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Is Green Book Based on a True Story?

Is Green Book Based on a True Story? Yes, but the Movie Definitely Takes Some Liberties

Nov 21 2018

Just take one quick glimpse at the trailer for Green Book, and it's easy to see why the dramedy is poised to be Thanksgiving's most heartwarming film. But is the movie's core story, which centres around the unexpected friendship between gruff New York bouncer Tony Lip and Jamaican-American world-class pianist Don Shirley, true to how their meeting actually transpired in real life? As with most Hollywood adaptations of "true" stories, plenty of liberties appear to have been taken, beyond the fact that stars Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali don't look exactly like the men who inspired the film. Curious about the true story behind Green Book? Let's dive in.

Warning: Spoilers for Green Book ahead!

Image Source: Everett Collection

Did the "Green Book" Actually Exist?

Despite the film's title, Victor Hugo Green's The Negro Motorist Green-Book actually doesn't factor much into what goes on in the plot. That being said, it does make a few key appearances, which serve to highlight why the guidebook was so vital for black people travelling through America between the 1930s and late 1960s. Green's book gave its readers suggestions for where to stay as they made their way through openly racist and discriminatory areas in the Jim Crow era, promising a "holiday without aggravation."

As we're all aware, the parallels between black travellers driving through America in the 1960s and those driving through the country today are painfully clear. In addition to the fact that black motorists are more likely to be stopped by police than white drivers – as much as three times more likely, depending on which state they're in — the NAACP had to issue a travel advisory for the entire state of Missouri in 2017 due to a high volume of racist incidents. For black people in America, driving has always presented a never-ending fear of being stopped, sometimes fatally.

Tony Lip makes use of the book in the film as he drives Don Shirley from city to city, sometimes having trouble reconciling with the fact that a man as wealthy, elegant, and well-travelled as Shirley would have to stay in a flea-bitten motel, while Tony gets to shack up in far swankier rooms. While his onscreen sympathy is nice and all, it would've been interesting to see the movie dig into the role Green's guide played for black motorists during that age. They were forced to plan every inch of their travels in a way white families didn't have to, like: packing extra food and gasoline in case they couldn't reach a safe spot, driving far out of their way to make sure they'd stay in welcome territory, having to stay at less-than-ideal motels, etc.

Mahershala Ali's Don Shirley experiences a number of awful interactions with racists in the Jim Crow South, but, for the most part, Green Book chooses to gloss over the majority of the horrors that black Americans encountered as they just tried to get from point A to point B.

Image Source: Everett Collection

Were the Real Tony Lip and Don Shirley Actually Friends?

Tony Lip (real name Tony Vallelonga, pictured above left in 2005) and Don Shirley (pictured above right, in a portrait from the 1960s) were indeed real men, who met in the same way they do in the film. In January 1963, the Don Shirley Trio played a number of dates across the country, including a set in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Despite being hailed as a "brilliant and exciting" performer, the renowned pianist didn't fail to realise that the seemingly warm welcome was only skin-deep, as evidenced by a disgusting, racist sign hanging in the city: "N*****, don't let the sun go down on you in our town." The incident prompted him and his record label to seek out a white driver (and bodyguard, of sorts) when the Don Shirley Trio set out on another tour later that same year.

His search led him to an Italian-American, NY-based bouncer known as Tony Lip, who was prepared to handle any problems that could arise in the aforementioned "sundown towns." According to Lip's son Nick Vallelonga, who recently spoke to Smithsonian Magazine about helping to write Green Book, his father and Shirley encountered a number of issues along the way. "My father said it was almost on a daily basis they would get stopped, because a white man was driving a black man," he explained.

Vallelonga, who was only 5 years old when his dad left to drive for Shirley on tour, says that though the men returned to their separate lives after they returned — with Shirley going on tour in Europe to critical acclaim, and Lip becoming an actor and author — their friendship remained until each of their deaths in 2013. Vallelonga told Smithsonian Magazine that he'd frequently visit the studio where Shirley was recording in Manhattan, where the two old friends would regale listeners with stories from their trip.

