Neville recalls dining with his friend John Van Bruton (almost certainly the playwright John van Druten) about three weeks before Van Bruton died. During the dinner, Van Bruton told Neville a story so surprising about arranging a coffin for an estate that Neville doubted it, until Van Bruton turned to his companion and business manager, Carter Lodge, to confirm it had really happened.
Date (happened)
c. 28 November 1957
unresolved
c. 28 November 1957
estimated · possible · preferred
Why
If the John Van Bruton = John van Druten identification, or his death date, is later confirmed or corrected elsewhere in the corpus, this date should be revisited.
Reasoning
The passage itself gives only a relative offset ('about three weeks before he died') from an undated death. The lecture's own processing notes identify 'John Van Bruton' as almost certainly the playwright John van Druten, transcribed by ear, at 'probable' confidence. Van Druten is a documented historical figure who died 1957-12-19 -- external knowledge, not a corpus fact -- so counting back about three weeks lands circa 1957-11-28. Confidence is possible rather than probable because it stacks an already-probable name identification on top of an externally sourced anchor date.
Told / reported
15 December 1967
conclusion
Why
dc1-agreement-20261004, pm-actor-551 (PM 8702)
Reasoning
1 claim, no conflict: 1967-12-15 (node:1314).
15 December 1967
estimated
Why
Single legacy-catalog claim, state legacy_unreviewed, but not one of the flagged 1957/#49-76 catalog block entries under suspicion.
Reasoning
The lecture whose passage 536882 carries this telling has one delivery claim, 1967-12-15, stated/exact/certain; no competing claim exists on this lecture to arbitrate between.