Shoreshthe drift report · all case files
Case file

Joan Blondell

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “american actress”. Today it says “american actress who performed in film and television for 50 years”. Sections present on October 6, 2023 no longer exist: “Gallery”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Joan Blondell ( August 30 , 1906 - December 25 , 1979 ) was an American actress . Born into a vaudeville family in New York City , Blondell was a sexy, wisecracking, blonde pre- Hays Code staple of Warner Brothers who appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions. She was one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931 . Her father, known as Eddie Joan Blondell, was a vaudeville comedian who was one of the original Katzenjammer Kids . Her younger sister, Gloria Blondell ( 1910 - 1986 ), was also an actress. The daughter of travelling showpeople, Blondell had seen much of the world by the time the family settled in Dallas, Texas while she was a teenager. She won a local beauty contest and travelled to New York to become an actress. She soon moved to Hollywood where she was placed under contract by Warner Brothers Studios , making her film debut in 1930. During the 1930s she would embody the depression era gold-digger, and with her huge eyes, blonde hair and wise cracking personality, became a crowd favourite. She appeared in more Warner Brothers films than any other actress, and referred to herself as "Warner's workhorse". The popularity of her films made a great contribution to the studio's profitability. Blondell was paired with James Cagney in such films as The Public Enemy ( 1931 ), and was one half of the gold-digging duo (with Glenda Farrell ) in nine films. During the Great Depression , Blondell was one of the highest paid individuals in the United States . Her stirring rendition of Remember My Forgotten Man in the Busby Berkeley production of Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), in which she co-starred with Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers , became an anthem for the frustrations of the unemployed and President Herbert Hoover 's failed economic policies. By the end of the decade she had made nearly 50 films. Continuing to work regularly for the rest of her life, Blondell was well received in her later films, and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in The Painted Veil ( 1951 ). She was widely seen in two films released not long before her death, Grease ( 1978 ) and The Champ ( 1979 ). She was married first in 1932 to the cinematographer George S. Barnes ( 1892 - 1953 ); they divorced in 1936 . Her second husband, married on September 19 , 1936, was the actor , director , and singer Dick Powell ; they were divorced on July 14 , 1944 , and had two children, Ellen Powell and Norman S. Powell (who became an actor, producer, and director). She married as her third husband, in 1947 , the producer Michael Todd , who divorced her in 1950 . She died of leukemia in Santa Monica, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California . Joan Blondell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6309 Hollywood Boulevard.1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16121865.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “american actress”. Today it says “american actress who performed in film and television for 50 years”. Sections present on October 6, 2023 no longer exist: “Gallery”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

american actress

Now

american actress who performed in film and television for 50 years

Sections that no longer exist

Present on October 6, 2023, absent today, with no near-matching heading in the current article and the article shorter overall, so this is not a renamed heading or a topic absorbed into a fuller treatment. 1 section of 400 characters or more gone since October 6 2023, with the article 60 characters shorter.

  • Gallery
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

← back to the drift report