# Anyone met a fictional character's real-life original? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 20, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545 "2014-04-20T15:28:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/21 "2014-04-21T01:52:10Z")
Comic-book artist Brent Anderson used to live in San Diego, and he drew a number of local fans as characters in “Strikeforce Morituri.” I wasn’t lucky enough to be one of them, but I do know a few who were. If I ever get published… Heh… I have a terrible habit of Tuckerizing my friends! (I found the reference: it’s something that [Wilson Tucker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckerization) did. However, the article linked says that Tuckerizing means using the name of someone real, and I think this thread is more about using recognizable physical traits.) (As far as using the names, science fiction author Jack McDevitt named a starship “The Patrick Heffernan,” after the owner of a science fiction/mystery bookstore. I’ve met Patrick a number of times. He sells good books!) ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/22 "2014-04-21T02:44:24Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Almost. My aunt went to college with a woman who was Charles Schulze’s niece, and the inspiration for Peppermint Patty. My mother grew up in Minneapolis with Charles Shultz (and once went on a date with him) and all the Peanuts gang. Her best friend as a youngster was Frieda Rich (the girl with naturally curly hair) who, incidentally, is a dwarf, and I’ve also met the real Charlie Brown. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/23 "2014-04-21T06:49:49Z")
The character of Frasier Crane (_Cheers, Frasier_) is based on a Seattle-based psychiatrist and amateur actor by the name of Dolph. Dolph was a very good college friend of both my dad and legendary NBC chairman Brandon Tartikoff. Brandon asked the people running \*Cheers \*- his favorite show - to write a small part for his friend; although in the end Dolph either couldn’t or wouldn’t play the role, the showrunners liked the concept so much that they cast Kelsey Grammer (who bears a strong physical resemblance to Dolph) instead. I’ve met Dolph plenty of times. He’s a lot like Frasier, although much looser and consciously funnier. Also more Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/24 "2014-04-21T07:36:32Z")
Um, say what, Lamar Mundane? The character of Charlie Brown was based mostly on Schultz himself. Are you saying that Schultz knew someone actually named Charlie Brown and you met him? That would only be basing the name on him, not the character. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/25 "2014-04-21T07:37:09Z")
The character William Hurt played in **Broadcast News** was based on my sister’s editor, a former DC-based TV journalist. I met him at a couple of my sister’s parties. He’s not particularly dim, but got fired from his cushy broadcasting position for getting drunk on his own time and being unavailable for some breaking news story as a result. I used to live on Bainbridge Island, WA. Chris Kattan grew up there, and several **SNL** recurring characters (Spartan Cheerleaders and Suel, the teacher with a thick Cajun accent nobody can understand) are based on actual people well-known on the island. I haven’t met them, but the rest of my family has. I’ve met his mom (a former PLAYBOY model) and brother, but they’ve not yet been fictionalized. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/26 "2014-04-21T08:32:31Z")
I know several chess players semi-fictionalized for the movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer”. Was in the presence of one of them when we both met the supposed real-life Richie Rich (not that he was in fact rich, but maybe he was the physical model? Or maybe it was just BS). ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/27 "2014-04-21T09:02:01Z")
I went to high school with Meggin Cabot (The Princess Diaries). A lot of her main characters of fantasy versions of herself (she always had a fantasy that she really was a princess when she was a kid), and a lot of the other main characters are either totally made up, or composites, but in her teen boks, most of the background characters are our high school classmates. I’m pretty sure one very minor one is even me. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/28 "2014-04-21T10:40:13Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > I don’t suppose this is an entirely fictional character, I can’t really be sure. > I can’t even vouch for the reality of the example, but this is as close as I get to the proposed scenario. This actually happened to me: A guy at work showed me a picture, that he took, of a man. The man looked to be maybe in his 60’s (the year was late 1990’s) and had kind of a street-person look. > My coworker says: “That’s Mr. Jimmy.” I said: “Huh?” He said: “Mr. Jimmy, the _real_ Mr. Jimmy!” I repeated: “Huh?” And he said: “From the Rolling Stones. You Can’t Always Get What You want. ‘I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy’.” > And I just looked at the guy, as if to convey: “What the Fuck am I supposed to say about this??” I always thought that referred to Jimmy Miller, the Stones’ recording producer at the time. AFAIK, it’s quite possible the photo you were shown was indeed of a later-in-life, disheveled Mr. Miller. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/29 "2014-04-21T11:33:42Z")
My friend is friends with the former wife of firefighter Kevin Shea who was portrayed by George Clooney in Without Warning: Terror in the Towers. She used to always have fun saying she was married to Clooney by proxy. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/30 "2014-04-21T12:45:47Z")
