# What real people have been the most inaccurately maligned on film?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 28, 2005, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550 "2005-03-28T03:58:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/1 "2005-03-28T03:58:16Z")
There have been threads on people who have been majorly whitewashed in biopics, so this turnabout seems fair. Who are some people who weren’t-nearly-as-evil-as-painted in biopics (about them or about others in their life)?
The two who come immediately to mind:
Joan Crawford in _Mommie Dearest_- even Christina Crawford thought the movie went overboard. While few would deny that Joan had mental problems and was a substance abuser and could be a first order bi-yotch, the movie was an exaggerated retelling of a bipolar and embittered disinherited child’s most negative memories (which were disputed by Crawford’s other children). A pity that it will forever be a tail pinned on a great actress and people who have never seen her Oscar winning performance will still know “she’s the one with an axe who hated wire hangers, right?”
Ike Turner in _What’s Love Got to Do With It_- by his own admission Ike is not likely to win N.O.W.'s Man of the Century Award (he’s been married thirteen times, in fact), but the movie (great as Fishburne’s performance was, and it was) did a real number on him. Among the more glaring inaccuracies: Ike was _not_ the father of Tina’s first son, he _never_ brought a gun to her dressing room on her comeback night (Tina herself says she’s only seen him three times since 1978), and he most certainly was not untalented after _A Fool in Love_ or deadweight in their acts (the man still gets thundrous standing ovations in his 70s for his solo show- in fact he’s better-than-ever today now that he’s off drugs and no longer pandering to disco and synthesizer and whatever else is trendy but has returned to his R&B/early Rock roots).
Sidestory: when the movie _What’s Love Got to Do With It_ was in pre-production Ike was in desperate need of money for legal fees and medical bills (both related to his drug addiction). Disney (the movie’s makers) offered him $45,000 to sign a waiver to use him as a character in the movie and he accepted for the cash; this disallowed him not only from suing the makers of the film but even from issuing denials during the year of its release. Even Tina stated publicly and for the record that she thought the movie was unfair to him. (If you’re wondering, Ike is doing very well financially today for the first time in decades due to quitting cocaine, the return of his royalties [he signed them away for many years as payment of debts] and sampling by other musicians and a very successful series of tours.)
I’m sure there are many others who have been maligned as well. Who would you add?
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/2 "2005-03-28T04:54:22Z")
It started on the stage, not screen, but they say that Richard III wasn’t that bad a guy, at least by Royal standards.
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### Author:  [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/3 "2005-03-28T05:30:55Z")
George W. Bush, Charlton Heston, Matt Stone, Roger Smith and just about everyone else who’s appeared in a Michael Moore film… 😛
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/4 "2005-03-28T05:37:48Z")
Matt Stone wasn’t maligned in that movie, he just appeared in it.
:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/5 "2005-03-28T05:40:10Z")
Lt. William Bligh was, by the standards of the day, an enlightened and mild commander, and not the vindictive and petty martinet portrayed in either of the films of the _Mutiny on the Bounty_. Nor was Christian Fletcher the saint he is popularly considered to be.
After being set adrift by the mutineers in a 27-foot boat with 18 men, Bligh’s successful navigation of a small open boat, over 3,600 miles, working from his memory, with no charts or compass, and limited rations, is arguably one of, if not _the_, greatest accomplishments of seamanship ever.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/6 "2005-03-28T05:50:56Z")
Fletcher Christian, wasn’t it?
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### Author:  [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/7 "2005-03-28T06:01:18Z")
Well, that’s what you get for having two last names…
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/8 "2005-03-28T06:18:02Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Matt Stone wasn’t maligned in that movie, he just appeared in it.
>
> :rolleyes:
Whether maligned would be the right word or not I’m not sure, but he was definitely very pissed about the movie; many believed that he and Parker were responsible for the History of Guns in America cartoon that immediately followed his appearance (which is understandable- there’s an unmistakable _South Park_ feel to the piece) when in fact he had no involvement. Stone believes in sensible gun control measures (background checks, waiting periods, etc.) but is hardly what you’d call an activist and, gender reassignment episode notwithstanding, _S.P._ isn’t usually quite as uninformed or manipulative as that cartoon. Stone also didn’t understand why such a big deal was made of his having attended Columbine High when he graduated years before/had no connection to any of the students there when the shootings took place.
That’s one of the major reasons that Moore catches hell in _Team America_.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/9 "2005-03-28T06:22:43Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> It started on the stage, not screen, but they say that Richard III wasn’t that bad a guy, at least by Royal standards.
