translate to his "questionable sexuality"? So, the two of them went out casually, he didn't trick her into riding on the back of a motorcycle, and she thought he was troubled and brooding....sounds gay to me (sarcasm)! ExRat 04:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I have now rewritten the passage adding some other material. Onefortyone 22:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Adams and James Dean

Bill Dakota writes about Adams and James Dean,

Nick had lived with a guy who had rented an apartment from theater owner, Louie Federici, and Dean often stayed with them. (Federici told me they used to argue over who would wear their one good pair of Levis to hustle in.) Nick had written a few stories about his relationship with Jimmy and then everyone started saying he was just doing it for his own publicity. Adeline Nall, Jimmy's acting teacher in Fairmount, said Jimmy and Nick had been working on a nightclub act for Las Vegas.

See Bill Dakota, "Nick Adams Actor" Onefortyone 01:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Bill Dakota is a retired publisher of sensationalist tabloids and an almost tireless self-promoter, though he did eventually give up his attempts (as "WILLIAM DAKOTA") here at WP, and his user page was deleted as spam. Maybe it isn't self-promotion and instead he's just enjoying his anecdotage. Whatever the reason for it, he writes this particular tittle-tattle at something calling itself "the-gossip-columnist-16.blogspot.com". Is this supposed to be verification? Are we supposed to be impressed? -- Hoary 07:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Rumors section

I'm moving this to the talk page for now. Rumors and gossip aren't encyclopedic. Please place anything verifiable in an appropriate place in the article. --Tony Sidaway 14:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Adams' death at a young age, his claims to a friendship with James Dean (a cultural icon who also died tragically young) and reported drug consumption have made his private life the subject of various tabloid reports and rumours even decades later.

Nick Adams' sexuality

His sexuality is a matter of debate. Long after his death, some biographers and writers claimed Adams may have been gay or bisexual and may have had relationships with actor James Dean and singer Elvis Presley. In his 1986 gossip book Conversations With My Elders, chronicler of gay Hollywood Boze Hadleigh said that actor Sal Mineo told him in 1972: "I didn't hear it from Jimmy (James Dean), who was sort of awesome to me when we did Rebel. But Nick told me they had a big affair." William Russo says that "Rumors began to spread that Adams was closer to Dean than a nicotine stain, something he was eager to exploit if it meant additional successes. ... Adams was so obsessed with Dean that he could imitate the voice of the Master." In his book, Elvis (1981), Albert Goldman wrote that "Nick Adams ingratiated himself with James Dean precisely as he would do a year or so later with Elvis. He offered himself to the shy, emotionally contorted and rebellious Dean, as a friend, a guide, a boon companion, a homosexual lover--whatever role or service Dean required." In his 2004 biography Natalie Wood: A Life, biographer, screenwriter and Hollywood chronicler Gavin Lambert, who was a member of the gay Hollywood circles of the 1950s and 1960s, wrote in passing (p. 199) that Wood's "first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams." According to Hollywood biographer Lawrence J. Quirk, Mike Connolly, gay gossip columnist for the Hollywood Reporter from 1951 to 1966, whose homosexuality was widely known in Hollywood, "would put the make on the most prominent young actors, including Robert Francis, Guy Madison, Anthony Perkins, Nick Adams, and James Dean. Quirk said there was rampant gossip at gay parties regarding not only Connolly's escapades with these actors but also a noteworthy pornography collection he would display to those he favored." Some authors called Adams a "Hollywood hustler" or a "street hustler" (although Adams called himself a pool hustler). Leigh W. Rutledge, for instance, writes that James Dean "claimed to have worked, with his friend Nick Adams, as a street hustler after he first arrived in Hollywood." In her autobiography Miss Rona (1974), Rona Barrett says Adams "had become the companion to a group of salacious homosexuals."

However, Adams was known in Hollywood for embellishing and inventing stories about his show business experiences and had long tried to capitalize on his associations with James Dean and Elvis Presley. In his brief online biography of Adams, journalist Bill Kelly wrote, "(Adams) became James Dean's closest pal, although Nick was straight and Dean was bisexual." Kelly also stated that Adams wrote in his diary that he taught actress Natalie Wood the art of love making. In her biography of actress Natalie Wood titled "Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood," author Suzanne Finstad wrote extensively about Nick Adams without suggestion of him being gay or bisexual. Furthermore, there are no court documents or personal letters from Adams or statements by alleged male lovers which undoubtedly prove that Adams was gay.

