Was Dorissa Dinell a real person or who was she being based on
Always been curious about that
shareNo, Dorissa Dinell was not a real person. Nor do I believe that she was based on a particular person. There's nothing in what I've read about Gene Krupa or the film that indicates that she was.
In reality, Gene & Ethel were married around 1933. They had met a few years earlier in New York when she was the switchboard operator at a hotel in which he lived while in the pit orchestra for a Broadway show. According to his band singer Anita O'Day, Ethel was not around much by 1941 since Gene had developed a "roving eye." He had some extramarital affairs, the most notable being with Lana Turner. Gene and Ethel divorced in 1942. However she was one of the few people that stood by him after he was jailed for marijuana in 1943. I get the impression that the experience scared him straight. Krupa is quoted as saying some good came out of the drug bust in that he got his priorities straightened out, never considered trying hard drugs, and returned to religion as a result. Gene and Ethel remarried in 1946 and remained together until her death in 1955.
My best guess would be that Dorissa is meant to be representative of the various women with whom Krupa had liaisons. The character is a hoot and I love the exit line about having a town she’s got to get out of.
I presume Eddie Sirota is a composite character too. Or based on a real person. I can't find any evidence of a person by that name.
shareI find no evidence of an Eddie Sirota either. If he's based on somebody or a composite then I'm stumped as to who he (they) might be.
But there's very little in this film that's based on any kind of reality. It's too bad because what I've read about Krupa's real life is far more compelling than the story seen here and it had enough drama to make for an interesting film.
I think there was an Eddie (with a different last name, can't remember what) who was a banjo player. If this was made after Gidget Eddie Sirota could have been created to accommodate James Darren, who does play trumpet, and that would explain the vocal on Let There Be Love. I still like the film.
shareYou're probably thinking of Eddie Condon, a Chicago jazz banjo player that Gene played with when he (Gene) was a teenager. Gene did his first recording in 1927 with Condon's band, The McKenzie-Condon Chicagoans. The session is important because Gene used his bass drum and it is believed to be the first time a complete drum set was used in a recording. They went together to New York with the McKenzie-Condon Chicagoans as the back up band for a singer but the band was soon let go. I believe they remained friends throughout their lifetimes as Krupa gave the eulogy at Condon's funeral, which was only a few months before his own death.
I don't know if the fictional Eddie Sirota is supposed to represent the real Eddie Condon. I see Eddie in the film as Gene's conscious; the voice of reason that tries to rein in Gene when his over inflated ego gets the better of him. But I don't think the real Gene Krupa was anywhere near the arrogant Gene portrayed in the movie. He's generally remembered as a beloved, kind man, which is not how he comes across in the film.
I don't think it's a very good film but for some reason I get a kick out of it, like I do some of the other musical film biographies of the 1950s. They're full of anachronisms and inaccuracies but they're kind of fun and the music of the time intrigues me. Unfortunately in this film, they didn't really use the music that Krupa was best known for.
I haven't seen this films in many years, but I recall that it was a really tacky excuse for a bio-pic ad that Mineo was playing things way too intensely and tortured.
You have to take this film and virtually every musical biopic from the "good ol' days" with 10 grains of salt.
Especially if the subject was still alive at the time of filming.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
This movie is not the "Gene Krupa Story" . . . it was to promote Sal Mineo--give him something to do, and he was hot in the late '50s . . . there was no Dorissa or Eddie Sirota . . .
To understand this movie, you cannot view it as straight-line drama or biopic . . .
If one views the film as metaphor, or possibly as a parable--then it makes sense . . .
Could it be viewed as an adolescent boys dream? Is the entire movie, as parable, a dream? A morality play?
And most of the characters are composite, or dreamt up . . .he had no brother Ted . . . though I don't mind Celia Lovsky (the first Mrs. Peter Lorre), her accent was used to give the story an ethnic slant . . .Krupa's mother was born in Pennsylvania! . . .
Actually it's an innovative way to film a story . . . a young man's fantasy (or nightmare, depending on how you view things) . . .