# Most "Whitewashed" Real Life Character In a Film? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 23, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463 "2005-02-23T02:43:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/21 "2005-02-23T06:30:11Z")
> [@Sir Rhosis](#): > > I’ve never seen the Babe Ruth film. How did it contrast with his real life? The real Babe Ruth drank too much, ate too much, fought with his managers, and likely racked up a lifetime sexual scorecard that would rival Wilt Chamberlin’s. This movie was protrayed him as a milk-drinking, innocent and misunderstood kid. The movie is overly melodramatic and cartoon-ish. Whether or not the movie invented the cliche I’m not sure, but it includes a scene where he promises a sick kid in the hospital that he’ll hit a home run for him (perhaps that came from a ghost-written autobiography). In one scene he hits a dog with a line drive during a game. He scoops up the dog and rushes out of the stadium and takes it to a vet’s office. He goes to a bar and orders…MILK, naturally. William Bendix, the actor who played the Babe was right-handed and only managed a very awkward looking left-handed swing. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/22 "2005-02-23T06:45:57Z")
Oliver Stone took great liberties with the Midnight Express screenplay. Ignoring the rather obvious fact that Billy Hayes is not the least bit of a sympathetic character to begin with (Got busted trying to smuggle several keys of hash out of Turkey? Poor baby…) the real Hayes only spent about a year in that hell-ish prison, he never bit the tounge out of any informer, he did not kill that sadistic guard (though that guard _was_ killed later by another inmate) and his _“escape”_ went like this: They moved him to a minimum security island cell near the border and ‘let’ him steal a boat and row to Greece. At least the real Hayes never hesitates to point out that the film is bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/23 "2005-02-23T07:22:51Z")
The previously mentioned _Braveheart_ bears only a passing resemblance to actual history. William Wallace was not a half-wild Highlander, but the product of a well-to-do and educated family. His first wife, who’s name was Marion and not Murron, died in a housefire. He never impregnated Princess Isabella, who was a 12-year-old living in France at the time of his death. Longshanks survived him by several years, and never threw any of Prince Edward’s boyfriends out a window. Kilts and blue warpaint were unknown to the Scots of that period. Wallace never sacked York and he never killed any of Longshanks’ nephews. Oh, and the battle of Sterling Bridge had a _bridge_ in it. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/24 "2005-02-23T07:53:17Z")
M had Peter Lorre portraying an ordinary child-killer. The persons his character was based upon- Peter Kurten & Fritz Haarman were, respectively, a sadistic vampiric torture-killer & a sodomizing cannibalizing meat-dealer (yes, that’s right- imagine if Dahmer ran a deli). ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/25 "2005-02-23T08:23:59Z")
Bob Hope starred as Eddie Foy, the vaudevillian, in ‘The Seven Little Foys’ (1955) which the IMDB described thus; “Vaudeville entertainer Eddie Foy, who has vowed to forever keep his act a solo, falls in love with and marries Italian ballerina Madeleine. While they continue to tour the circuit, they begin a family and before long have seven little Foys to clutter the wings. After tragedy threatens to stall Eddie’s career, he comes to realize that his little terrors are worth their weight in gold.” However in his book of interviews with Richard J Anobile, Groucho Marx described Foy as a ‘c\*\*t’ who upon learning his wife was once again pregnant, repeatedly kicked her in the stomach until she miscarried. Not in the movie. MiM ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/26 "2005-02-23T08:51:55Z")
Well, I’d say Othello’s been “whitewashed” quite a bit over the years, but he’s fictional. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/27 "2005-02-23T09:18:32Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > The previously mentioned _Braveheart_ bears only a passing resemblance to actual history. William Wallace was not a half-wild Highlander, but the product of a well-to-do and educated family. His first wife, who’s name was Marion and not Murron, died in a housefire. He never impregnated Princess Isabella, who was a 12-year-old living in France at the time of his death. Longshanks survived him by several years, and never threw any of Prince Edward’s boyfriends out a window. Kilts and blue warpaint were unknown to the Scots of that period. Wallace never sacked York and he never killed any of Longshanks’ nephews. Oh, and the battle of Sterling Bridge had a _bridge_ in it. Apparently Marion’s name was changed to avoid confusion with _Maid_ Marian. As a British reviewer memorably pointed out, the Scots in the movie managed to wear kilts 500 years too early and woad 500 years too late. And don’t even get me started on “All we want is a country of our own!”, several centuries before the concept of a nation-state had taken root in Europe: it’s rather like having Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army discussing the benefits of Marxism. ---
**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:** [February 23, 2005, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/28 "2005-02-23T14:03:58Z")
Whatever else was wrong, the characters in Braveheart did not wear kilts. What they wore was basically a long shirt that went to the knees and was belted at the waist. This was common costume for Scots before kilts were invented. ---
**Author:** ![Cynical\_Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Cynical\_Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cynical_Optimist)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/29 "2005-02-23T14:18:47Z")
[John “Stebby” Stebbins](http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,9281,00.html), hero of the Battle of Mogadishu in _Black Hawk Down_ likes 'em young. Real young. Prepubescent young. They didn’t just leave that out, they changed his name in the film as well. Granted, at the time he wasn’t (as far as we know) diddling the darlings but the Army Rangers insisted his name be changed anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/30 "2005-02-23T14:28:20Z")
The entire Soviet Film system whitewashed Stalin. When they weren’t airbrushing purged Comrades out of historical photos, that is. ---
