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 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!)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
I’m actually a character in a very short 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