Adams's off-screen dates with actresses

Adams regularly dated actresses with whom he made movies. It is not known if he had much sexual interest in them or if he primarily dated them for publicity reasons. According to Gavin Lambert, Natalie Wood's first date with Adams was studio-arranged. Modern Screen writes that "their relationship has been mostly for fun" and that they shared "a tendency toward moodiness and unpredictability." The magazine also reports that they had given joint interviews "in which they admitted they adored each other" and that "they even came terribly close to getting married" in Las Vegas. On the other hand, the same article also reveals that on one of their trips they "posed for innumerable publicity photographs - that was the real reason for the trip - " and that "Right now, both Nick and Natalie are inclined to deny the whole Las Vegas episode." Olive Sturgess relates: "When Nick and I went out, it was a casual thing – no great love or anything like that. ... I thought he was very troubled ... You could feel he was troubled. It was the manner he had – that was the way he was in real life, always brooding. ... When we went out, it was never on his motorcycle! That's one trick he couldn't pull on me. We always went in a car!" In Japan, Adams and actress Kumi Mizuno may have had a short affair. "That's one of the reasons my parents were divorced," says Adams' daughter, playwright Allyson Lee Adams. "My dad had a penchant for becoming infatuated with his leading ladies. It was a way for him to take on the role he was playing at the time."

Speculation about his death

Adams' death has been cited in articles and books on Hollywood's unsolved mysteries along with allegations that Adams was murdered, including claims that no trace of the liquid sedative paraldehyde (one of two drugs Adams died from) was ever found in his home, but a story in The Los Angeles Times reported that stoppered bottles with prescription labels were found in the medicine cabinet near the upstairs bedroom where Adams' body was discovered. However, the actor's daughter Allyson Adams still "believes her father may have been killed. She says Adams had just returned from making a film in Mexico and was working out (he was an avid weight lifter) for another Hollywood comeback, and that the coroner's office changed the official cause of death from 'natural causes' to 'homicide' before finally ruling it suicide." On the other hand, Actor Robert Conrad (his best friend) has consistently maintained Adams' death was accidental. Some people have pointed out the fact that Adams died shortly before Elvis Presley filmed his Memphis Comeback concert.

(End of moved section) --Tony Sidaway 14:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I have now created a section on Adams's "Private Life", adding some further details concerning his wife. Onefortyone 13:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't seem encyclopedic to me. Isn't private life supposed to be private? This just looks like gossip to me. I've reverted again. Although I won't edit the article any more, I would appreciate it if we could spend some time discussing the merits of placing the material into the article first. The material won't be inaccessible while we discuss, it's all on the talk page here. --Tony Sidaway 19:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, you have removed much additional and well-sourced material concerning the actor, his wife, his children, his supposed homosexuality and his relationships with actresses, including this newly created paragraph:

According to Peter L. Winkler, Adams "shocked audiences by announcing that he was leaving his wife" while appearing on 'The Les Crane Show' to plug Young Dillinger early in 1965. "After that announcement, Nick's career and personal life went into a tragic free fall. Nick and Carol publicly announced a reconciliation a week later," on January 19, 1965. This was reported by several newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. "At the end of July 1965, they decided on a legal separation. Carol filed for divorce in September. Nick was still in Japan when Carol was granted a divorce and custody of the children on Oct. 12. On Jan. 26, 1966, Nick and Carol announced another reconciliation on a local television show, 'Bill John's Hollywood Star Notebook.' It wouldn't last. ... On Nov. 26, 1966, Carol resumed divorce proceedings and obtained a restraining order against Nick. Carol alleged that Nick was 'prone to fits of temper' and in a special affidavit charged that Nick had 'choked her, struck her and threatened to kill her during the past few weeks.' ... It was the beginning of an acrimonious, contested divorce and child-custody battle." ... On January 20, 1967, "while waiting for a court hearing to begin, Nick was served with an $110,000 defamation suit" by his wife's boyfriend. However, on January 31, "Nick won temporary custody of his children. It was a hollow victory in his tug of war with his wife." His son "Jeb Adams said, 'He saw it as a competition, basically, more than anything of getting custody of us. But, a matter of a week or two later, he gave us back to my mom.'" Adams's wife "later regained legal custody of her children." As Carol Adams is listed as Nick Adams's spouse on his death certificate, it is evident that the divorce had not become final when the actor died.

