More than 300 fascinating stories of the real people behind iconic fictional characters—from the neighborhood suicide who inspired Tolstoy to write Anna Karenina to the X-Men characters inspired by MLK and Malcolm X

"Why waste time with this insignificant and irrelevant part of the book when you could be discovering the story of who JD from Scrubs was based on?"  —from the foreword

Did you know that the inspiration for Rocky Balboa once lost at wrestling to Andre the Giant? That Ali G was actually based on a real, white, middle-class Jamaican-accented hip hop DJ? Or that most of the main characters in To Kill a Mockingbird were inspired by Harper Lee's own family, neighbors, and an innocent man, Walter Lett, who was sentenced to death? Eamon Evans has tracked down extraordinary and entertaining examples of real-life people who helped inspire classic novels, movies, and television. Find out who the basis was for Lois Lane, AbFab's Eddie Monsoon, the Simpsons' Mr. Burns, Charlie Brown, Will and Grace, Porgy and Bess, Professor Snape, Boogie Nights' Dirk Diggler, Betty Boop, Sally Bowles, Dr. Strangelove, and many other iconic characters.