When he was in his 20s, Vallelonga, who followed in his father's footsteps by becoming an actor and screenwriter, sat down to interview both his father and Shirley about their trip and the racism they encountered along the way. However, Shirley made that Vallelonga promise that if a film was to ever come out of their experience, he didn't want it to be made until after he'd passed away.

Of the story's powerful message of overcoming starkly different backgrounds to become friends, Vallelonga claims the trip "opened my father's eyes . . . and then changed how he treated people."

Image Source: Getty

How Does Green Book Differ From the True Story?

For starters, Lip and Shirley's 1963 journey lasted much longer in real life, with the pair not returning back to New York City until over a year later. In the film, they're gone for a few months in 1962, arriving just in time to celebrate Christmas with Lip's family.

After they make their way out of the city, the film tells the story of the unlikely friendship that forms between the two on their journey, which happens just a year after the Freedom Riders. Likely because the movie was written in part by Lip's son, most of the events are seen through Lip's eyes, which is one of many reasons why Green Book has earned criticism for being a "poorly titled white savior film" and "Driving Miss Daisy in reverse," says Shadow and Act's Brooke Obie.

Much of Shirley's extraordinary life is left untouched by the film, while Lip's life is fully fleshed out, especially concerning his family since the letters he wrote to his wife, Dolores, along the road (with the help of Shirley's command of the English language) are read throughout. Other than passing mentions of Shirley's rise as a virtuoso, an ex-wife, a conflict with his brother, and his explanation for why he decided to play jazz music — 20th century impresario Sol Hurok reportedly told Shirley that black performers had to stay away from the classical genre — Shirley's personality is shaded in only by scenes in which Lip "teaches" the up-tight Shirley about his own blackness (ex: eating fried chicken, listening to Little Richard, etc.).

The missed opportunity to really dig into Shirley's incredible life and career aside, both Mortensen and Ali give strong performances that make the film's heartwarming and comedic moments shine. A lot of their dialogue was also taken directly from recordings of the real-life men. On top of Vallelonga's interviews with the lifelong friends, the film pulled directly from Shirley's interviews with the press, including a 1982 discussion with The New York Times where he critiqued jazz performers: "[They] smoke while they're playing, and they'll put the glass of whisky on the piano, and then they'll get mad when they're not respected like Arthur Rubinstein."

Image Source: Everett Collection

What Happened to Don Shirley?

Shirley's career in classical, jazz, and even popular music — he released a Billboard Top 40 Hit, "Water Boy" — included turns on the world's most prestigious stages, including a performance with Duke Ellington, and playing Gershwin at the Metropolitan Opera in New York accompanied by the Alvin Ailey company. Shirley received a doctorate of music, psychology, and liturgical arts, and mastered eight languages (which he spoke fluently, naturally). As for Shirley's sprawling apartment above Carnegie Hall? That actually existed, and was where he resided until his 2013 death at age 86 after complications from heart disease.

Image Source: Everett Collection

What Happened to Tony Lip?

In real life, Lip was a minor-league baseball player and soldier in the Army who eventually became a manager at Copacabana. When he came back from the road trip, a chance run-in with Francis Ford Coppola landed him a bit part in The Godfather, which he used to score acting gigs in other projects. His last onscreen appearances were in HBO's The Sopranos, where he played mobster Carmine Lupertazzi, and the 2008 action flick Stiletto.

Lip's son, Nick Vallelonga (pictured above with his father), revealed at the Toronto International Film Festival that Lip and Shirley continued to travel together after they returned. "They went on for another year together and went to Canada too," he said. "My father's a character, you can't make him up, everything in there you saw was true. A lot of the words were right from his mouth when he was telling the story from when I taped him, a lot of the dialogue was right from there."

Lip and his wife Dolores moved from the city to Paramus, New Jersey, where Dolores died in 1999. He followed in 2013 at age 82, and is survived by Nick, as well as his other son Frank Vallelonga Jr., brother Rudy Vallelonga, and his one grandson.

Image Source: Getty / Brian Killian

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