**Author:** ![pasunejen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58956e/32.png) [@pasunejen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pasunejen)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/31 "2005-02-23T14:32:23Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Whatever else was wrong, the characters in Braveheart did not wear kilts. What they wore was basically a long shirt that went to the knees and was belted at the waist. This was common costume for Scots before kilts were invented. Some characters, including William Wallace, were dressed in kilts. I’m having a hard time finding a full-length still to back me up, but I am 100% positive in this regard. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/32 "2005-02-23T14:45:12Z")
I’m pretty certain that King Arthur (if he existed) and his knights weren’t attacked by killer rabbits, like in _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_. 😉 The portrayls of William Bligh in the earlier _Mutiny on the Bounty_ movies are wrong. They portray him as a monster, basically, when in real life he was just a man who had a hard time relating to his men. If anything, he was too nice most of the time (compared to other captains of the same era). He did his own thing on Tahiti while his men went wild. When it was time to leave, he realized he had to run a tighter ship to discipline them more after their months of freedom and that’s when the men, like Fletcher Christian, got really irritated. In fact, Bligh was seen as sort of a celebrity when he got back to England. It was only when Christian’s family started badmouthing him that the belief that Bligh was a monster got underway. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/33 "2005-02-23T14:55:33Z")
> [@pasunejen](#): > > Some characters, including William Wallace, were dressed in kilts. I’m having a hard time finding a full-length still to back me up, but I am 100% positive in this regard. [Here](http://www.pearl-jam.com/misc/bhstand.jpg) you go. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/34 "2005-02-23T15:18:28Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Whatever else was wrong, the characters in Braveheart did not wear kilts. What they wore was basically a long shirt that went to the knees and was belted at the waist. So, more of a casual evening gown… ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/35 "2005-02-23T15:19:50Z")
**Sampiro** , that’s all very interesting, but without knowing more about Michaelangelo or his times it’s no more of a smoking gun than the fact that Lincoln shared his bed with other men. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/36 "2005-02-23T15:42:47Z")
In the opposite direction, I have wondered if the movie **Cobb** (and the biography upon which it is based) isn’t a major hatchet job. The book was conveniently posthumous, so Cobb wasn’t around to dispute its content. I’m sure [Ty Cobb](http://graphics.nytimes.com/nytstore/images/products/photos/sports/baseball/NSAPCS14_large.jpg) was cantankerous, but I have my doubts that he was as big a jackass as portrayed in that film. Cobb (who made a fortune in the stock market) is known to have been very generous with down-on-their-luck ex-ballplayers (among them “Shoeless” Joe Jackson). He also donated large sums of money to charity (particularly hospitals). Seems inconsistent with a portayal of the man as wildly misanthropic. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/37 "2005-02-23T15:53:28Z")
**The Young Poisoner’s Handbook** avoids mentioning Graham Young’s obsession with Hitler and Nazism and shows his initial hospitalization as having “cured” him of the compulsion to poison others. In fact, Young spent his incarceration studying medical books and improving his expertise, and on his release immediately set about acquiring poisons again, intent on picking up where he had left off. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/38 "2005-02-23T16:16:04Z")
Adolf Hitler Triumph of the Will ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/39 "2005-02-23T16:18:42Z")
Although I haven’t read Stump’s book _Cobb_, I have read the one-chapter capsulization published in the _Fireside Book of Baseball_, in which Stump revealed that Cobb’s family had deserted him, the extent of his drinking problem and that only three people from baseball showed up at his funeral. He detailed how Cobb banished a worshipful Ted Williams for simply mentioning that Rogers Hornsby had outhit Cobb one year. But Stump specifically states that Cobb was not on drugs (a claim reversed in the movie, which Stump was involved with). The _Fireside_ article quotes Cobb as saying that he wouldn’t let the doctors turn him into a drug addict. This seems to be part of the whitewash portrayed in the final scene of the movie – drug addiction was considered much nastier back then. There seems to be some debate about whether Cobb physically abused his wives as the movie portrayed (although no one seems to dispute that he was a philanderer, a bad father and serious alcoholic). But I also heard somewhere that Mickey Cochrane claimed that Cobb had not supported him either. So there are a number of discrepancies. But by all acounts, Cobb was beyond cantankerous and well into ‘off-the-rails’. > [@spoke-](#): > > In the opposite direction, I have wondered if the movie **Cobb** (and the biography upon which it is based) isn’t a major hatchet job. The book was conveniently posthumous, so Cobb wasn’t around to dispute its content. I’m sure [Ty Cobb](http://graphics.nytimes.com/nytstore/images/products/photos/sports/baseball/NSAPCS14_large.jpg) was cantankerous, but I have my doubts that he was as big a jackass as portrayed in that film. > > Cobb (who made a fortune in the stock market) is known to have been very generous with down-on-their-luck ex-ballplayers (among them “Shoeless” Joe Jackson). He also donated large sums of money to charity (particularly hospitals). Seems inconsistent with a portayal of the man as wildly misanthropic. ---
**Author:** ![Sweetums](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Sweetums](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweetums)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463/40 "2005-02-23T16:22:07Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Whatever else was wrong, the characters in Braveheart did not wear kilts. What they wore was basically a long shirt that went to the knees and was belted at the waist. This was common costume for Scots before kilts were invented. ``` Historicaly yes, that is what they would have worn (except in battle where Wallace would have worn armor and fought mounted, he was a knight after all). The movie characters wore kilts, Mel/Wallace even refers to his kilt in one scene. Something about "my kilt would fly up over my head". ``` [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-whitewashed-real-life-character-in-a-film/291463.md?page=3)