Talk:Simon Oakland

Citations needed

I enjoyed this actor's work, and have no reason to believe he was despised or untalented, but the statements in this page don't seem backed up by verifiable sources to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dfrankow (talk • contribs) 03:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

i added the stuff about teh Rockford files -it is on his IMDB page Khan Noonian Singh (talk) 03:37, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I've added his NY Times obituary and a couple of other references. Oddly, there seems to be a 7-year discrepancy over his year of birth (1915/1922). A post to a Jewish genealogy group suggests his birth name was Weiss and he derived his stage name from his mother's surname, Oaklander. This seems to be supported by the California Death Index, which appears to have duplicate entries for him under both Weiss and Oakland. I've had a quick look through the New York birth indexes and couldn't find a Simon Weiss, but I did find an Isidor Weiss born in Brooklyn in August 1915, which may be him. (He was known as "Si" or "Sy", which may be short for Isidor.) The claim that he was married to "Carola" until 1977 doesn't add up either if he was married to Lois Porta for over 40 years. It's a question of finding reliable secondary sources for all this. Muzilon (talk) 21:58, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

OK, I've uploaded his death certificate which indicates his parents were Jacob Weiss and Ethel Oaklander. I believe I have located the family in the US Censuses for 1920, 1930, and 1940, where Simon is recorded as Isidor Weiss. Unfortunately this might constitute WP:OR, so we probably still need some good secondary sources here. Muzilon (talk) 05:06, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

There appear to be no reliable sources for the existence of his alleged first wife "Carola". I have removed her name from the Infobox accordingly. Muzilon (talk) 05:44, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Note: Ancestry.com suggests there was a completely unrelated Simon Oakland who was married to one Carola Morrell. It would seem that some people have confused or conflated this couple with the Hollywood actor. (The perils of WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH!) --Muzilon (talk) 04:12, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

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Jew

jewish? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.244.116.100 (talk) 01:34, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I haven't found a reliable secondary source for that (it would seem that Oakland was never publicly forthcoming about his actual name, age, or family background), but if you look at the U.S. Census records for his family which I linked to above, his parents' native language is listed as Yiddish. And his mother's death notice mentions that Shiva would be observed. Muzilon (talk) 23:38, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Tagging Sellpink, who has also queried this. Muzilon (talk) 05:46, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Death Certificate?

I'm curious why Simon Oakland's death certificate is included in this article - I haven't seen this in other biographies. Indieshack (talk) 16:41, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I added the death certificate in an effort to clear up the contradictory sources regarding his age and birth name – it would seem that Oakland deliberately tried to obscure these details during his lifetime. See also Al Capone, John Dall, Annette Carell, Evelyn Beatrice Hall, Andy Kaufman, et al. Muzilon (talk) 23:06, 5 July 2020 (UTC)