348: This Week: Frida, Chaplin, Tolkien, Goodfellas

September 17th, 1925. Mexico City, Mexico.

To find our first event this week, we’ll skip to about eight and a half minutes into the 2002 movie called Frida.

The streets are crowded with people, but the movie is focusing on a young man and woman in the crowd. She gets sidetracked by one of the vendors on the street. He calls to her, “Frida, come on!” Putting his arm around her, the two continue making their way through the crowd on the street. They’re both dressed nicely in what appears to be some sort of a school uniform.

In the next shot, young Frida is running along the sidewalk. “It’s the bus!” She yells as she runs. We can see a bus—but in the 1920s, this bus looks more like a modified truck with room for people to sit in the back—driving along the road. The boy, Alejandro, assures her they’ll catch the next one.

She keeps running, “No, no!” He runs after her as the two run through the street, almost getting hit by a car, running down the bus. A moment later, and it works. They catch up to the bus and climb aboard.

Once on the bus, the two continue the conversation they were having. Frida sits down on a bench. Then, a lady with a baby is there and Frida gives up her seat for them. Alejandro and Frida continue their conversation, talking about something political or apolitical—Alejandro talks about Marx and Hegel, so maybe they’re referring to Karl Marx and Georg Hegel. They both are standing along with others on the bus, holding onto a bar for stability like you’d expect on a bus even today.

Frida doesn’t seem interested in the conversation about Marx and Hegel and gets sidetracked by someone else on the bus and the theater props they’re carrying.

Just then, the bus driver tries to swerve. Through the window of the bus, we can see what looks like a trolley ramming into the side of the bus. The trolley seems to continue pushing the bus until it hits a wall, throwing glass and everyone inside the bus all over the place. The camera fades to black before coming back to show Frida lying there, bloody and obviously badly hurt from the accident.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Frida

What we’re seeing in the movie happened 99 years ago this Tuesday, on September 17^th, 1925. That’s when Frida Kahlo’s life was forever changed in a bus accident that left her severely injured.

Of course, today, we know of Frida as an artist. At the time of the accident, Frida was only 18 years old and art wasn’t what she was wanting to do with her life.

One of the reasons we see the Frida and Alejandro wearing what looks like a school uniform is because the real reason the two schoolmates and friends were in Mexico City that day was because that’s where they went to school. But they lived about an hour away in Coyoacan, so that’s why they were taking the bus each way.

That day seemed like nothing out of the ordinary for the two.

And the movie was also correct to show the crash being the result of a trolley car. It was traveling full speed when the bus turned around the corner and there wasn’t enough time to get out of the way. The trolley slammed into the bus, crushing it and anyone inside against the street corner.

While we don’t really see this happening in the movie, there was a metal rod that ripped through Frida during the crash. Afterward, a nearby pedestrian trying to help people in the crash saw the rod sticking out of Frida and tried to remove it only to cries so loud that Alejandro would later recall no one could hear the ambulance siren because of Frida’s cries.

For months, Frida Kahlo was confined to bed while her body healed. During that timeframe, she turned to art. Her parents put a mirror on her bed so she could paint herself. She started painting more and more, something that helped her cope with the loneliness of being, well, alone in a bed for months on end.

By the time she was able to leave the bed, her life had changed. She was on the path to become an artist known for putting her own personal trauma and pain into her art. That openness was one of the key characteristics of Frida’s artwork, something that was unique at the time as most women artists in the early 20^th century didn’t put their own hardships into their art. Frida’s artwork was the opposite of that. She didn’t hide what was difficult or painful as many women were forced to do. Instead, she put herself on display through her paintings in a very real way, in a way that was groundbreaking at the time and something we remember her for today.

September 19th, 1952. Washington, D.C.

For our next event this week, we’ll jump to about two hours into the 1992 biopic starring Robert Downey, Jr. simply called Chaplin.

We’re in an office with elegant wood furnishings. A United States flag stands in the corner. Behind the desk in the middle of the room is a black, leather chair. It’s empty. There’s a man in a suit carrying a manilla folder who has just entered the office. He notices the chair is empty, so he turns his head to look off camera.

He carefully sets the folder down on the desk before sneaking over to the other side of the office. As he does, we can see the U.S. Capitol building through the windows.

The camera pans over as the man quietly makes his way to the fireplace. Now we can tell why he was sneaking. He’s trying not to wake the man sleeping in his chair by the fireplace. He touches the sleeping man’s hand trying to wake him.

“Sir”, he whispers quietly.

It didn’t work.

