MY FAVORITE YEAR is one of my favorite films. King Kaiser is of course based on Sid Caesar, and to quite a degree from what I understand: like Kaiser, Caesar was insanely generous, devil-may-care, and nuts- sometimes violently- on and off the set and in fact loved a good fight. The writers are based on, among others, Mel Brooks (who produced and had some input into the film but didn’t write it), Neil Simon and other Caesar writers, and Alan Swann is based on Errol Flynn who Brooks really did have to go in shifts with other writers to keep sober enough for a day to do the show.
The sideplot about the Union Boss (“Did you say that Carl? What a guy!”) I always assumed was fictionalized, but in an interview with Brooks he said that there are scenes from the Sid Caesar shows where he Sid went on bruised because of fights he’d had off-stage, and that he pissed off a lot of people with his sketches. I was wondering if the union boss is based on any actual union bosses from the era. (The time frame would be a bit early for Hoffa, but there were other union leaders with a reputation for corruption and thuggery before Hoffa.)
Anyone know?