"I'd love to see a biopic about..."

[SunAndMoon]

Finish that sentence with any person you want.  Whose life do you think would make a great movie?

You never know. Some screenwriter just might be browsing these forums looking for ideas. Which sounds crazy, but stranger things have happened.

You want to know who I'd finish the sentence with? Errol Flynn. But that's just me.

[LawrenceA]

13 minutes ago, SunAndMoon said:

You want to know who I'd finish the sentence with? Errol Flynn. But that's just me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Wicked,_Wicked_Ways#TV_movie

It's a TV movie, so it can't be too salacious. (It's on YouTube.)

[LawrenceA]

As for my choice for a biopic...Andrew Kehoe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Kehoe

[Thenryb]

Edgar Cayce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Cayce

[Sepiatone]

Cayce's a good choice.  I'd go with CARL SANDBURG too.

Sepiatone

[cigarjoe]

I'd go with Sergio Leone, and his love of American Westerns that brought about his homages filmed in Spain. How he modeled his protagonist not on John Wayne, but based him on the various real GI Joes he encountered in Rome during WWII. Could make an interesting and quite funny bio pic.

He was also in a bit part as a priest in Bicycle Thieves (on the right below).

[batongal]

The biopic I would like has been on hold for years but I get it.  Difficult to do on a complete enigma. 

 

[jinsinna13]

Paul Newman. Newman had so many good performances (even in movies I didn't care for like The Hustler.) There's more to him than his performances; he also raced cars for many years. If a Newman biopic is eventually made, let's hope it doesn't end up on Lifetime.

 

[Bethluvsfilms]

Robert Mitchum. Big fan of his.

There's something about him, his "I don't care" attitude, that drew a lot of audience, then and now, to his films. 

It would be interesting to explore how he was able to continue on with his career, even with that jail stint on a marijuana charge. He emerged from that unscathed while other stars had their careers ruined for far less.

[LawrenceA]

34 minutes ago, Bethluvsfilms said:

Robert Mitchum. Big fan of his.

There's something about him, his "I don't care" attitude, that drew a lot of audience, then and now, to his films. 

It would be interesting to explore how he was able to continue on with his career, even with that jail stint on a marijuana charge. He emerged from that unscathed while other stars had their careers ruined for far less.

Yeah, but who could possibly play him?

[Bethluvsfilms]

46 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

Yeah, but who could possibly play him?

Maybe Robert Downey, Jr....he too has had his run-ins with the law but he has managed to salvaged his own career as well and come back strong.

[Gershwin fan]

Richard Nixon. I'd like to see a nice film version of Nixon in China.

[Sepiatone]

I actually wouldn't mind seeing ANYBODY'S "biopic" if it's based on the FACTS of their lives, and not so much the LEGEND.  

Like I have the feeling that a lot of the ELVIS pics we've been treated to over the last 40 years have left a LOT of stuff about him out in order to try and preserve the LEGEND of his life, and not the WHOLE truth.

Now, I have NO idea as to what that "whole truth" might be, but I'm guessing there's a lot we've never read or heard about when he was alive, AND even after his death.

Sepiatone

[NipkowDisc]

our current no-nonsense kickass commander-in-chief whatsisname?

[calvinnme]

3 hours ago, NipkowDisc said:

our current no-nonsense kickass commander-in-chief whatsisname?

"Looks like Stormy weather - last tango in Moscow" - great title.

[calvinnme]

Charles Bickford. Even after reading his autobiography there is so  much I don't know about this interesting guy. He wanted to be on the stage - he did that and did it well. He went to be a leading man at MGM and got tangled up with Louis B in the early 30s and that never ended well for anybody. He got Fox to commit to signing him as a leading man but then got mauled by a tiger and Fox backed out of their contract. So he did a series of B films and then decided to be a supporting actor in A films and he did that well. Apparently he was a success in business.  He was married to the same woman for over 50 years, had two children with her, and not once mentions either his children or his wife in his autobiography. He was buried in an obscure unmarked grave in spite of having great wealth at the time of his death.

