No problemo. BTW, the west coast production of TMWCTD is mentioned in Harpo Speaks! Harpo talks about Woollcott’s performance but doesn’t say he acted in it himself. And when the production moved from LA to San Francisco he refers to the cast as “they” and “them” not “we” or “us”.
I’m beginning to doubt this ever happened.
For that matter wasn’t Hannibal Lecter at least partly inspired by the case of Albert Fish? (Who almost makes lecter look like a lightweight!)
Uncle Duke-Hunter S. Thompson
The title character of Saul Bellow’s “Humboldt’s Gift” was a thinly disguised version of poet Delmore Schwartz.
The man calls himself The Velure Fog, Shatner all the way.
Johnny Depp based the character of Captain Jack Sparrow on Keith Richards (and Pepe Le Pew).
Dr Strangelove had opinions like Herman Kahn and looked like Henry Kissinger.
Buck Turdgitson was a Curtis Bombs Away LeMay.
I made a quick run-through of Wikipedia & couldn’t see any obvious links. My “research” revealed that Stoker knew the Wilde family before Oscar moved to England permanently–which may have been prompted by Stoker’s marriage to Florence, whom Oscar had been courting. Stoker had known Oscar since student days–probably before the full flowering of Oscar The Aesthete. They mended their friendship & Stoker visited Oscar after his release from prison–when so many of his friends had deserted him.
Stoker is a character in Mark Frost’s List of 7; the “hero” is Arthur Conan Doyle. Since these are real characters used fictionally, they might not fit the definition of the OP. But the Doyle of the novel aids the eccentrically brilliant agent Jack Sparks in the foiling of an arcane & evil plot. And then finds Jack Sparks the inspiration for the detective stories that made him wealthy…
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’s Pharaob is an homage to Elivs.
I think Potiphar is meant to be based on Noel Coward, although the casting may make this more, or less obvious.
There’s also evidence that Scrooge was modelled after an Edinburgh businessman and that Dickens misread his tombstone while on a visit to the city.
And Dr. Strangelove may have been modelled on Kissinger but the general public wouldn’t have realised that; the film was made in 1964, several years before Kissinger became National Security Advisor after years of being behind the scenes in various thinktanks, etc. I’m dubious Sellers would have known of him, let alone parodied him.
I was always under the impression that Strangelove was based on Wernher von Braun, for rather obvious reasons. The character is obviously an amalgam of several influences.
On Dracula: there isn’t really an “Oscar Wilde” character in the book. One historian has posited that Quincey Morris is based on Buffalo Bill Cody, who Stoker knew personally. However, the real Buffalo Bill was a midwesterner, and his speech was nothing like the Texan argot used by Morris in the book. Other critics have speculated that the personalities of actor Henry Irving (Stoker’s longtime employer) and explorer Richard Burton were models for the Count, though concrete attributions are tenuous. The clearest “real life” inspiration for a Dracula character is Hungarian ethnographer Arminius Vambery, who Stoker also knew personally. Van Helsing clearly states that most of his knowledge of vampire lore comes from consultations with his friend “Arminius”, who communicates with the main characters via telegram and post throughout the novel.
All four of the musketeers were based on real-life people, although the fictional characters often have little in common with the real people, other than the names.
Athos is based on Armand, Seigneur de Sillègue, d’Athos, et d’Autevielle
Aramis is based on Henri, Seigneur d’Aramitz
Porthos is based on Isaac de Porthau
And BD started out as a parody of [del]Harvard[/del] Yale quarterback Brian Dowling.
And the Quimblys are obviously based on that Massachusetts political family the Kennedys.
Mebbe so, but I don’t know that I could see that even if Coward were playing Potiphar.
Similarly, I think the title character of “Herzog” was a thinly disguised Bellow.
In the film Strategic Air Command (with lugubrious plot but beautiful aerial photography), the head of SAC was named “General Hawks.”
But who was the inspiration for Charlie Chaplin’s character in The Great Dictator?
/Godwinizes thread
When Harris went back and gave Lecter a past (a move that benefitted Harris financially but nobody else at all) he also borrowed from Andrei Chikatilo, a Ukrainian who was a child during WW2 when cannibalism occurred due to starvation; Chikatilo’s brother was allegedly killed and eaten. Harris made Lecter a Lithuanian nobleman whose sister was killed and eaten during the war.
Peter Lorre’s character in “M” was inspired by Peter Kürten.
