Talk:Rudolf Wanderone

Birth year

If he hinted at having been born as early as 1900, a New York State Census (1925, behind a paywall) shows a "Rudolf J. Wanderone" aged 12. This is the only person identified as having such a name born in New York State. Some obituaries show him born on 19 January 1900 and some show him born on 19 January 1913. It is highly unlikely that anyone could be 25 and look 12.

Not behind a paywall, he is shown in the US Census as a cashier at a billiard parlor at the age 27 at the Arlington Hotel in Shreveport, Caddo County, Louisiana. Pbrower2a (talk) 04:23, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

References

Redrafting complete; needs more material

User:Hag2 graciously responded to the article's second request for peer review and did a big copy-editing job on it. I also added some new (sourced) information and an image. Previous issues with how to handle the filmography and bibliography settled (the material was merged back in to the main prose). Aside from various missing material (Wanderone's time in Chicago, what exactly he did to get the BCA Hall of Fame induction, the irony of it given his hatred of the BCA – not even mentioned in the article yet – etc.), this is getting very close to a good Featured Article candidate. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I noticed your peer review comments.

Although it is difficult to judge an article when the primary editors feel that there is still more to add, I believe that I can say safely that your current version is far superior to all previous versions. Interspercing bibliographic and filmography details within your prose seems to be a much more pleasing way to read those details than to have them separated into their own categories. I was able to read from a very well-written lead to a powerful conclusion without feeling as if your article lacked anything. Yet, now that I have discovered (above) that there is still material to present, I can not evaluate an article in good conscience until you feel comfortable with the total input yourself. It surprises me that a principal editor would present an article for review which contained such a powerful conclusion and which was based upon an uncited source! Surely you must have a reliable, verifiable, and credible author for that Lincoln limousine story, yes?

I elected to use your talkpage for my comments due to those confusing, hidden remark instructions in the peer review copy-edit box: "--Please do not use level 1-3 section headings or horizontal rules in this peer review. Please do not include any images, such as done/not done templates with tick/cross graphics, and do not paste in semi-automated peer reviews below: link to them instead. Peer review pages should not be moved." Anne Teedham (talk) 15:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Phooey. I waited over a month for the principal editors to do something about that missing citation for the Cadillac. So I found you a reference using the nl.newsbank.com. Note: You will need to use "Minnesota Fats" (in the first line) AND "King of Pool" (in the second line) as search criteria, AND date-seeking "1979 to 1983". Anne Teedham (talk) 14:31, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Name

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

The result of the move request was: not moved. This discussion raised of a fictional character and a real-life person of the same occupation named after that character raised a set of complex issues. Good cases were made for and against the proposal, but there is a consensus to reject this particular proposal. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:50, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

---

• Rudolf Wanderone → Minnesota Fats
• Minnesota Fats → Minnesota Fats (character)

– WP:NC says "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. This includes usage in the sources used as references for the article." It gives examples such as Lady Gaga, not "Stefani Germanotta". Similarly, you have Kid Rock, not "Robert Ritchie"; Magic Johnson, not "Earvin Johnson"; et cetera. Pop culture knows him almost exclusively as "Minnesota Fats", so to have his article not be at "Minnesota Fats" is preposterous.

Even the New York Times obit has "Minnesota Fats", not "Rudolf Wanderone", in the title. The book used as a reference in the article says "Minnesota Fats", not "Rudolf Wanderone". It's clear that "Minnesota Fats" is by far the most common name (WP:COMMONNAME) to which he is referred. Anyone looking for "Minnesota Fats" on Wikipedia is almost certainly looking for the pool player, not the fictional character of the same name — "Rudolf Wanderone" has 5323 hits vs. 2462 for "Minnesota Fats", and I would bet anything that most of those 2462 are people looking for Wanderone, not the fictional character.