The camera cuts to the man’s face now and we can see this is Kevin Dunn’s character, J. Edgar Hoover. The man shakes Hoover’s shoulder now in a slightly more firm attempt to wake him.

“Sir,” he says a little louder than the whisper before.

Hoover’s eyes open slightly.

“Sir,” the man continues, “we just got word. Chaplin’s off to London on vacation.”

Hoover doesn’t move as he ponders this for a moment. Then, slowly, his mouth curls into a smile.

The next scene in the movie is the one that happens this week in history as we can see text on the screen saying it’s New York Harbor, September 1952.

A massive ocean liner is in the harbor. If you imagine what the Titanic looked like with its iconic four funnels, or smokestacks, well this ship looks a lot like that but with three. So, a similar style ocean liner, albeit not as large as Titanic—but still a good-sized ship. Imagine that in front of the New York skyline in 1952, and that’s what this scene looks like.

After a moment, the movie cuts to aboard the ship, though, as Moira Kelly’s version of Oona O’Neill Chaplin rushes down the stairs to find her husband, Charlie Chaplin. She finds him as he’s at the stern of the ship, overlooking the New York skyline, the Statue of Liberty. On the ship a blue flag with the British Union Jack in the corner is flying.

Oona rushes to Charlie. When she gets there, she has a concerned look on her face. He recognizes this immediately and asks what’s wrong. Then, she tells him the news: They’ve thrown you out.

Charlie is confused at first, as she hands him a piece of paper with the news. She explains it to him: They’ve thrown you out of the United States.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Chaplin

Transitioning to our fact-checking segment, and right away I’ll admit the first part that happened in Washington D.C. probably didn’t happen this week in history. But it’s an important part to set up what did happen this week in history when Charlie Chaplin was refused his entry into the United States.

Granted, the way it happened in the movie was dramatized, but the gist is there.

In the movie, the agent telling Hoover that Chaplin has gone to London mentions it as being a vacation. In the true story, Charlie Chaplin went to London to hold the world premiere of his latest movie called Limelight, which was an autobiographical movie in which the character in the movie is an ex-star dealing with the loss of his popularity. Since Charlie was originally from London, that’s where the story in Limelight was set, so that’s where he decided to hold the world premiere for the film.

And, I guess, it is true that Chaplin took his family to London with him so I could definitely see how it could’ve been considered a vacation, so maybe we can give the movie a break on that.

He boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth on September 18^th, 1952. On September 19^th, the U.S. Attorney General James P. McGranery revoked Charlie’s permit for re-entry into the U.S.

This is my own speculation, but the speed which that happened the day after tells me there were people in the government just waiting for him to leave so they could revoke the permit.

In the years since, it’s been suggested the U.S. government didn’t have much of a case against Chaplin and he probably could’ve been allowed back into the U.S. had he applied. But, when Charlie Chaplin got the news, he decided not to return to the U.S. He himself wrote about the event in his autobiography, and while I can’t offer a direct quote here, you can read exactly what he said on page 455 of his autobiography if you’d like. To paraphrase, basically, Chaplin was fed up with the insults and hatred he’d received in America.

The catch was that most of Charlie’s wealth—his film studio, his home, etc. was in the United States. So, it was Oona who returned to the U.S. to settle his affairs. They moved to Switzerland and she renounced her own U.S. citizenship in 1953.

As you can imagine, there’s a lot more to this story…which is why I had a chat with Pulitzer Prize finalist author Scott Eyeman, who has written a number of excellent biographies on film history—including his book called Charlie Chaplin Vs America that digs into the true story of Charlie Chaplin—and of course you’ll find a link to it in the show notes.

September 21st, 1937. England.

Our third event from this week in history can be found in the 2019 biopic called Tolkien, and we’re starting about an hour and 43 minutes into the movie, we’re outside with trees in the background and dead leaves covering the ground. A man and woman are walking together with some kids. The man asks the kids if they’ll do something for him. He asks them to listen to a story.

“Is it a good story?” One of the kids asks in a blunt way that kids do so well.

“I hope so,” he says.

“Is it long?”

“Extremely long.”

They go on to ask more questions about his story. Has it been started? What’s it about?

He says it’s been started in his mind. It’s about journeys, adventures, magic, treasure, and love. All things, really. All the kids are looking at him now.

He says the story is about the journeys we take to prove ourselves. It’s about fellowship. He points to one of the little boys and says it’s about little people just like you. The child retorts that he’s not little, and the man quickly corrects himself. No. Little in stature, not little in spirit.