Ditto with Macbeth – he did kill Duncan and seize the crown of Scotland, but that was a case of open rebellion, not murder by treachery. And he had a peaceful, prosperous reign of 17 years until Duncan’s son, Malcolm Canmore, overthrew him. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth\_of\_Scotland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_of_Scotland)
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### Author:  [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/10 "2005-03-28T06:29:45Z")
While we’re on the subject of Scottish kings (or were when I started this), Robert the Bruce pretty much got the shaft in **Braveheart**. In particular, the movie implied that he was at Bannockburn to truckle under to the English, but changed his mind when reminded of William Wallace. In reality, he came to Bannockburn to whup English ass, not lick it. In this (whupping, not licking) he was spectacularly successful.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/11 "2005-03-28T06:34:14Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Whether maligned would be the right word or not I’m not sure, but he was definitely very pissed about the movie
I know. He feels he was misrepresented, but that’s hardly maligned. And yes, the South Park-style cartoon is also misrepresented.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/12 "2005-03-28T06:39:46Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#):
>
> While we’re on the subject of Scottish kings (or were when I started this), Robert the Bruce pretty much got the shaft in **Braveheart**. In particular, the movie implied that he was at Bannockburn to truckle under to the English, but changed his mind when reminded of William Wallace. In reality, he came to Bannockburn to whup English ass, not lick it. In this (whupping, not licking) he was spectacularly successful.
Also – I don’t know if this counts as “maligned,” but IRL William Wallace was an aristocrat, not the Regular Angus _Braveheart_ made him out to be. And Edward I of England (Edward Longshanks) was by most accounts a much more honorable king than is portrayed in the movie. (Also, Wallace could not have been the father of Edward III: Wallace was executed in 1305; Edward I died in 1307, and Edward II, did not marry Isabella of France until 1308.)
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/13 "2005-03-28T06:41:17Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> And yes, the South Park-style cartoon is also misrepresented.
But not, I think, a misrepresentation. (Historically speaking.)
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/14 "2005-03-28T06:44:42Z")
Really, we probably shouldn’t even get into Shakespeare in this thread. 😉
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### Author:  [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/15 "2005-03-28T06:45:30Z")
William Wordsworth was treated like crap in **Pandemonium**. There are so many things wrong with the way they characterized him, I don’t even know where to start. Among other things, he always disliked Coleridge and barely tolerated him at the best of times, he was painfully jealous of C’s relationship with Dorothy, he slept with Dorothy, (ok, rumors about W and D have a long tradition, but still…), he worked for the English government to spy on Coleridge (this is what really boggles my mind. Yes, the man who ran off to the French Revolution because he was enamoured with the ideals would work for the English government to actively bring down a man who shared the same ideals…). He had a very active role in keeping **Kubla Khan** from being published and furthermore, was the one who made it impossible for C to finish (further complicated by the fact that the whole legend around **Kubla Khan** was a complete fabrication). He introduced C to opium. He pretty much stood as an obstacle and roadblock to Coleridge until his life was ruined. His wife was a bitter bitch who also disliked Coleridge (C was a family friend of Mrs. Wordsworth’s and even had a one-sided love affair with her sister), and they both snubbed him for no particular reason other than to be mean. He was a boring blowhard and an untalented vampire that sucked the life from Coleridge. Coleridge, as always, was the misunderstood genius.
Now, John Hannah played Wordsworth in the movie, and I love John Hannah. He did a great job. I want to watch it again, but the way they treated poor Wordsworth just really pisses me off. I mean, they completely inverted the character until the only relationship he had with the actualy Wordsworth was that of a mirror image. The really galling thing is that they didn’t need to make up shit to create a compelling movie about Coleridge and Wordsworth.
My lit prof argues that it doesn’t matter how much they malign real people if it serves the story. But then, he’s my Shakespeare prof, and we’ve already mentioned Richard III and Macbeth…
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/16 "2005-03-28T07:01:58Z")
And of course Salieri was not the embittered murderous mediocrity he was portrayed as in _Amadeus_ but essentially a gifted music professor and sometime composer whose talent was praised by some of the greatest composers of his time. He actually was one of Mozart’s greatest supporters (even when Mozart was out of favor) and he was little short of beloved in his own time for his sense of humor and his warmth. (Also missing from the play/movie is his family- Salieri was passionately devoted to his wife Therese [an ice queen in the play and not mentioned in the movie] and their 8 daughters, and his mental decline and suicide attempt [which did happen] was due to depression from losing his wife, his only son, five of his daughters and his eyesight all in a decade’s time].) In short, Salieri seems by all accounts to have been one of the good guys though his reputation is shot due to 200 year old gossip that few if any scholar give any merit whatever.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/17 "2005-03-28T07:09:51Z")
Clay Shaw in Oliver Stone’s _JFK_. Edward Lansdale also, and the entire notion of truth and intelligence, but mostly Clay Shaw.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/18 "2005-03-28T07:11:53Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> And of course Salieri was not the embittered murderous mediocrity he was portrayed as in _Amadeus_ but essentially a gifted music professor and sometime composer whose talent was praised by some of the greatest composers of his time. He actually was one of Mozart’s greatest supporters (even when Mozart was out of favor) and he was little short of beloved in his own time for his sense of humor and his warmth. (Also missing from the play/movie is his family- Salieri was passionately devoted to his wife Therese [an ice queen in the play and not mentioned in the movie] and their 8 daughters, and his mental decline and suicide attempt [which did happen] was due to depression from losing his wife, his only son, five of his daughters and his eyesight all in a decade’s time].) In short, Salieri seems by all accounts to have been one of the good guys though his reputation is shot due to 200 year old gossip that few if any scholar give any merit whatever.