[CaveGirl]

Johannes Vermeer!

Not the crapola spewed out by that horrid book, called something like "Girl in a Pearl Earring" which I keep trying to destroy in my mind, since the person who wrote it was a nescient fool, who was as usual trying to make a scandalous story contending the poor artist was having an affair with a housemaid when anyone who took the time to study the work of Vermeer is aware that he used the women in his family as models, including his wife and daughters and the girl the asinine movie tries to make as his courtesan would have been his one daughter. Make a movie about his real life, which is way more interesting than this sex and scurrilous saga, which stunk!

Oh, also a movie about all the gay artists during the Renaissance, who were having affairs with men, and not ladies like they tried to pretend Michelangelo was interested in, in "The Agony and the Ecstasy". I guess it is hard for Hollywood to imagine Charlton Heston being more interested in someone like an Alan Rickman type than a Gina Lollobrigida type.

[Stephan55]

On 4/10/2018 at 7:15 PM, SunAndMoon said:

Finish that sentence with any person you want.  Whose life do you think would make a great movie?

You never know. Some screenwriter just might be browsing these forums looking for ideas. Which sounds crazy, but stranger things have happened.

You want to know who I'd finish the sentence with? Errol Flynn. But that's just me.

 

On 4/10/2018 at 7:28 PM, LawrenceA said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Wicked,_Wicked_Ways#TV_movie

It's a TV movie, so it can't be too salacious. (It's on YouTube.)

On 4/11/2018 at 7:09 PM, LawrenceA said:

Yeah, but who could possibly play him?

I really enjoy a good documentary (on practically anyone), I think PBS excels at showing such. And a well made docudrama comes in second after that.
However when it comes to a movie biopic, that is an entirely different animal.
Most biopics (especially those from the "Golden Era" of Hollywood) take great license with known facts, for the sake of entertainment (and remunerative) value. Aside from bearing the same name, there often is scarce resemblance to an actual personage. Also very difficult to capture the depth and breadth of an individual in a scant hour and a half or two.

That said, I have long enjoyed watching many of those great old biopics that both entertained and sometimes inspired me. Especially those featuring Paul Muni, Fredric March, Laughton, Eddie G., or Tracy and Rooney, ... even Beery and Brando, etc. (Louis Pasteur, Juarez, Emile Zola, Mark Twain, Henry VIII, Rembrandt, Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Julius Reuter, Tom Edison (young and old), Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata),... Greer Garson (Madame Curie, Edna Gladney, Eleanor Roosevelt), Rosalind Russell (Elizabeth Kenny, Rose Hovick). Massey & Fonda (Abraham Lincoln), and Claudette Colbert & Liz Taylor (Cleopatra VII of Egypt)... Even enjoyed some of those deliberately made for laughs, i.e. with Don Ameche (Alexander Graham Bell, Hiram Stephen Maxim)... The list goes on and on, from then to now.

But when it comes to biopics about well known and oft seen actors, I have long resisted anyone portraying my favorites on screen because I never believed any could do them justice.
Not that I haven't occasionally watched screen portrayals of such as Harlow, Keaton, Gable, Lombard, Raft, and so on, but I often do so with such a critical eye that I often find myself unable to enjoy the presentations... that is until fairly recently.
The OP mentioned one of my all time favorites, Errol Flynn.  I have read a couple of his books and seen and appreciated a few documentaries about this enigmatic individual:

Errol Flynn: Portrait of a Swashbuckler (1983)

Secret Lives- Errol Flynn (1996)

The Adventures of Errol Flynn (2005)

Tasmanian Devil: The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn (2007)