The movie cuts away from the outdoors and we’re not in the woods anymore. We’re inside in a room. The same man from before is sitting, reading some papers. He’s deep in thought.

Then, he turns the paper to a fresh page. Pen in hand, he pauses to think for one more moment before he starts to write. The camera angle doesn’t let us see what he’s writing at first, but after a few seconds, it cuts to a more overhead view of the page. Now, we can see the words he’s written to start the story: “In a hole in the ground, there lived” … he stops writing for a bit and the camera cuts away from the paper to the man’s face. He speaks the word: “Hobbit.”

The true story behind that scene in the movie Tolkien

Okay, so right away I’ll admit that this is another scene that didn’t really happen this week in history. But that’s because the movie doesn’t show the real event that did happen this week, and that scene in the movie is talking about the start of something that ended this week in history…the movie just doesn’t show the ending.

I’m sure you already know by now the man with the story is J.R.R. Tolkien and the story itself is The Hobbit. That scene comes from the 2019 biopic that is simply called Tolkien.

And it shows Tolkien starting to write The Hobbit. What happened this week in history was that The Hobbit was published.

What we don’t see in that sequence in the movie is that J.R.R. Tolkien had been writing stories about the world he created—Middle Earth—for many years at this point, but The Hobbit was his first published work.

There was a BBC documentary in 1968 where Tolkien himself described writing that opening line. I’ll include a link to it in the show notes for this episode if you want to watch it, but basically Tolkien recounts that he was grading his student’s papers in his house at 20 Northmoor Road. He had a pile of exam papers to go through, something he admitted was a boring task.

He picked up one of the papers to review and the student had left one page blank. So, he just grabbed the blank page and wrote down: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

That was then published this week in history on September 21^st, 1937, as The Hobbit. Of course, he’d go on to write The Lord of the Rings and other books, making Tolkien one of the most popular authors of all time. And covering the Tolkien movie as one of the first interviews for Based on a True Story is no mistake, because I’m such a fan of Tolkien’s work…it was one of my great honors to chat with legendary Tolkien scholar John Garth about the Tolkien movie.

Hop in the show notes to find a link for that episode now!

Historical birthdays from the movies

Let’s move onto our next segment now, where we learn about historical figures from the movies that were born this week in history.

On September 18^th, 1905, Greta Gustafsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She’s better known by her stage name, Greta Garbo, and is regarded by many as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time. Her story was portrayed in the 1980 movie called The Silent Lovers where she’s played by Kristina Wayborn.

Oh, and as another bonus, Greta Garbo was the actress who played Mata Hari in the classic 1931 film of the same name that we covered on episode #74 of Based on a True Story—so I’ll link that in the show notes.

On September 20^th, 1884, Maxwell Perkins was born in New York City. He was an editor and publisher at Scribner where he oversaw works by esteemed authors like Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, to name a few. His story is told in the 2016 movie called Genius where Max is played by Colin Firth. We covered that movie in more depth back on episode #65 of Based on a True Story.

Also on September 20^th, but in 1917, Arnold Jacob Auerbach was born in Brooklyn, New York. He’s best known by his nickname, “Red,” and as the head coach of the Washington Capitols, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, and Boston Celtics, where he set NBA records was one of the most successful coaches in the history of professional sports. He was played by Michael Chiklis in the 2022 TV series from Max called Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

Time now for our segment about ‘based on a true story’ movies released this week in history, and this week’s movie has the BOATS text less than a minute into the movie. The very first thing after the opening credits in the movie Goodfellas is text that says, “This film is based on a true story.”

This Wednesday marks the 34^th anniversary of Goodfellas, which hit theaters in the U.S. on September 18^th, 1990.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Goodfellas is adapted from a book by Nicholas Pileggi called Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family. The IMDb description for Goodfellas says it is, “The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.”

Henry Hill is played by Ray Liotta, while his wife Karen is played by Lorraine Bracco. Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito are played by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, respectively.

It starts in the 1950s, as a young child, Henry’s mother happened to grow up in the same Italian city as Paulie Cicero, so now that Paulie is a big wig in the Mafia, that’s how Henry grew up around “the life,” as they call it in the movie. So, it’s not a big surprise that Henry starts working for Paulie Cicero when he’s old enough. Paulie is played by Paul Sorvino in the movie.

Also growing up with Henry is Tommy Devito, who is played by Joe Pesci. When Henry and Tommy start helping the Mafia with jobs—they can’t be more than teenagers at the time—the two boys are mentored by Robert De Niro’s character, Jimmy Conway.

