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Pat Jankiewicz

American author, journalist, media historian, and actor

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 revisionApr 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ135562822
Source-derived summary

Patrick Jankiewicz, known more often as Pat Jankiewicz, is an American author, journalist, and media historian specializing in companion books for genre media, and an actor. He has been a long‑time contributor to magazines such as Fangoria, Starlog and Film Review; and he has played many acting roles in television and film, centered on creature work.

Personal life

Jankiewicz was raised in Michigan. He has lived in Southern California, and honed his writing skills while working in public relations and copywriting. He is the younger brother of Grosse Pointe Blank screenwriter Tom Jankiewicz, and actor Donald R. Jankiewicz.

Writing

Jankiewicz began writing for genre magazines in the late 1980s, including articles, interviews and features for Fangoria, Starlog and Film Review, as well as working for years with the SyFy Channel. This background informed his research. He contributed Star Trek profiles to Starlog in the early 1990s alongside writers such as Lee Goldberg and Craig Chrissinger.

In 2014 his Fangoria article "Killer Thriller", revisiting John Landis's Michael Jackson's Thriller music video, appeared on the ballot for the twelfth Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe: A Jaws Companion

In 2010, Jankiewicz’s first major work, the book Just When You Thought It Was Safe: A Jaws Companion (BearManor Media, 2010), examines the production of Steven Spielberg's Jaws and its sequels.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pat Jankiewicz” is american author, journalist, media historian, and actor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Jankiewicz, American and author, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014, 2010—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Jankiewicz, American and author is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american author, journalist, media historian, and actor” 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

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q135562822. VIAF identifies the subject as 129441590. The Library of Congress control number is no2010164553. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2014 and 2010.

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 “Pat Jankiewicz”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Pat Jankiewicz primary sources, Pat Jankiewicz archive and Jankiewicz 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 “Pat Jankiewicz”?
  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 Pat Jankiewicz” 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.