10 Movies That Ruined Real Life People's Reputations
4. The Elephant Man - Tom Norman
David Lynch's The Elephant Man is the emotional cornerstone of the director's diverse filmography, offering up a deeply compassionate portrayal of the deformed "Elephant Man" John Merrick (for which John Hurt was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar).
But the film delivers a conversely black-and-white treatment of its "villain", the greedy, abusive, psychopathic, boozed-up ringmaster Mr. Bytes (Freddie Jones) who forcefully retains John in his circus freak show.
Mr. Bytes is actually based on the English showman Tom Norman, who was in fact the final exhibitor of John Merrick (real name Joseph Merrick).
Yet counter to his depiction in Lynch's film - which is based on Frederick Treves' 1923 book "The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences" - Norman's family have insisted ever since that he treated Merrick humanely and didn't have a drinking problem.
In a 2008 interview his grandson Monty said:
"We were annoyed at the way the film portrayed my grandfather as an unsavoury character. My grandfather never mistreated Merrick - he cared about him. My grandfather was a member of the Temperance Society and didn't agree with drinking."
There's some solace, at least, that Lynch's film had the good grace to change the character's name, even if for all intents and purposes most viewers will effectively conflate the two.