I’m actually a character in a very short [Michael Swanwick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Swanwick) sf story. I met him about 5 years ago when he was visiting Edinburgh and he just sat down and started writing - I assumed it was notes on his holiday but a few minutes later he stood up, tore out a couple of pages from his spiral notepad and gave them to me. When he said it was for me to keep I was fairly stunned. When I realised it was a short story, it was 'wow! When I saw that I was in it, it was more like ‘Fuck! Wow!’ So I have the only copy of a hand-written 2 page short story by one of my favourite, multi-award-winning, authors framed at home. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/31 "2014-04-21T12:57:57Z")
I don’t know if this counts, but my cousin Suzanne went to high school with Trey Anastasio of Phish. They dated for a while, and he apparently wrote a very nasty song about her after they broke up. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/32 "2014-04-21T13:12:33Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > (I found the reference: it’s something that [Wilson Tucker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckerization) did. However, the article linked says that Tuckerizing means using the name of someone real, and I think this thread is more about using recognizable physical traits. I met Wilson “Bob” Tucker many years ago, and many years ago he was Tuckerized himself in the “Time Machine” stories in **Boy’s Life.** Bob was primarily a fan, though he did publish a few novels. His “The Year of the Quiet Sun” is one of the better time travel novels. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/33 "2014-04-21T13:24:48Z")
I’ve met several webcomics guys who have appeared in other strips. I dunno if that counts, though. In my own webcomic one of the main antagonists is the mayor of the small town…who is based on the blowhard mayor of the small town I was living in at the time. Some friends have recognized him and say that it’s a good thing I left town. If he ever found out my utility bills would go through the roof. ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/34 "2014-04-21T13:57:31Z")
Does ornithologist James Bond count? ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/35 "2014-04-21T14:14:50Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Um, say what, Lamar Mundane? The character of Charlie Brown was based mostly on Schultz himself. Are you saying that Schultz knew someone actually named Charlie Brown and you met him? That would only be basing the name on him, not the character. Maybe it is only the name, but there was a real Charlie Brown who the character was named after. He, Frieda, and Charles Shultz all worked together at the Art Instruction School in Minneapolis. [http://www.slphistory.org/history/browncharlie.asp](http://www.slphistory.org/history/browncharlie.asp) ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/36 "2014-04-21T14:41:43Z")
Ages ago, when I was at Columbia, I briefly met liberal clergyman William Sloane Coffin. He was the inspiration for Reverend Scott Sloan in the\*\*\* Doonesburry \*\*\*comic strip. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/37 "2014-04-21T16:53:53Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In one sense I am a fictional character’s real-life original. > > AOL used to have a Harry Turtledove forum in which I was a regular participant. Turtledove himself was also a regular on that board. When he was writing his World War series he gave several of the alien characters names that were the names of people he knew spelled backwards. One of them was mine. > > It was a very minor character. Just a normal soldier who was mentioned in passing in a scene or two. I’d love to know which (_Worldwar_ is one of my favourite things by Turtledove). Not Teerts, I take it (which I’ve noticed is “Street” backwards) – he’s a prominent character: largely in the wrong way, poor sod – among other things, he gets captured by the Japanese, with predictable results. Wish I could ask you to PM me; but the “Dope” ‘s to me labyrinthine registration procedures, make me feel I’ve done well even to make it as a “Guest”. Harry Turtledove and S.M. Stirling, writers of not altogether dissimilar fiction and, I gather, personal friends, have paid each other the compliment of basing characters in their respective fictional works, on each other. In Turtledove’s “Southern Victory” aka “TL-191” series, Stirling features as Michael Pound, US Army “lifer” and “professional sergeant” (he prefers to remain an NCO), with an often alarmingly and brutally direct view of how to solve problems. I was for a while a keen Stirling fan and participant in an SMS Net discussion group – might have had a chance to meet the great man on a visit by him to my home country (UK), and thus scored another real-life-original-of-fictional-character: but for various reasons, my Stirling fandom has become in recent times, a lot less intense; and such a meet-up hasn’t happened, and won’t. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/38 "2014-04-21T17:39:27Z")
Never met him, but I am descended from the original “Blutto” of _Popeye_ fame. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/39 "2014-04-21T17:49:30Z")
A couple. There are writers I have a hard time reading because I know them or know some people they know (the aforementioned Steve Brust is one of them - and he is horrible about putting people he knows in his books - Cowboy Fengs is a complete gossip novel for a certain group of people) and people I know in real life show up in their novels. Though often, the writer disavows it. ---
**Author:** ![txjim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f07891/32.png) [@txjim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/txjim)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545/40 "2014-04-21T18:31:20Z")
_A Few Good Men_ was based on a real incident and I met the JAG played by Tom Cruise in the movie. As one would expect, there were factual differences between the play/movie and reality. First, there was no confrontational courtroom drama, the Marine Colonel was diciplined for issuing the Code Red. Second, the real JAG would have bedded the Demi Moore character within 30 minutes of their first meeting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-met-a-fictional-characters-real-life-original/686545.md?page=3)