This move was previously discussed in 2008 with a result of "no consensus". I think WP:COMMONNAME is a valid argument here — he's not the only thing called "Minnesota Fats", nor the first, but he's by far the most common. Should he not have the honor of having the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:48, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose: Oppose move of this article, but support move of fictional character: The suggestion to have this bio article be at Minnesota Fats is pointless rehash of already-rejected motions by the same nominator, at AFD and previous RM; no new argument seems to be presented for why consensus could have changed. There clearly is no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and Minnesota Fats clearly should be a disambiguation page, as it long was. Reasons why nomination of move of this article is flawed or misleading:
  1. The previous RM closed with no consensus to move and the AfD closed with a clear consensus against nominator (whose idea would have also resulted in renaming this article to Minnesota Fats, by wrongly merging the fictional character into the bio). I.e., there is definitely no lack of consensus against moving this bio to the nickname title.
  2. "Minnesota Fats" means two things to innumerable people (and it has a lot to do with how much they read and how old they are). One clearly preceded and inspired the other, but neither is magically "more notable". One is better known in literary and film circles, one in sports entertainment circles, and both are equally known in pool circles. There is clearly no PRIMARYTOPIC at all in this case, any more than there is for The Hustler (the novel and the film are both notable and well-known, as is the case with both the character and Wanderone).
  3. PRIMARYTOPIC at WP:AT is not an "honor", it's a navigation aid for readers; nominator is misunderstanding what AT's purpose is.
  4. "Pop culture" does not determine PRIMARYTOPIC anyway; reliable sources that pertain to the field in question are much more important in this analysis than popular parlance, and they consistently distinguish very carefully between Wanderone, by his real name even when they also include his nickname, and the fictional character.
  5. Other parts of policy at WP:AT contradict this bio move idea in clear terms, namely at WP:COMMONNAME: "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. Neutrality is also considered.... When there are multiple names for a subject, all of them fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." Wanderone is more than "fairly" common in reliable sources, virtually all of which note the ambiguity of the nickname and unreliability of Wanderone's claims. (I.e. the amiguity and reliability are themselves reliably sourced!)
  6. There is also the serious problem that Wanderone consistently "gamed" the press, and convinced many people to repeat his assertion that Tevis's character was based on him, but his idea has been soundly disproved. Normally-reliable sources uncritically repeating it doesn't make the claim reliable. Wikipedia does not include in its mandate the intentional promotion of misleading claims.
  7. Obituaries are not categorically reliable sources; they are usually written by family members, and even when they are not, they are editorial in nature, and do not represent researched and agreed-upon facts, but an individual writer's opinion, and are almost universally intended to be flattering to the subject. The obit that nominator cites is clearly based in large part on information from the family.
  8. The NYT obit that nominator cites actually refers to him as Rudolf Wanderone anyway (as I've noted before), using "Minnesota Fats" only as a headline, but carefully noting that the biographical and fictional figures were distinct; headlines by their nature are incomplete, often intended to be controversial or confusing, and are not evidentiary of anything. This particular obituary is almost more about the the Wanderone/Tevis dispute over the name "Minnesota Fats" than about Wanderone himself, and thus actually supports the opposite of nominator's wishes here.
  9. The analogy to Lady Gaga, Magic Johnson and Kid Rock is a failure; those cases are sharply dissimilar to this one, as none of them borrowed/stole the name of an already independently notable fictional character. The argument nominator is making is like as asking for Kid Rock to be moved to Harry Potter over the name of the fictional character if Robert Ritchie should start using that as his professional alias instead of Kid Rock. Note that Wanderone himself professionally used more than one alias; "Minnesota Fats" was just the one he used last and longest.
  10. The idea that the fictional character isn't notable (or not notable enough to care about here) is untenable, since even other fictional characters were later based on "him" (not Wanderone), and "he" dominates the plot of the second of the pair of novels, which is independently notable as a work almost entirely unrelated to the film that borrowed its name.
  11. Wikipedia is not the only mainstream, encyclopedic site to recognize that calling Wanderone by a stage name he lifted from elsewhere is problematic. E.g. he is listed at IMDb as "Rudolf Wanderone Jr.", despite the fact that IMDb almost always otherwise defers to professional names over birth names.
  12. Finally and perhaps most importantly, reliable sources do not know Wanderone exclusively by the nickname, or even primarily. Billiards-related publications certainly do not call him that or do so only in a qualified manner (usually, again, in headlines and often in "scare quotes"), and they are obviously the most relevant reliable sources. The nominator's position, whatever its intent, would have the same sort of invalid result as arguing that gaming-related publications should be disregarded when deciding what the proper title of a video game article should be.

       — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  19:35, 23 March 2014 (UTC) Reformatted & expanded 14:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• And who the hell knows "Minnesota Fats" as anything other than the pool player? 99% of people probably don't even know the fictional character exists. Compare the length of the character's article, which barely gives any info. I have never heard him referred to as Wanderone, nor have I ever heard "Minnesota Fats" refer to anything else. Show me a source that refers to him as Wanderone more prominently than it calls him Fats. Just one. Guess what, it ain't out there. "Minnesota Fats" is a pool player first in pop culture, bar none. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:35, 23 March 2014 (UTC) Reformatted, with some additional notes 14:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• Who? How about every single person who's ever read The Hustler (novel), watched The Hustler (film), or read The Color of Money (novel). That's at bare minimum tens of millions of people, probably hundreds, and on average only those over somewhere around the age of 35 know who Wanderone was, by any name. Of those familiar with both the character and the man, all that can reasonably be said of their awareness is that the name "Minnesota Fats" means both to them. Even IMDb uses his real name, despite almost always going with stagenames; even they see it's problematic to call this man Minnesota Fats, from a factual standpoint, regardless of the popular perception. Re: 'I have never heard him referred to as Wanderone, nor have I ever heard "Minnesota Fats" refer to anything else.' – please see WP:IDONTKNOWIT/WP:IKNOWIT. I understand that you don't seem want to let this go (you launched both the AfD and the original RM, linked to above), but re-re-raising a question like this, in a heated manner, without anything having changed is usually a waste of time at best. I am hoping that moving the fictional character to Minnesota Fats (character) and having Minnesota Fats be a disambiguation page is enough to resolve the issue.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  14:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• @SMcCandlish: tl;dr buddy. Tell me how "Minnesota Fats" is not the WP:COMMONNAME, preferably without using a ginormous wall o' text. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:06, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• It's unclear to me how one can be a productive content editor of an encyclopedia, that consists of often rather long articles, about 99% of which are text, if one finds 12 simple bullet points intolerable. How can you say I've posted too much for you, while simultaneously asking me to re-explain something with more text? I have a dozen clear reasons the first half of this proposal isn't workable, you have 'I couldn't be bothered to read it'. I think I know how the closing admin will evaluate our respective posts here (see in particular WP:TLDR#Maintain civility, paragraphs 2 and 3).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  10:04, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Strong support Rudolf who? This is ASTONISHing. "Minnesota Fats" is the clear WP:COMMONNAME for the individual, who is in turn the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for term versus the fictional character. --BDD (talk) 16:42, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment agree — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.175.135 (talk) 23:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Already addressed all of that, BDD. As the prior AfD shows, anyone familiar with the original fictional character feels just as strongly in the opposite direction; this is essentially proof positive there is no consensus on a PRIMARYTOPIC.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  10:04, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I realize when I hear "Minnesota Fats" all I think of it a pool player; I couldn't tell you if it was a real one or not. Neutral. --BDD (talk) 16:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Those who know the Hustler (the book), or the monumental film, with one of Jackie Gleason's signature performances as this character, and to a lesser degree Scorsese's The Color of Money, would likely be searching for that meaning – and reliable sources abound for that meaning, e.g., <"minnesota fats" gleason -wanderone> which already cuts off tons of other sources that happen not to mention Gleason but are nevertheless about this meaning. Being someone who has spent gobs of time in the pool world, in pool rooms, answering pool and billiards related questions, etc., my experience is that those who don't know the film are not on the opposite side, i.e. knowing the real life hustler who adopted the title but not the film. Rather, because Wanderone's fame is of an age with the film, if they don't know one, they know neither (but, those who do know, already know the one from the other).