As they continue to rise in the Mafia’s ranks, so, too, does their violence. Tommy, in particular, has a short fuse leading to a lot of rage. That rage is on full display in the 1970s when a guy named Billy Batts enters their nightclub. Billy Batts is played by Frank Vincent in the movie.

And according to the movie, Billy Batts is not just any guy, but he’s a made man in the Gambino crime family. He says the wrong thing to Tommy, who starts stabbing Billy Batts.

Killing a made guy without approval from the Mafia’s leadership then, basically, you’re the next to get whacked. To try and avoid that fate, the three associates try to cover up their crime by burying Billy’s body in upstate New York…and then re-bury the body a few months later when they find out the place they buried it was going to have something built on it.

A tip to the FBI ends up sending Henry to prison for about four years, so we see some of his prison time in the movie as well. While he’s in there, he has Karen sneak drugs into the prison so Henry can sell them to another inmate.

When he gets out, Henry joins Tommy for a heist that Jimmy is planning. The target is the Lufthansa vault at JFK International Airport in New York City. And, according to the movie, it’s successful! Ray Liotta’s version of Henry Hill says they got away with $6 million in cash.

But…some of the robbers get a little too excited about their new money and they ignore Jimmy’s order not to make any large purchases. So, after that leads police to find the getaway car they used, Jimmy has everyone killed, except Tommy and Henry.

Violence finally comes to the trio a few years later when Tommy is tricked into thinking he’s going to a ceremony for his becoming a made man. Instead, he’s murdered for his part in killing Billy Batts. That’s in 1979, and no doubt it doesn’t help Henry’s cocaine habit that just continues to get worse—leading to his arrest in 1980 when he tried to buy some drugs from undercover agents.

He gets bailed out by Karen, but the drugs go against Paulie’s orders—he had told Henry not to get into the drug world. So, after he’s bailed out, Paulie gives Henry some cash and then officially cuts ties with Henry.

Henry turns to Jimmy for help, but Jimmy is still in the Mafia and we start to get the sense from the movie that Jimmy is probably going to take out Henry. So, Henry decides to become an informant for the feds. He gives them enough information to take down Jimmy and Paulie, and in exchange the feds put Henry and his family into the Witness Protection Program.

And, according to the text at the end of the movie, that’s where Henry Hill is still at—in the Witness Protection Program, after his arrest in 1987. Paulie died in Fort Worth Federal Prison of a respiratory illness in 1988 at the age of 73. Henry and Karen separated in 1989.

And Jimmy Conway, Robert De Niro’s character, is currently serving a 20-years-to-life sentence for murder and won’t be eligible for parole until 2004.

The true story behind Goodfellas

Well, obviously, it’s after 2004, and now in 2024, those three men are all dead now. But, remember, the movie came out in 1990, and back then two of the three were still alive.

So, that gives us the perfect place to start our fact-checking: The people.

Henry Hill was based on a real person; we’ll learn more about him in a moment. The real Henry Hill died on June 12^th, 2012.

And Lorraine Bracco’s character, Karen, really was Henry Hill’s wife. Karen Hill née Friedman is still alive as of this recording—she’s 76, and the movie is correct that she and Henry divorced in 1989, although it was legally finalized in 2002.

For the other mobsters, the names changed some.

Robert De Niro’s character of Jimmy Conway is based on a real gangster named Jimmy Burke. The real Jimmy Burke died on April 13^th, 1996—so, after the movie was released.

Joe Pesci’s character, Tommy DeVito, is based on another real gangster named Tommy DeSimone. And in the movie, we see Tommy’s death. We don’t really know what happened to the real Tommy DeSimone. He just simply disappeared on January 14^th, 1979.

And Paul Sorvino’s character, Paulie Cicero, is based on Paul Vario, who really was a powerful caporegime in the Lucchese crime family. The movie was correct to say he died in a Fort Worth prison of a respiratory failure as a result of lung cancer on May 3^rd, 1988.

The movie does a pretty good job of capturing how the real Henry Hill got into the Mafia. His dad was an Irish-American, and his mother was of Sicilian descent. The family moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn when Henry was just seven years old, and coincidentally Paul Vario had a son about the same age. So, they played together often, and Henry started idolizing the mobsters he saw.

Just like we see in the movie, Henry started working for the mobsters as a teenager. One of them was Jimmy Burke, the guy that Robert De Niro’s character is based on.

So, that’s how Jimmy started to take Henry under his wing, very much like we see in the movie. As for the real Tommy DeSimone, that’s the guy Joe Pesci’s character is based on, he grew up in the same neighborhood as Henry so they became close friends as they rose in the Mafia’s ranks.

