White? Looks to me.
Though didn’t Harriet’s friend, Janie, change races from white to black from the book to the film?
OK, now she looks like Lily Tomlin.
ETA: Rosie should have played Mrs. Golly.
In the books Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, the character Hazel’s race is never specified, but one assumes that Steinbeck would have pointed out if he was black. He did not, so I always assumed he was white. In the 1982 movie of Cannery Row, however, Hazel is played by a black guy.
I think the point here is that his race wasn’t changed from the book to the movie. It was changed from one book to another book, and then the movie faithfully copied the second book. So Nick Fury doesn’t really belong in this thread.
Sigmagirl, you so bad! But yeah, Ole Golly was pretty skinny, kind of sharp, bird-like. Rosie is the last person I would have cast as Ole Golly.
IIRC there’s no explicit reference to Lincoln Rhyme’s ethnic background. But there are things he says in several of the books that make it clear he’s white – comments about black behavior or physiology as opposed to white. I can’t give a specific example and it’s been years since I read any of the books. But I read them after The Bone Collector was filmed and found it interesting at the time that Denzel Washington’s face was shown on the cover of the book yet the character was pretty clearly intended to be white.
I’m sure I don’t need to point this out, but just for the record: most norwegian are not blonde. I’m not sure what you mean by the pinkeye thing. Could you link to some pictures of people with this look? (not snarky BTW, I’m curious).
To the OP, I’m pretty sure both Tara and Eggs are white in the Sookie Stackhouse books, but they are both black in True Blood (if series count).
The Ultimate Universe Nick Fury was actually created specifically to be based on Samuel L. Jackson with his permission to do so. I remember it mentioned in an interview ages ago.
Kingpin, in Marvel comic books, was white. But in the movie Daredevil, he was played by Michael Clarke Duncan.
Except that now Jeffrey Wright has played him twice, and I assume will continue to play him…
Which doesn’t preclude his also being Morgan Freeman.
Gray Grantham is never described in the book in racial terms. That’s one of the reasons why no one fought the idea of Washington in the role, just the idea of Washington in the role having a romance with Julia Roberts as Darby, which she later villified as antidiluvean, ridiculous thinking.
Although the movie did address this somewhat, in an amusing way … Freeman/Red is throwing a baseball in a scene early in the movie, and Robbins/Dufresne asks him, “Why do they call you Red?”
Freeman pauses a moment, then says, “Maybe it’s because I’m Irish.” And gives a little nod of his head with a smile.
Isn’t his last name something like “Redmond” in the movie, hence the nickname Red?
IMDb has his name as Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding. Hmmm.
Ohhh That explains the LOEG Nemo’s turban.
This never got answered. There is an illustration of Janie on this page:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~csigler/harriet_the_spy.html
And here is the actress who plays Janie in the movie:
So that’s a big ol’ yes.
Again, sorry; can’t insert links from home.
WRT Ole Golly and Mrs. Golly: I just read Harriet the Spy to my son. IIRC, Harriet mentioned that Mrs. Golly was really doughy. Which doesn’t mean that her daughter couldn’t have had a darker complexion. But if there had been any notable contrast between Ole Golly and her mother (or her boyfriend for that matter), we can be quite sure that Harriet would have noticed it and written it down.
It bugged me too, but not because of the race change. The character, Shad, was supposed to be really funny-looking. IIRC, he was uber-pale and super-tall and had no hair and was weird looking besides that too. Part of the dynamic of the relationship between Erin and Shad is that she’s so attractive and he’s so…not. It’s one of the ways that she’s shown to be a good person–she’s nice to Shad where others just blow him off, partially because of his odd appearance. Shad returns this kindness with immense loyalty. But Ving Rhames isn’t funny-looking. So, IMHO, it was a poor casting decision. The part of Shad could have been played by a person of any race, as long as he was a large and funny-looking example of that race.
But they screwed up everything else in that adaptation, so it really doesn’t matter. I love Ving Rhames, so as far as I’m concerned, he improved the movie even if he was miscast.
Tara is white in the Sookie Stackhouse books, but black on True Blood.
In the book Dreamcatcher, was Col. Abraham Curtis white? I saw the movie a few months ago, and some of dialogue suggested that Morgan Freeman’s character was Scottish or Irish; turns of phrase you don’t hear Americans use too often. Damn, I wish I could remember what they were.
On stage Robert Guillaume played The Phantom of the Opera