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Stephen Shortridge

American actor, painter and author

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 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ7610522 ↗
Source-derived summary

Stephen Shortridge (born October 23, 1951, in Red Oak, Iowa) is an American actor.

Shortridge appeared in more than 20 film and television projects throughout the 1970s and 1980s, most recognizably from his role as a Southern high school student named Beau De LaBarre on the television sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. He has also done over 50 commercials for such products as Mennen, Coca-Cola, and Head & Shoulders. In 1987, he spent one year as a regular cast member on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.

In the late 1980s, Shortridge quit the acting business to concentrate on painting. He presented gallery showings across the United States. He currently makes his home in Idaho with his children. His second wife, Cathy, whom he had married in 1976, died in 2017, leaving him a widower.

Shortridge is also an author. He published his first book in 2011 titled Deepest Thanks, Deeper Apologies.

Editorial summary

“Stephen Shortridge” enters the record as american actor, painter and author. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Stephen, Shortridge and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1951, 1987, 1976, 2017—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1953-10-23, 1951-10-23—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Stephen, Shortridge and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Stephen Shortridge” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Stephen, Shortridge and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

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 Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7610522. VIAF identifies the subject as 292190557. The Library of Congress control number is n2012071091. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1987, 1976 and 2017.

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 “Stephen Shortridge”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Stephen Shortridge primary sources, Stephen Shortridge archive and Stephen 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 “Stephen Shortridge”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Stephen Shortridge” 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.