The Real-Life Inspiration

Probably the most celebrated example:

Orson Welles in Citizen Kane

 

Adolphe Menjou as the conniving editor Walter Burns in The Front Page



Walter Howey, the managing editor of Hearst's Chicago Examiner



Walter Howey - Wikipedia

 

James Dean as Jett Rink in Giant







Glenn McCarthy - Wikipedia

 

Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen in Badlands



Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate



1973

 

About the character Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (and of course, My Fair Lady): (from Wikipedia):

Shaw mentioned that the character of Professor Henry Higgins was inspired by several British professors of phonetics: Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, Tito Pagliardini, but above all, the cantankerous Henry Sweet.[1]

Henry Sweet - Wikipedia

The recent movie Never Look Away is based on the life of the German painter Gerhard Richter.

 

Richard Attenborough as "Big X" in The Great Escape





Roger Bushell - Wikipedia

 

Man, just looking at that picture of Charles Starkweather you know the guy is trouble! BTW Badlands is a great 70s film in every sense of the word. Everything hinges on Spacek and Sheen.

 

A great artist and the movie is equally great.

 

Cartoonish movie about a cartoonish political figure:

Actual photo not available:

 

The thread is not about biopics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_à_clef

Roman à clef is a novel about real life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people​

 

“Valley of the Dolls”
Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward) inspired by Ethel Merman
Neely OHara (Patty Duke) inspired by Judy Garland, Frances Farmer and Betty Hutton
Jennifer North (Sharon Tate) inspired by Marilyn Monroe and Carole Landis
Tony Polar (Tony Scotti) inspired by Dean Martin

 

“The Horse Soldiers” directed by John Ford

Colonel John Marlowe (John Wayne) was inspired by General Benjamin Grierson and his raid through the Confederacy in 1863. Movie is based on a 1956 novel by Harold Sinclair

 

The character Lancaster Dodd in The Master (2012) bears a resemblance to a real life leader of a new spiritual movement, L. Ron Hubbard, but for legal reasons, let's call it a coincidence.

 

Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark in All The King's Men



Huey Long, Governor of/Senator from Louisiana

 

...oops...just saw that thread not about biopics..my bad..still a good story though


"Tucker The Man and his Dream" tells a great story and Jeff Bridges nicely plays up Preston Tucker to be a lot more colourful than he probably was (Hold That Tiger!).

 

Weren't Micky and Mallory of Natural Born Killers also inspired by Starkweather and Fugate?

 

Indiana Jones was supposedly based on Hiram Bingham, who may or may not have discovered Machu Picchu.

 

George Costanza was based on Larry David.

 

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk

 

Hecky Brown, Zero Mostel's character in the Front was based on actor/comedian Phillip Loeb who committed suicide just as Mostel's character did.

 

Helen Kane - Wikipedia

jerol

 

Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948)





Lydia Dingwell (1872-1947) was a deaf mute living on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Playwright Elmer Blaney Harris had a summer home on PEI and learned of her story around 1930. He would write the play Johnny Belinda based on her experiences; it ran on Broadway during the 1940-1 season.

Lydia died before the film version, but was alive when the play was produced. I wonder if she saw it -- and what her thoughts were about having her story told...

 

In Round Midnight Dale Turner, played by Dexter Gordon, was a composite of Lester Young and Bud Powell.

 

Charlie the Tuna was based on Henry Nemo.

 

It is felt that Ian Fleming created the character M based on his boss in naval intelligence Admiral John Godfrey. Godfrey didn’t care for it, saying M was an unsavory character.
There are other possibilities such has Maxwell Knight who as head of MI5 would sign documents “M”