Pre-Raphaelite Red Hair - John Everett Millais

A couple of classics from John Everett Millais now. Firstly, a familiar one, Christ in the House of His Parents. This one's famous from redhead lore as the ginger child Jesus in the image was described by Charles Dickens as a "wry-necked, blubbering, redheaded boy, in a bed-gown." A very wordy put down.

(Christ in the House of His Parents - John Everett Millais)

(Christ in the House of His Parents - detail)

His mother also looks decidedly red-haired going on the hair popping out from her head scarf.

This next image is titled Autumn Leaves and features a cherubic looking boy or girl with red hair holding a broom. Quite a beautiful painting.

(Autumn Leaves - John Everett Millais)

(Autumn Leaves - detail)

Red-Haired People Who Inspired Fictional Characters

Here’s a list (hopefully ever- growing) of red-haired people who inspired fictional characters of novels and cartoons.

1) Livia Svevo: wife of the Italian writer Italo Svevo, she inspired the character of Anna Livia Plurabelle in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

 

2) Larissa Mikhailovna Reissner: this beautiful Bolshevik is said to have inspired the character of Lara in Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago.

 

3) Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald: a British naval officer of the Royal Navy, he inspired the figures of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey.

 

4) William Lamport: according to some historians, this Scottish pirate and adventurer inspired the character of Zorro, created by Johnston McCulley.

 

5) Palle Huld: his journey around the world at the age of 15 in 1928 reportedly inspired Belgian cartoonist Hergé to create Tintin.

 

6) Evelyn Nesbit: this beautiful chorus girl is said to be the inspiration for Anne of Green Gables.

 

7) Élisabeth, Countess Greffulhe: she is one of the main inspirations for the character of the duchesse de Guermantes in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. Countess Greffulhe and her family, who inspired several of the characters in La recherche, played a major role in the genesis of the work and in the discovery of the "magic" name of Guermantes.

 

8) Marie Duplessis: the lover Alexandre Dumas the younger, she was the inspiration for Marguerite Gautier, the main character of La dame aux camélias.

 

9) Julie d'Aubigny: better known as Mademoiselle Maupin or La Maupin, Théophile Gautier loosely based the title character, Madeleine de Maupin, of his novel Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835) on her.

 

10) Brendan Bracken, 1st Viscount Bracken: many literary academics believe that it was Bracken who inspired George Orwell to create the character Big Brother in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

 

11) Sam Brown: his clash with innkeeper Henry van Sickle is, by some accounts, the inspiration for the fictional short story by Dorothy M. Johnson The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

 

12) Sabrina Sidney: her story is said to have inspired G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion. Strong parallels have also been drawn between Sidney's upbringing and two novels of 1871: Henry James's Watch and Ward, and Anthony Trollope's Orley Farm.

 

13) Elisabeth Bergner: she is considered by several critics to be the inspiration for the character of Margo Channing in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's classic film, All About Eve. The character of Dora Martin in the novel Mephisto by Klaus Mann is reportedly based on her.

 

14) Giovanni Battista Belzoni: George Lucas based his Indiana Jones on him.

 

15) Jane Clemens: Mark Twain based the character of Aunt Polly, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, on his mother Jane.

 

16) Beulah Annan: she inspired the character of Roxie Hart, from the play Chicago by Maurine Dallas Watkins. The play was adapted into a 1927 silent film, a 1975 stage musical, and a 2002 movie musical, all with that title, and a 1942 romantic comedy film, Roxie Hart.

 

17) Misia Sert: Marcel Proust used Sert as the prototype for the characters of "Princess Yourbeletieff" and "Madame Verdurin" in his roman à clef À la recherche du temps perdu.

 

 

18) Kitty Kirkpatrick, muse of the author Thomas Carlyle and basis for the Calypso-like Blumine in his novel Sartor Resartus.

19) Mary Anderson: she has been cited as a model for characters in the Mapp and Lucia novels of E F Benson (either the operatic soprano Olga Bracely or Lucia herself), as well as the prototype for the heroine of William Black's novel The Strange Adventures of a House-Boat.

 

 

 20) Una Hawthorne: scholars speculate that Una inspired the character of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter. 

 

 

21) Patrick Watkins: Spanish novelist Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa based his 1982 novel Iguana on the case of Watkins. 

 

22) Henrietta Reubell: the character of Etta Barrace, in Henry James' The Ambassadors (1903) is based on Henrietta Reubell.   

 23) Edward Shils: he served as Saul Bellow’s "mentor, character model and editor" and figures prominently in many of Bellow's novels, including Mr. Sammler's Planet (Artur Sammler), Humboldt's Gift (Professor Durnwald), and Ravelstein (Rakhmiel Kogon). 

 

24) Christine Ell: according to historian Paul Avrich, the original of Anna Christie (from the 1921 play Anna Christie, by Eugene O’Neill) was Christine Ell. She is in part also the model for Josie Hogan, from another of O’Neill’s plays, A Moon for the Misbegotten. 

 

25) Oruç Reis: he was the influence behind the character Captain Hector Barbossa from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. 

26) Mary Curzon: she and her three daughters are considered to be part of the inspiration for the fictional characters Lady Grantham and her three daughters, particularly in respect to the inability to produce a male heir, and the importance of a woman's virtue in the Downton Abbey television series written by Julian Fellowes and produced by ITV.