Talk:Russell Harty

HIV status

It has been suggested that the subject of this article is eligible for inclusion in the list of HIV-positive people. If you know of any reliable source that helps to clarify this person's HIV status then please mention it on the list's talk page. Trezatium 19:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I've have a look at the book Stick It Up Your Punter: The Rise And Fall Of The Sun which as I recall covers the paper's hounding of Russell Harty over his sexuality in some depth. Actually, the attitude of the tabloid press toward him ought to be mentioned in the article, they really turned on him toward the end of his life and the book can be taken as a reliable source. -88.109.17.122 20:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The article should certainly mention the appalling hounding of Harty by the tabloids, and particularly the Sun, during his final illness. However, at present it doesn't mention his sexuality at all. There was much more to Harty than homosexuality, but it was part of him and should be acknowledged. --Ef80 (talk) 21:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

My name is Jamie O'Neill; I am mentioned in this article: for this reason I am loath to comment. But the truth is that Russell was not HIV+. Russell contracted Hepatitis C, and he died of liver failure brought on by that condition. Any glance at the broadsheet newspapers of the time will confirm this, or a reading of Alan Bennett's eulogy, where he describes Russell as having "died of the wrong disease" -- AIDS, in 1988, being the correct disease to die of, if one were homosexual. In case this should seem like an attempt at whitewashing, let me add that Hepatitis C, then as now, for Western males, was considered no less a transmitted-by-sex disease than HIV. Jamie O'Neill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.205.39 (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Bowie

I almost choked when Harty interviewed David Bowie on his new record: "- Golden Tears". "- No, it's Years... Golden Years!"

Name of BBC shows?

Did these BBC and BBC2 chatshows he hosted (mentioned in the fifth paragraph of "Broacasting career") have any names or titles? I see hardly any mention other than "Harty's chatshow". 199.120.30.198 (talk) 05:09, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Oxford Degree

In its current form the article cites Alan Bennett re: Harty's third-class degree, then backs this up by citing Harty's entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, though as this was also written by Alan Bennett it's essentially the same source. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 01:41, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Per$1$tenceofv1$1on

Given that Bennett and Harty were close friends and contemporaries at Exeter and lived in near-adjacent rooms, it's highly likely that Bennett's recollection of the degree class is accurate. We would need a very good ref to challenge it, and I'm not aware that it's ever been disputed. There will be a record of the degree class at Oxford somewhere. --Ef80 (talk) 14:29, 22 March 2024 (UTC)