Talk:Russell Harty: Difference between revisions

It has been suggested that the subject of this article is eligible for inclusion in the list of HIV-positive people. If you know of any reliable source that helps to clarify this person’s HIV status then please mention it on the list’s talk page. Trezatium 19:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve have a look at the book Stick It Up Your Punter: The Rise And Fall Of The Sun which as I recall covers the paper’s hounding of Russell Harty over his sexuality in some depth. Actually, the attitude of the tabloid press toward him ought to be mentioned in the article, they really turned on him toward the end of his life and the book can be taken as a reliable source. –88.109.17.122 20:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article should certainly mention the appalling hounding of Harty by the tabloids, and particularly the Sun, during his final illness. However, at present it doesn’t mention his sexuality at all. There was much more to Harty than homosexuality, but it was part of him and should be acknowledged. —Ef80 (talk) 21:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My name is Jamie O’Neill; I am mentioned in this article: for this reason I am loath to comment. But the truth is that Russell was not HIV+. Russell contracted Hepatitis C, and he died of liver failure brought on by that condition. Any glance at the broadsheet newspapers of the time will confirm this, or a reading of Alan Bennett’s eulogy, where he describes Russell as having “died of the wrong disease” — AIDS, in 1988, being the correct disease to die of, if one were homosexual. In case this should seem like an attempt at whitewashing, let me add that Hepatitis C, then as now, for Western males, was considered no less a transmitted-by-sex disease than HIV. Jamie O’Neill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.205.39 (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the “Death” section, I’ve added a couple of contemporary broadsheet sources which hopefully are reliable. As Jamie O’Neill says, there is a distinct difference in the coverage of Harty’s death by the British tabloids and the broadsheets. The Times and the Telegraph both published quite substantial pieces about the cause of Harty’s death on the day they also ran obituaries, and the detail they go into (citing named members of staff at St James’s Hospital, etc.) is apparently to counter the misinformation about AIDS that was going around (the Telegraph one makes this pretty explicit). Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 17:24, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I almost choked when Harty interviewed David Bowie on his new record: “- Golden Tears”. “- No, it’s Years… Golden Years!”

Did these BBC and BBC2 chatshows he hosted (mentioned in the fifth paragraph of “Broacasting career”) have any names or titles? I see hardly any mention other than “Harty’s chatshow”. 199.120.30.198 (talk) 05:09, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In its current form the article cites Alan Bennett re: Harty’s third-class degree, then backs this up by citing Harty’s entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, though as this was also written by Alan Bennett it’s essentially the same source. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 01:41, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Per$1$tenceofv1$1on[reply]

Given that Bennett and Harty were close friends and contemporaries at Exeter and lived in near-adjacent rooms, it’s highly likely that Bennett’s recollection of the degree class is accurate. We would need a very good ref to challenge it, and I’m not aware that it’s ever been disputed. There will be a record of the degree class at Oxford somewhere. —Ef80 (talk) 14:29, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think I’ve expressed myself very well. I wasn’t claiming that Alan Bennett spread lies about how academically well-qualified his friend was; as it currently stands, the article makes Bennett and the ODNB article on Harty look like two sources when in fact they’re just one, and I think it should be revised slightly. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 15:45, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Right, so I’ve chased up the reference to Bennett’s 2016 book, and it doesn’t say anything about Harty claiming he had a first. It appears the quotation was given accurately (but with no reference) in 2017, then on 12 February 2020 an IP editor changed it so it appeared Harty and not Bennett was talking about getting a first. I’d rather not delete the endnote because @~2025-37688-09 has just added a quality source to it, but it seems to me that since a) Harty (as per his Sunday Times article on Bennett) didn’t claim he got a first, and b) Bennett didn’t claim that he claimed to, there’s not very much point to it now. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 16:32, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So I’ve rewritten the passage about the Grace Jones interview – regretfully, because I haven’t been able to find any reliable sources that describe the actual interview before the famous slapping incident, only the incident itself. Jones has given plenty of interviews where she’s talked about it but I don’t believe Harty said anything (except for briefly in a Sunday Times interview in 1984), so all the material out there tends to show her in a flattering light and say what a jerk he was. Hopefully it’s as balanced as possible. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 17:54, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]