Aaron Sorkin has taken great pains to dispel rumours that the beleaguered anchorman on his new series Newsroom is based on Keith Olbermann. Unfortunately, that’s a bit like saying it is Olbermann. Repeated denials have a tendency to do that. Sorkin aside, real people have inspired many of our best-loved TV characters over the years – whether they got credit or not. Here are a few of my faves. Some are pretty obvious (They have the same name); some not so much:
DON DRAPER (MAD MEN) – That hard-drinking, smoking, womanizing ad man of TV’s most acclaimed series has a basis in history. Draper Daniels was a Chicago ad man best known for coming up with the Marlboro Man campaign. In his heyday, he was the highest paid ad man in America. According to his second wife – Daniels was also a drinker (till he gave it up), smoker (which he also gave up), and had a thing for the ladies (his wife made him give that one up):
RICHARD KIMBLE (THE FUGITIVE) – Creator Roy Huggins pulled a Sorkin and always denied that Kimble – the fictional doctor wrongly convicted of murdering his wife – was based on the true story of Dr. Sam Sheppard, who spent ten years in jail for the same crime. Except real. But whether Kimble was based on Sheppard or not, the two have always been linked in viewers’ minds. And when the show proved a hit, the publicity helped get Sheppard a new trial. He eventually earned an acquittal. Recent DNA evidence suggests Sheppard’s intruder was the real thing:
ARI GOLD (ENTOURAGE) – The angry, fast-talking agent to fictional superstar Vincent Chase had his basis in a real Hollywood agent – Ari Emanuel. Emanuel represents a wide array of actors – including Larry David, Vin Diesel and Entourage producer Mark Wahlberg. It was Emanuel who demanded that actor Jeremy Piven – his client – play him in the series. He can do that? I guess he can:
BASIL FAWLTY (FAWLTY TOWERS) – The members of Monty Python visited a country hotel in 1970 that became John Cleese’s inspiration for Fawlty Towers’ manic main character. According to the Pythons, hotel owner Donald Sinclair was a stuffy kook who berated his staff and didn’t like foreigners. Sound familiar? In one incident, he threw Eric Idle’s suitcase outside, fearing it was a bomb. People who worked for Sinclair have gone on record to say Fawlty Towers was pretty accurate:
QUINCY (QUINCY M.E.) – Most cite L.A.’s outspoken coroner Thomas Noguchi as an inspiration for this 1970s series. However, when several writers sued, stating that Quincy was their idea, the producers claimed Quincy was actually based on Wojeck, a 1960s Canadian series starring John Vernon. For its part, Wojeck got its inspiration from two sources. “He (Wojeck) was a compilation of not only (Dr.) Morton Shulman but Ralph Nader. He had Shulman’s position and Nader’s personality,” said Vernon in a 1992 interview. Vernon said he even had to testify on behalf of the Quincy makers. “It was in Los Angeles. I was there to say that long before Quincy, we had done a coroner series in Canada.” To summarize – Quincy was inspired by Noguchi but based on Wojeck channelled Shulman and a little bit of Nader…:
ALLISON DUBOIS (MEDIUM) – Who would have thought that a drama about a psychic profiler who solves crimes with the help of ghosts and dreams would be the show MOST based on a real person? And with the same name no less! Author/psychic DuBois’ personal and professional life was recreated in detail for this series – though her actually involvement in solving crimes remains a matter of debate. Many claim her psychic abilities aren’t psychic at all. So no ghosts? That’s a relief. It’d be torture having all them poltergeists wandering around your living room:
FAT ALBERT (FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS) – Bill Cosby based a lot of his humour on stories of his childhood in North Philadelphia. The accuracy of those stories is debatable. The animated character Fat Albert is said to have been based on a genuine neghbourhood friend of Cosby – Albert Robertson. However, Cosby has also been quoted as saying that the real ‘kids’ of his 1970s cartoon were, in fact, a gang of kids who did a lot of not-so-nice things. Which is, admittedly, not as funny. The live action movie version of Fat Albert (2004) featured a tribute in which Cosby appeared at the grave of Robertson:
