Is Audrey Rose loosely based on a true story?
Were the characters based on real people with different names? I'm sure that Ivy's nightmares and the ending were fictitious, but the storyline about Elliot Hoover visiting a psychic who reveals to him that his dead daughter has been reincarnated, sounds believable to me. I wonder if the author based this on real-life experiences of his friends?
I don't know about that, but Frank DeFelitta says he became interested in reincarnation one afternoon when he heard some ragtime music coming from his living room. When he went in there, his then 5 or 6 year old son, who had never had lessons before, was playing away at the piano, and really good. When he saw his dad, he smiled and said something like "Hey dad! My fingers are doing this all by themselves! Isn't it great?"
shareYes, I've read about that. But there's no similarity to Audrey Rose's story. I meant if the characters were based on real people, like in The Exorcist book. Shirley MacLaine and her daughter being the models for Chris MacNeil and daughter Regan...
shareAccording to my Portugese copy of the novel, Frank de Felitta based Janice and Bill on his friends who lived in the old building, Des Artistes, with their daughter. The mother was an architect and he described her as the spitting image of Lee Remick (my idol). Apparently he wanted Lee to play Janice but she turned it down. :((
If the piano playing story is true, all it means is deFelitta's son was a prodigy , a not so uncommon and real life experience. No, I don't believe in reincarnation-it's been mathematically disproven for decades. Sorry, you'd need a good math teacher to explain; I'm not good enough.
shareThe Exorcist was indeed based on actual events, but they didn't involve Shirley MacLaine. It was based on an exorcism that happened in Maryland and Missouri in the '40s, and the child in question was a teenage boy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exorcist
http://www.strangemag.com/exorcistpage1.html
Cloris Leachman played a woman who cared for a handicapped boy who could play the piano very well.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0237930/plotsummary
I've heard some autistic people can do talented things too.
pacscistaff,
May I ask how you mean "handicapped"?
The word Savant is usually used to describe people who in the traditional sense have "developmental disorders", but have one or more subjects of expertise, amazing ability and brilliance not usually attributed to people with aforementioned disabilities.
Good friends of mine have a son who has Down's syndrome and he plays the piano quite amazingly. Better than most piano players I have heard who do not have Down's!
"If Liza is wrong, then I don't want to know what right is." --Peter Griffin