Do you really think that this material isn't encyclopedic? The private life and personal relationships are certainly important parts of a celebrity's history and must therefore be included in a biography, especially since these details heavily affected Adam's life and career. Errol Flynn's private life and "post-death controversies" are discussed in the Wikipedia article. James Stewart, Marlon Brando, John Wayne and many other actors have their "personal life" and "controversies" sections. There is even a "Rumours and Controversies" section in the Mozart article. Therefore I have reinstated the material you have deleted. The said section is now entitled "Personal life" as in many other Wikipedia biographies. Onefortyone 10:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course it isn't encyclopedic, unless you're compiling a compendium of who-shagged-who, other salacious factoids, and miscellaneous tittle-tattle. "Rumours and controversies" is a goofy title for any section anywhere, but it's more understandable in Mozart's article than elsewhere because a large number of people -- musicologists, musicians, concert-goers, record-buyers -- are passionately interested in Mozart, whose personal life as well as professional accomplishments have long been the subject of much speculation, however febrile or tiresome. Stewart, Brando, Wayne and even Flynn were advertised as stars of their movies (or "vehicles"). By considerable contrast Adams appears to have starred in a total of zero (0) movies (no matter how minor), wasn't a major figure and hardly is or was a "celebrity", he was merely a minor actor. His major significance in WP seems to be that of a keystone in Onefortyone's mighty edifice of homo-innuendo about Presley and others. If Adams actually was promiscuously bisexual, it's unclear what effect this had on his achievement; certainly his death can't have had any effect. A "rumour" section has no place in this article; merely retitling it "personal life" makes it no more palatable. -- Hoary 04:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What makes this "minor actor", as you call him (despite the fact that he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1963 film Twilight of Honor), so important were his big Hollywood connections. He was a friend of Natalie Wood and a roommate of Dennis Hopper, he helped stuntman Red West and actor Robert Conrad get into the first door in Hollywood, and there is much evidence that he had sexual relationships with both James Dean and Elvis Presley. Onefortyone 01:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Adams still looks like a minor actor to me. I'll certainly agree that it does seem that Adams's importance to you is his friendships, and particularly any innuendo that you can dredge up to push your PoV that he porked guys who are much more famous than himself and who, outside the tabloids and the cheesier books, aren't known for having been bisexual. -- Hoary 08:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Colonel Tom Parker's letter of 1958 including an interesting statement concerning Elvis's friendship with Adams

Here is the complete text of a personal letter from Colonel Parker to his secretary (8/25/58). In 1958, with Elvis Presley serving in the U.S. Army and Colonel Tom Parker conducting business from his management office in Madison, Tennessee, Trude Forsher, Elvis and Parker's personal secretary, took care of business at their offices on the west coast. In this 1958 letter to Mrs. Forsher, Col. Parker catches up with news after a difficult month in which Elvis' beloved mother, Gladys, passed away. It reads:

August 25th, 1958

Dear Trudy and Bruno and Children;

I have been very busy looking after everything in Memphis so you know that we did not have much time to answwr [sic] all mail right away. I have just returned for a few Days [sic] at the office but I must again take off in a few Days [sic] to look after everything in Texas and on to New York, Nicky Admas [sic] came out to be with Elvis last Week wich [sic] was so very kind of him to be there with his friend.

I sure wish you all the luck with our TV setup so keep your fingers crossed One [sic] never knows in this business. I know Elvis appreciate [sic] very much. I will have the girls enclose your wire in the special scrapbook I am making up for him with all thw [sic] wires and cards from all the friends.

I do not know at present when I will get out to the Coast again, however the way things are at present One never knws [sic] I may be out shortly on some business with the Morris office, I will of course call you in event I come out.

Glad to know the boys are doing great they both are very smart and I know both of you are proud of them.

Give our love to Anna and Dolfi when you see them. Mr. Diskin joins me also with best wishes. Judy Spreckels also came all the way to Memphis to be with Elvis for the Funeral this was very kind of her also. And I know Elvis did appreciate this so very much.

There were many flowers from all over and I know you can understand that we had our hands full with looking after all the details for the Family.

Take care of yourself and write when you have time. Mrs. Parker is now back home getting her yard back in order with the flowers. She wishes to be rememberred [sic] to all of you.

Sincerely, The Colonel

Provenance: Trude Forsher Archive (Letter of Authenticity from Mrs. Forsher's son).

This is certainly an important primary source. Onefortyone 23:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, 141, it seems to me that Adams was a friend of Presley's and that Parker noticed this. Or do I miss something? Could this instead be the "smoking gun" that proves that they were an item? Will Hollywood history now be rewritten with a "pink Elvis"? Millions of WP readers (don't) want to know! Perhaps you can write a whole book about it. Label it "gender studies" and the dimmer university librarians will even order copies. -- Hoary 04:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an additional source which undoubtedly shows how close Adams and Presley were at that time. It is very interesting that you have reappeared on the scene in order to continue disparaging my research, at exactly the same time when several sockpuppets who harassed me some days ago have now been banned from Wikipedia. What a coincidence! Onefortyone 01:42, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

(1) It doesn't undoubtedly show how close Adams and Presley were at the time, unless the reader wants it to. (2) If this coincidence is of interest to you, 141, that's perfectly fine with me; if it's of great interest to you, then I'd have no objection whatever to having any suspected sockpuppetry by or of me investigated by checkuser. -- Hoary 08:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)