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Research dossier · People & Ideas

Buster Crabbe

American swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, actor (1908–1983)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe II was an American two-time Olympic swimmer and film and television actor. He won the 1932 Olympic gold medal for 400-metre freestyle swimming event, which launched his career on the silver screen and later television. He starred in a variety of popular feature films and movie serials released between 1933 and the 1950s, portraying the top three syndicated comic-strip heroes of the 1930s: Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Buster Crabbe” as american swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, actor (1908–1983). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Buster, Crabbe and American.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932, 1933—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Buster, Crabbe and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Buster Crabbe”, the useful work is to connect “american swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, actor (1908–1983)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1932 and 1933.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Buster Crabbe”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Buster Crabbe primary sources, Buster Crabbe archive and Buster research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Buster Crabbe”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Buster Crabbe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.