  Instead they have a vague idea there was a legendary pool person by the name Minnesota Fats and could not tell you if he was real or a fictional character at the time they are typing that title into a search engine or here to find out. When they do so, they are trying to find out just who "Minnesota Fats" was, and as such, the perfect place for them to land is at the existing article at Minnesota Fats, which tells them both about the book, the film, the name squatter, encyclopedically informs them of the dialectic, and for good measure, has a hatnote pointing here. The existing arrangement is perfect, and the sought change appears to put far too much emphasis on the person over the character, probably resulting from some of you not realizing how huge the film [especially] is.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Or they get confused as all fuck because they're like "hey, why is this talking about some fictional character? I thought Fats was a real guy". Still, I love how you're completely dodging the WP:COMMONNAME issue. Show me a source that refers to the REAL guy as "Wanderone" more prominently than it does "Minnesota Fats". How is "Minnesota Fats" not the WP:COMMONNAME of the real person? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not dodging the common names policy, you're misunderstanding its application, or more properly, why it's not germane. This is the common name of Rudolf Wanderone. It's also the common (and in fact, actual) name of something else. When a title is the common name of two things then we have to decide which is to be at that common title. That choice is not a common names issue, it's a disambiguation issue, and specifically a primary topic issue, though the underlying concerns address between the policies are similar: which title do we choose that serves our readers better encyclopedically; which avoids astonishment; which minimizes navigational confusion for the most people and so on. This is not a run-of-the-mill primary topic issue, however, because we rarely have such an interplay between the topics to choose between with one being the progenitor of the other and also the misleading name issue—which is why the current set up works so well—the page this title currently goes to is not a DAB page but an article and yet is serves almost perfectly in that capacity.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:11, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support per nominator; also, generally people have more long-term significance than imaginary characters. Red Slash 01:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose While I agree with Red Slash that real people are generally more significant than fictional characters of the same name, this case presents evidence that the real person chose his moniker in conscious imitation of the already famous fictional character. Whether the real person subsequently rose to the same level of fame, or was simply a failed opportunist, is an open question. Under the circumstances, primary topic status is unclear, so the status quo is sensible. Xoloz (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Etta James

The article makes a point of noting "However, there is no published evidence of such a relationship"; whilst I understand what point is being made here (i.e., there's absolutely no support for this save Etta James's own account), what "published evidence" was/ is likely to exist for what was no doubt a (very) short-lived relationship between Wanderone and James's mother? It's not likely any of the people James refers to as "there and ought to know" would happen to have written a book about- or even briefly addressing- the subject, after all. It just seems that, given the article's already extremely circumspect on James's claim, the sentence highlighted above seems out of place, particularly given the circumstances involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.68.40 (talk) 02:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems like a Contradiction in the Article

Wanderone, who was sometimes known by the nickname "New York Fats" in his role as a pool player,[4] adopted the nickname "Minnesota Fats" from the character of that name in the 1961 film The Hustler, falsely claiming that the character, played by Jackie Gleason, was based upon him.[4] However, Derek Kirunchyk researched this matter thoroughly by examining the pages of Tevis' original manuscript and discovered for nearly 60 years, ever since the release of The Hustler, that those who follow the sport widely assumed that Wanderone had lied about his own provenance, but Telvis changed the character's nickname from "New York" to "Minnesota" in one of the original manuscript pages, which supports Wanderone's claim that he was, in fact, the Minnesota Fats in the novel.[18]

There is a good probability that the character, played by Jackie Gleason, was, in fact, based on Rudolf Wanderone. It is probable that Tevis is denying that the character is based upon Rudolf Wanderone so they do not have to pay Rudolf Waderone rights to use him for the character.Easeltine (talk) 15:41, 26 May 2021 (UTC)