And Salieri could have had nothing to do with Mozart’s death. Mozart died young, but he had never been in good health. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart:)
> [@](#):
>
> Mozart’s life was fraught with financial difficulty and illness. Often, he received no payment for his work, and what sums he did receive were quickly consumed by his extravagant lifestyle.
>
> \
>
> **Final illness and death**
>
> Mozart’s final illness and death are difficult scholarly topics, obscured by Romantic legends and replete with conflicting theories. Scholars disagree about the course of decline in Mozart’s health – particularly at what point Mozart became aware of his impending death, and whether this awareness influenced his final works. The Romantic view holds that Mozart declined gradually, and that his outlook and compositions paralleled this decline. In opposition to this, some contemporary scholarship points out correspondence from Mozart’s final year indicating that he was in good cheer, as well as evidence that Mozart’s death was sudden and a shock to his family and friends.
>
> The actual cause of Mozart’s death is also a matter of conjecture. His death record listed “hitziges Frieselfieber” (“severe miliary fever”), a description that does not suffice to identify the cause as it would be diagnosed in modern medicine. In fact, dozens of theories have been proposed, which include trichinosis, mercury poisoning, and rheumatic fever. The contemporary practice of bleeding medical patients is also cited as a contributing cause.
>
> Mozart’s death occurred while he was working on his final composition, the Requiem.
>
> According to popular legend, Mozart was penniless and forgotten when he died, and was buried in a pauper’s grave. In fact, though he was no longer as fashionable in Vienna as he had once been, he continued to have a well-paid job at court and receive substantial commissions from more distant parts of Europe, Prague in particular. Many of his begging letters survive, but they are evidence not so much of poverty as of his habit of spending more than he earned. He was not buried in a “mass grave”, but in a regular communal grave according to the 1783 laws.
IOW, an 18th-Century rock star. The wonder is that he lived so long.
> [@](#):
>
> **Myths**
>
> Mozart is unusual among composers for being the subject of many legends and myths. An example is the story that Mozart composed his Requiem with the belief it was for himself. Some of these myths may be based in fact, but sorting out fabrications from real events is a vexing and continuous task for Mozart scholars. Dramatists and screenwriters, free from responsibilities of scholarship, have found excellent material among these legends.
>
> An especially popular case is the supposed rivalry between Mozart and Antonio Salieri, and, in some versions, the tale that it was poison received from the latter that provoked Mozart’s death; this is the subject of Aleksandr Pushkin’s play Mozart and Salieri, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Mozart et Salieri, and Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus. The last of these has been made into a feature-length film of the same name. In fact, Salieri admired Mozart. Shaffer’s play attracted criticism for portraying Mozart as vulgar and loutish, a characterization felt by many to be unfairly exaggerated. Indeed, Salieri does very well out of the play and even better out of his magnificent portrayal by F. Murray Abraham in the film. Most people hadn’t previously heard of him. An attendant at the cemetery containing Mozart’s memorial is alleged to have responded “Who?” when asked “What about Salieri, where is he buried?”
>
> The masked stranger, presumed to be Salieri, seen commissioning the Requiem in Amadeus probably arises from the commission by a masked agent of Count Franz von Walsegg-Stuppach, who wanted a Requiem for his wife, which he could pass off as his own.
Another legend is that Mozart was poisoned by Freemasons for revealing their secrets in _The Magic Flute._ (“Rock me, Amadeus!”) That is no more plausible than the Salieri legend.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/19 "2005-03-28T07:35:05Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Clay Shaw in Oliver Stone’s _JFK_. Edward Lansdale also, and the entire notion of truth and intelligence, but mostly Clay Shaw.
I saw an interview with Shaw’s secretary. She literally was so angry she was on the verge of tears speaking of Stone’s film. (She was perfectly aware Shaw was homosexual [this was New Orleans, where even in the 60s gay was seen as a personality quirk more than anything else] but portraying him as a coke-snorting mincing drag-queen who divulged CIA secrets to street hustlers was just absurd [there is, in fact, a picture of him in campy drag, but it was from a Mardi Gras costume ball to which all guests [vast majority of them straight] came dressed in clothing of the opposite gender).
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2005, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-real-people-have-been-the-most-inaccurately-maligned-on-film/296550/20 "2005-03-28T07:41:26Z")
I don’t blame her! I think everyone involved with _JFK_ really ought to be ashamed of themselves.
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