Editing The Bad and the Beautiful (section)

===Relation to real-life personalities===
[[File:Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas.jpg|right|thumb|upright|Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas]]
There has been much debate as to which real-life Hollywood legends are represented by the film's characters. At the time of the film's release, stories about its basis caused [[David O. Selznick]]—whose real life paralleled in some respects that of the "father-obsessed independent producer" Jonathan Shields—to have his lawyer view the film and determine whether it contained any [[libel]]ous material.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?isPreview=&id=190980%7C190968&name=Behind-the-Camera-The-Bad-and-the-Beautiful |title=Behind the Camera on The Bad and the Beautiful |last1=Miller |first1=Frank |date=2016 |publisher=[[Turner Classic Movies]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160113145021/http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?isPreview=&id=190980%7C190968&name=Behind-the-Camera-The-Bad-and-the-Beautiful |archive-date=2016-01-13|access-date=2016-01-13}}</ref> Shields is thought to be a blending of Selznick, [[Orson Welles]] and [[Val Lewton]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.filmsite.org/bada.html |title=The Bad And The Beautiful (1952) |publisher=filmsite.org |author=Tim Dirks}}</ref> [[Dore Schary]], head of MGM at the time, said Shields was a combination of "[[David O. Selznick]] and as yet unknown [[David Merrick]]."<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/heydayautobiogra00scha/page/246 246]|first=Dore|last=Schary|title=Heyday|url=https://archive.org/details/heydayautobiogra00scha|url-access=registration|year=1979|publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=9780316772709}}</ref>

Lewton's ''[[Cat People (1942 film)|Cat People]]'' is clearly the inspiration behind the early Shields–Amiel film ''Doom of the Cat Men''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s428bad.html |title=The Bad and the Beautiful |publisher=DVD Savant |author=Glenn Erickson |author-link=Glenn Erickson |date=February 28, 2002 |access-date=July 13, 2009}}</ref>

The Georgia Lorrison character is the daughter of a "Great Profile" actor like [[John Barrymore]] ([[Diana Barrymore]]'s career was in fact launched the same year as her father's death), but it can also be argued that Lorrison includes elements of Minnelli's ex-wife [[Judy Garland]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blog.spout.com/2007/08/15/star-making-as-fetish-the-bad-and-the-beautiful/ |title=Star-making as Fetish: The Bad and the Beautiful |publisher=blog.spout.com |author=Karina Longworth |author-link=Karina Longworth |date=August 15, 2007 |access-date=2007-08-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016210122/http://blog.spout.com/2007/08/15/star-making-as-fetish-the-bad-and-the-beautiful/ |archive-date=2007-10-16 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Gilbert Roland]]'s Gaucho may almost be seen as self-parody, as he had recently starred in a series of [[Cisco Kid]] pictures, though the character's name, Ribera, would seem to give a nod also to famed Hollywood seducer [[Porfirio Rubirosa]]. The casting of Roland as Gaucho may also be a reference to his long-term, real-life affair with actress [[Norma Talmadge]], then the wife of producer [[Joseph M. Schenck]], during the waning years of the [[silent film era]] and the early years of the [[talkies]].

The director Henry Whitfield ([[Leo G. Carroll]]) is a "difficult" director modeled on [[Alfred Hitchcock]], and his assistant Miss March ([[Kathleen Freeman]]) is modeled on Hitchcock's wife [[Alma Reville]].{{Citation needed|date=October 2008}}   The other director, von Ellstein, may be modeled after [[Erich von Stroheim]] and [[Josef von Sternberg]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fnf98n4.html |title=New York State Writers Institute – Film Notes for ''The Bad and the Beautiful'' |author=Kevin Hagopian |access-date=January 11, 2018}}</ref>

The James Lee Bartlow character may have been inspired by [[Paul Eliot Green]],{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}} the University of North Carolina academic-turned-screenwriter of ''[[The Cabin in the Cotton]]''. But Bartlow also resembles novelist [[William Faulkner]], who worked on many of Hollywood's best movies—and had an easier relationship with the industry than he did with his wife. She, like her movie counterpart, was a difficult, often-demanding ex-Southern belle.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://gardenandgun.com/feature/william-faulkners-hollywood-odyssey/| title = William Faulkner's Hollywood Odyssey – Garden & Gun}}</ref>

Houseman later said, "The producer was thought to be Selznick, and of course it largely is, but—well, is ''[[Citizen Kane]]'' Hearst? Yes, it is Hearst, but also Pulitzer and a lot of other legendary people. So it was Selznick, Zanuck, and all others. Just as the foreign director could be Stroheim or Fritz Lang. When you start to work in a legendary world, you get legendary figures."<ref name="john"/>