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My Girl (film)

1991 film directed by Howard Zieff

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ833299 ↗
Source-derived summary

My Girl is a 1991 American coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama film directed by Howard Zieff, written by Laurice Elehwany, and starring Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Macaulay Culkin, and Anna Chlumsky in her first role in a major motion picture. Set during the summer of 1972, the film follows Vada Sultenfuss, an 11-year-old girl being raised by her widowed funeral director father in her town's funeral home as she navigates her first romance, fear of mortality, and her close friendship with her male classmate, Thomas. The film's title refers to the classic 1964 song of the same name by The Temptations, which is also featured in the film's end credits.

The film was released by Columbia Pictures on November 27, 1991, and grossed $121 million on a budget of $17 million. A book adaptation based on the film was written by Patricia Hermes. A sequel, My Girl 2, was released in 1994.

Plot

Vada Sultenfuss is an 11-year-old girl living in Madison, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1972. Her widowed father, Harry Sultenfuss, operates the town's funeral parlor, which is also their home. Her upbringing leads her to suffer from hypochondria and develop an obsession with death, which her father fails to understand. Also living with them are "Gramoo", Vada's paternal grandmother, whose recent dementia accentuates Vada's worries, and Harry's older brother and Vada's paternal uncle Phil.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “My Girl (film)” is 1991 film directed by Howard Zieff. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Girl, film and directed, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1991, 1972, 1964, 1994—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1991-11-27, 1992-01-09—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Girl, film and directed is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1991 film directed by Howard Zieff” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q833299. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1972, 1964 and 1994.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. 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

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “My Girl (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow My Girl (film) primary sources, My Girl (film) archive and Girl 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 “My Girl (film)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “My Girl (film)” 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.