That brings us to the event in the movie that changes it all: The murder of Billy Batts. Billy was a real gangster, who really went by the nickname Billy Batts. His real name was William Bentvena.

The movie doesn’t show anything about Billy Batts being in prison, it just shows him getting out and implies he was in there for a while. And in the true story, William Bentvena was in prison for narcotics trafficking—he was caught by undercover police in a drug deal on Valentine’s Day in 1959. Then, three years later, he was convicted and received a sentence of 15 years. He was released in 1970, though, which is why we’re seeing him for the first time in the movie.

And while the way Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito acted out the scene of killing Billy Batts is sped up a little bit, the basic gist gets across with the movie’s version.

This all comes from the book the movie is based on, and according to that book, Henry Hill’s version of the events are just like what we see in the movie. The whole reason for them being at the nightclub owned by Jimmy that night was because of a welcome home party of sorts for Billy. That’s why we see the balloons and streamers decorating the bar in the movie, and I think someone even comes up to Billy to say “Welcome home, Billy,” in the movie too.

At one point in the night, Billy joked to Tommy something about asking if he still shined shoes. Tommy took it as an insult and threatened to kill Billy. Here’s where the movie changed it, though, because in the movie’s version it seems to be later that night when Tommy attacks Billy from behind, before Jimmy joins in.

The true story behind that event might’ve started with an insult about shining shoes that led to Tommy’s threats against Billy Batts, but it was actually two weeks later when Tommy snuck up behind Billy and pistol-whipped him, yelling, “Shine these fucking shoes!”

And the movie shows Jimmy start kicking Billy pretty fast, too, but I couldn’t find anything about it happening that fast in the true story. Henry Hill’s version of the event did see Tommy beat Billy to the point of him being dead…at least, they thought he was. Just like we see in the movie, Billy wasn’t really dead. They started hearing noises from the trunk of the car.

And he was in the trunk of the car because Jimmy Burke was driving his body up to a friend’s dog kennel in upstate New York where he knew he could hide the body. Because the movie is also correct to show that the real Billy Batts was a made man in the Gambino crime family.

Oh, and the movie is also correct to show them having to move the body later. Jimmy’s friend who owned the dog kennel sold it about three months later. So, Jimmy ordered Tommy and Henry to go move the body. We don’t see this happening in the movie, but in the book Henry says they took the body to be crushed in a compactor at a New Jersey junkyard owned by a mob associate.

The real Henry Hill also gave commentary for the movie, which I’d recommend watching, and for that he contradicted his previous statement, though, and said Billy was buried in Jimmy’s nightclub, a place called Robert’s Lounge, until it could be put in the compactor later.

Regardless of which version is true, that was the beginning of the end for the real Tommy DeSimone who was killed in retaliation just like we see in the movie. Although the movie mentions it was only partially for the murder of Billy Batts—and that’s true, because he also killed someone else the movie doesn’t even show.

That’s a guy named Ronald Jerothe. Tommy dated Ronald’s sister and beat her up, which made Ronald understandably angry and he said he was going to kill Tommy. But, Tommy overheard this, and killed Ronald first.

Here’s the connection: Both Billy Batts and Ronald Jerothe reported to the same guy in the Gambino crime family: A man named John Gotti, maybe you’ve heard of him. He turned out to be quite infamous as well.

So, Tommy committed the murder of Ronald Jerothe, and on top of that it came out that Tommy had committed another unsanctioned murder of Billy Batts?

You see where this is headed. Thomas DeSimone was reported missing on January 14^th, 1979, by his wife, Angela. So, if you see that as the date of Tommy’s death, that’s why…but we don’t really know if he died that day because when Angela reported him missing, she said she last saw him a couple weeks earlier.

At least, that’s how the story goes…but the true story? Well, as you can imagine, when we’re talking about the world of organized crime, we just don’t know a lot of things.

So, for a lot of these events —for a lot of things, that’s all we have to rely on: The word of someone who was there.

Even the things I’ve talked about today, we know most of that thanks to the book the movie is based on as well as a book Henry Hill wrote himself later called Gangsters and Goodfellas.

Actually…do you want to hear more Mafia stories from someone who was there?

On episode #286, I had a chat with Scott Hoffman, whose dad was a part of the Chicago Outfit and actually worked for the real Henry Hill as a kid himself! We talked about how the Mafia is portrayed in movies like Goodfellas, and other gangster movies like Casino, Donnie Brasco, and The Sopranos!