Talk:William Peter Blatty

Autobiography

"Blatty's autobiography is titled I'll Tell Them I Remember You" - this is correct only in that it describes - Impressionistically - his life growing up with his mother; it's more a dedication to her than a formal autobiography. It's also out of print.--Apostata 20:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

20% of The Exorcist's profits?

"Blatty produced the movie, based on his own script, and reportedly signed a deal reserving him in excess of 20 percent of the film's profits" (John Kenneth Muir's Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina and London). Would be interesting to include if true.--droptone (talk) 17:00, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Article seems to be written by Blatty

Most of this article has obviously been written by Blatty himself. This may be in violation of Wikipedia policies: "It is not recommended that you write an article about yourself. If you are notable, someone else will notice you and write the article. In some cases, Wikipedia users write articles about themselves when the more appropriate action would be to create a user page. In these cases, the article is normally moved into the user namespace rather than deleted. If you believe you may be notable enough, make your case on the appropriate talk pages, and seek consensus first, both with the notability and any proposed autobiography." (from http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest). The article needs some serious editing. 97.81.102.44 (talk) 03:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Serious doubt WPB ever even looks at Wikipedia.104.169.26.177 (talk) 18:30, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Image choice

The choice of photo is an editor's choice.

The photo that was in the article is a poor quality image from 2007. The subject has provided a more recent, and much better quality photo.

I'm taking the liberty of replacing the old image with the new, better one.

If editors disagree, let's reach a consensus about which image is better.

New image: File:Bill Blatty 2009.jpg Old image: File:William Peter Blatty (4647730344).jpg--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:William Peter Blatty/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:27, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I will read and make straightforward changes as I go and jot questions below: Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:27, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd put the isolated last sentence at the end of the first paragraph (which summarises works). Keep lead at two paragraphs. For an article of this size, I reckon another 2 sentences of most notable content for lead would be prudent.

Done

I'm an Australian so valedictorian is not a word familiar to many of us. I'd link it.

Done

Any info on his father - did they ever reconnect?

Nope

In the 2nd para of the Career section, we have these early works. As none have individual pages, some more info on what they actually are and are about would be good to put in.

I've linked most of them except for I, Billy Shakespeare as it doesn't have a page and there is no information out there. Let me know what you think.

Avoid lots of small choppy paragraphs - some need to be combined.

Done

Do we have any info on why he wanted to be a writer?

I tried searching about this but couldn't find anything.

also, he was obviously really poor for many years, did okay after the game show, but did he ever talk about when he became really comfortable from writing?

Ditto.

Ultimately if we can't find sources for some of this then so be it - but I feel the any of the above that can be added will help round out the article. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:43, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

1. Well written?:

Prose quality:

Manual of Style compliance:

2. Factually accurate and verifiable?:

References to sources:

Citations to reliable sources, where required:

No original research:

3. Broad in coverage?:

Major aspects:

Focused:

4. Reflects a neutral point of view?:

Fair representation without bias:

5. Reasonably stable?

No edit wars, etc. (Vandalism does not count against GA):

6. Illustrated by images, when possible and appropriate?:

Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

Overall:

Pass or Fail: - great, a nice read. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:39, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.

Syrians and Lebanese that are Orthodox never call themselves members of the "Greek" Orthodox Church. They are Antiochian Orthodox and often Syrian or Eastern Orthodox. Greek Orthodoxy is one of the 14 autocephalous churches. Lebanese/Syrian Orthodox fall under the Patriarchate of Antioch. This is a mistake made time and time again by people who contribute to wikipedia. F. Murray Abraham is Syrian Orthodox or Antiochian Orthodox. He is not part of the "Syriac" church but the Syrian church. Syriac is something quite different than Syrian

USAF career

The article originally claimed that during his service in the USAF, Blatty "ultimately became head of the Policy Branch of the USAF Psychological Warfare Division." This is sourced to an article in the Latin Post. A check with the Latin Post, however, shows that this claim came from Moviepilot. Moviepilot uses a "fan-focused creator model," meaning people simply submit blog-like posts and the "curators" of the Moviepilot pick the ones they like.

Note that there are no fewer than three obituaries for Blatty cited in the article, from the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. NONE of these mention that Blatty held the post of head of the Policy Branch of the USAF Psychological Warfare Division. It is absurd to add this bizarre claim based solely on a post from the utterly unreliable Moviepilot. Note also that the link here is to an alleged component of SHAEF, the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II. This has nothing to do with Blatty. He may be dead, but that doesn't excuse such poor sourcing. Rgr09 (talk) 08:08, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

References

New York Times obituary vs. Latin Post

The Latin Post was previously used as the source for the well-documented fact that Blatty and Friedkin adapted and filmed Blatty's Exorcist. There is no reason to prefer the Latin Post article for the much better written and documented NYT obit. Parenthetically, the Latin Post reference also gives an unsourced claim that ‘The Exorcist’ "Used Tactics Previously Tested by US Government to Scare Audiences." This cannot go in the article without real sources. Rgr09 (talk) 15:47, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• William-Peter-Blatty-2009.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 06:54, 24 August 2021 (UTC)