But it wasn't that long ago that I sat down and watched (and found myself actually enjoying) the a fore mentioned made for TV movie My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend Of Errol Flynn (1985). Which featured a rather unknown actor (to me) Duncan Regehr portraying a young Flynn in his early years at Warner Bros. (from 1935 at age 26, to his infamous 1942 court case) within a span of about 2 plus hours. Loosely based on Errol's life and (as pointed out) a 1985 TV movie, watered down most of the actors truly "salacious" behavior leaving it to the viewers imagination.  Still I found it enjoyable. 
I later watched a quite passable movie version of the last couple of years of Errol's life involving his controversial relationship with Beverly Aadland. The Last of Robin Hood (2014) featured Kevin Kline (as an older Errol) and Dakota Fanning (as Beverly). Enjoyed that one too!
There is another movie that I've yet to see about Errol Flynn's  youth and early manhood, ending before the start of his Hollywood career. It is a 1993 Australian production featuring Guy Pearce as Errol simply titled Flynn.

Three films about Errol Flynn and yet they barely scratch the surface. There is so much left to be told and seen about this ageless adolescent adventurer with the "devil may care" attitude who just happened to be one of the most charismatic swashbuckling actors the screen has ever seen.
With all that I know (and wish that I knew) about him, it would take a well made biopic mini-series to maybe do him justice. 

 

 

[Fedya]

The Life of a Korean Spammer.

[Bethluvsfilms]

Wouldn't mind seeing one about James Cagney as well, especially one dealing with his battles with Jack Warner and to explore any truth, if any, to the so-called hostility between him and Bogey.

[Gershwin fan]

On 4/12/2018 at 7:44 AM, NipkowDisc said:

our current no-nonsense kickass commander-in-chief whatsisname?

They already made Der Untergang.

[Vautrin]

Louis-Ferdinand Celine, the 20th century French novelist. Since Celine had a rather

active non-literary life one wouldn't be stuck with some guy sitting at a desk, schmoozing

in the local cafe, and arguing with his publisher. OTOH, they might mess up the biopic, which

would be a shame.

I've always wanted to see Voltaire an early 1930s pic starring George Arliss as the title character,

but it's very hard to find. 

[Stephan55]

3 hours ago, Vautrin said:

....

I've always wanted to see Voltaire, an early 1930s pic starring George Arliss as the title character,

but it's very hard to find. 

Ah yes, the great George Arliss (1868-1946).
From throughout the British Empire to the U.S., a well traveled actor, author, playwright, and filmmaker. Married once at the age of 31, and remained so from 1899-1946.
Now that would be a very interesting biopic I'd like to see.
George was master at playing many famous others (both on stage and screen) i.e. Benjamin Disraeli (twice, in 1921 & again in 1929), Alexander Hamilton, Voltaire, Arthur Wellesley (aka the 1st Duke of Wellington), Mayer & Nathan Rothschild, Cardinal Richelieu, ...

I've recorded several of his films from TCM over the years but am still looking for others.
Of his biopics I've recorded Disraeli (1929), Alexander Hamilton (1931), Voltaire (1933), and The House of Rothschild (1934). Still hoping TCM will broadcast The Iron Duke (1934) and Cardinal Richelieu (1935) (both of which TCM has never shown, but are currently available from Amazon, if it comes down to that).
But can't find Voltaire (1933) anywhere? Fortunately I do have a DVR from a TCM broadcast back in 7/14/2012 (TCM's last broadcast). According to MCOH's TCM Schedules Summary, it was shown in July 2010 before that, for a total of seven broadcasts since 1994.
TCM does occasionally air an Arliss classic every now and then, so Voltaire (and the others) may yet see the light of day one more time? However, if you have exhausted every other avenue and would rather not wait for a "maybe," then shoot me a PM... I'll dig my copy out from storage for you. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Arliss

http://moviecollector.us/reports/TCM_SCHEDULES_SUMMARY_alpha.htm
MovieCollectorOH statistical reports on TCM broadcasts
http://moviecollector.us/reports.htm

[skimpole]

Robespierre.

[Stephan55]

On 4/11/2018 at 7:56 PM, Bethluvsfilms said:

Maybe Robert Downey, Jr....he too has had his run-ins with the law but he has managed to salvaged his own career as well and come back strong.

Maybe somewhat like him (behavior wise), but way too short to make a "believable" Mitchum in a biopic.