10 Famous Movie Characters You Didn't Know Were Based On Real People
7. Dirty Harry And Bullitt Were Both Based On The Lead Investigator In The Zodiac Killings
Neither "Dirty Harry" Callahan nor Lieutenant Frank Bullitt - arguably Clint Eastwood and Steve McQueen's most iconic characters, respectively - sprung up fully-formed from the screenwriters' imaginations. Actually, the core concept for the first Dirty Harry movie wasn't even an original, but rather structured around the real life Zodiac Killer case.
For those unfamiliar, the Zodiac was one of the world's biggest psychopaths in the late 60s and early 70s who bragged - via letters to various newspapers - about all of the people he brutally murdered, and even sent a whole slew of cryptic clues to the police that should have led to his arrest.
Dirty Harry followed a similar framework, swapping out the names - Toschi became Callahan, and Zodiac became Scorpio (because that's totally different, you guys) - while pretty much everything else stayed the same. Except, in the end, Dirty Harry killed Scorpio, whereas the real Zodiac case remains unsolved.
Bullitt, on the other hand, took less from the case file than from Toschi's general aura. McQueen, who plays a San Francisco detective, completely apes Toschi's manner of speaking and even uses the same (somewhat unusual) upside-down shoulder holsters that allow for a quicker draw.