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Fact-or-Fake Friday: When Reality and Art Collide

July 18, 2014

Here are three stories about the fine line between reality and fiction and what happens when that line is crossed. However: two of them are totally real, and one is complete fiction. Can you guess which one we made up? Answers at the end of the post.

A.

The 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks tracked the decades-long struggle of Walt Disney trying to convince prickly Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers into letting him make a movie of the beloved children’s book. Travers ultimately relented, but hated the movie so much she barred Disney from ever adapting one her book’s many sequels. Saving Mr. Banks was based on a nonfiction book by British author Sue Smith, a close friend of Travers. Walt Disney Pictures had been trying to get Smith to sell the rights to Banks since 1978, fearing the company would ruin her book the way Travers thought it had ruined hers. (Smith died in 2012; her kids sold the rights off.)

B.

Bernie was a 2011 film about Bernie Tiede, a pillar of the community in Carthage, Texas, who in 1996 confessed to the surprising murder his wealthy companion, 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent. The film shed new light on Tiede’s case, and citing new evidence, released Tiede with time served. One of the conditions of his release was that someone vouch for and look after him. That person: Bernie director and co-writer Richard Linklater. Tiede currently resides in an apartment off Linklater’s home, and works as a paralegal.

C.

Before Borat and Bruno, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was best known for his character Ali G, an incredibly dimwitted, low-class man obsessed with hip-hop culture from the English city of Staines. On his show Da Ali G show, Cohen-as-Ali G referred to Staines as a “s*******.” Ali G became so popular, and Staines became such a punchline, that the city has since changed its name to distance itself from the ridicule. It’s now known as “Staines-Upon-Thames.”

Want more fake facts? Then check out Uncle John’s Fake Facts. (Really!)