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Series based on real people, who were still living when the series aired

M

Mitchell H

This question came to me while watching The Untouchables the other night. Eliot Ness, whose book was the basis for the series, died only a couple of years before the TV series started. The question is: how many series, based on real people, aired while the person in question was still alive?

Admittedly I've only given this a brief thought, but the first series that pops to mind is Robert Conrad's series Baa Baa Black Sheep/Black Sheep Squadron, based on the life of Pappy Boyington, who died in 1988, ten years after the end of the series.

Any others?
 
Dave's World, the Harry Anderson sitcom based on the writings (and loosely, the life) of columnist
Dave Barry.

When asked whether he had any creative input on the show, Barry once told an interviewer that
"They give me complete creative control over where I cash the checks!" :D
 
Elliot Ness did live to see the success of the book "THE UNTOUCHABLES". And I think he was still alive when the rights were sold to Desilu for the pilot. Sadly he had a fatal heart attack before the filming began. I think he would have been proud of the results even fictionalized as they were.
 
A few failures come to mind:

"That's My Bush!"

"#@^& My Dad Says"

"Are You There, Chelsea"

I'm thinking shows like "Seinfeld" in which the star plays a fictionalized version of himself/herself don't quite count here. ("Chelsea" squeaks by on a technicality; Chelsea Handler was in it, but didn't play herself, after all.
 
"The Court of Last Resort," based on Erle Stanley Gardner's real-life legal group; Gardner and his associates were played by actors in this half hour drama (which premiered the same year as the series based on his best-known creation, Perry Mason).

"Lock-Up," in which Macdonald Carey played real-life lawyer Herbert Maris.

As for "Hogan's Heroes": there was allegedly a Robert Hogan who had been a colonel in the Army Air Force in WWII, and was an actual POW in a German stalag, but one would be hard pressed to say the show was based on his experiences.
 
rnigma said:
As for "Hogan's Heroes": there was allegedly a Robert Hogan who had been a colonel in the Army Air Force in WWII, and was an actual POW in a German stalag, but one would be hard pressed to say the show was based on his experiences.
Click to expand...

Turns out this was one of the wildest coincidences: While the real Hogan was a POW in a stalag (a Stalag 13 at that, I.I.N.M.), there was absolutely no connection between him and the character played by the late Bob Crane.
 
"Listen Up"...The characters played by Jason Alexander and Malcom-Jamal Warner were sort of based on Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon of "Pardon The Interruption".
 
Bones is allegedly based on a real-life female medical examiner.
 
This might be a stretch but I think the idea of "The Fugitive" came in part from the Doctor Sam Sheppard murder case.

In both the TV series and Sheppard's story, there was a doctor accused of killing his wife but claimed an intruder was the actual killer.

The comparison ends however as the fictional Dr. Kimble was sentenced to be executed but escaped and became a fugitive while Dr. Sheppard was sentenced to prison where he did serve time until a higher court ruling freed him.

Dr. Sheppard was alive when "The Fugitive" was on the air. He died in 1970.
 
Mark_Giardina said:
This might be a stretch but I think the idea of "The Fugitive" came in part from the Doctor Sam Sheppard murder case. In both the TV series and Sheppard's story, there was a doctor accused of killing his wife but claimed an intruder was the actual killer.

The comparison ends however as the fictional Dr. Kimble was sentenced to be executed but escaped and became a fugitive while Dr. Sheppard was sentenced to prison where he did serve time until a higher court ruling freed him.

Dr. Sheppard was alive when "The Fugitive" was on the air. He died in 1970.
Click to expand...
Dr Sam Sheppard's conviction was indeed the inspiration for The Fugitive. Springboarding the fictional script to the good Dr's life on the lamb after escaping was sanctioned by the long standing artistic qualifier, "literary license".
 
...in 1976, CBS ran a sitcom titled Ball Four, co-starring Jim Bouton (although Bouton's character was named "Jim Barton"). It was based on Bouton's semi-autobiographical book of the same name, and Bouton also co-wrote the show. The sitcom only lasted five episodes before CBS cancelled it; Bouton, on the other hand, still walks the Earth ;D ...
 
How could I have forgotten Pappy Boyington and Baa Baa Black Sheep ?
 
FreddyE1977 said:
Bones is allegedly based on a real-life female medical examiner.
Click to expand...

Kathy Reichs, a forensic anthropologist, writes the books about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, and the character in the books is very much based on her.

The Temperance Brennan in the TV show is very, very loosely based on the character in the books.
 
There was an animated cartoon series (1965-68) based on the Beatles.

The producers of that series (who a few years earlier had done a number of made-for-TV "Popeye" cartoons) would go on to make the feature-length animated Beatles' movie "Yellow Submarine".

In the series, the Beatles' speaking voices were done by Paul Frees and Lance Percival.
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
There was an animated cartoon series (1965-68) based on the Beatles.

The producers of that series (who a few years earlier had done a number of made-for-TV "Popeye" cartoons) would go on to make the feature-length animated Beatles' movie "Yellow Submarine".

In the series, the Beatles' speaking voices were done by Paul Frees and Lance Percival.
Click to expand...

And let's not forget the "New Kids on the Block" cartoon.

OTOH, ........

cd
 
"I Led Three Lives" was a syndicated series that starred Richard Carlson as Herb Philbrick a real-life person who infiltrated the U. S. Communist party. The series ran from 1953-1956. The real Herb Philbrick lived until 1993.
 
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