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Research dossier · People & Ideas

Jed Prouty

American actor (1879–1956)

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 revisionMay 31, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Jed Prouty was an American film actor. Today's audiences may recognize him as the stammering vaudeville booker in The Broadway Melody (1929), the theater manager in Laurel and Hardy's Hollywood Party (1934), the oily publicist in A Star is Born (1937), the chief of the Keystone Cops in Hollywood Cavalcade (1939), and the network-radio executive in James Stewart's Pot o' Gold (1941).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Jed Prouty” as american actor (1879–1956). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

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—1929, 1934, 1937, 1939—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Prouty, American and actor can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actor (1879–1956). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1934, 1937 and 1939.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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 “Jed Prouty”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Jed Prouty primary sources, Jed Prouty archive and Prouty 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 “Jed Prouty”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Jed Prouty” 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.