Who is who in Damien Chazelle’s movie ‘Babylon’, which is about the debauchery of golden Hollywood?

While his thin mustache is reminiscent of Clark Gable, it’s clear that he was inspired by Brad Pitt’s mute Hollywood star, 1920s heartthrob, and Greta Garbo’s perennial partner John Gilbert. Like Jack Conrad, he didn’t know how to go from silent to vocal. Alcoholic, he died of a heart attack at the age of 38.

NELLIE LAROY (Margot Robbie) / CLARA BOW

The fictional Nellie LaRoy, a self-made actress with extraordinary self-confidence, seems to be a reflection of actress Clara Bow, who has fashioned the concept of the ‘it girl’ (attractive, popular, influential) in many of her films. The term later shifted in other directions, but Bow coined the term in Hollywood with the 1927 movie ‘It’.

LADY FAY (Li Jun Li) / ANNA MAY WONG

The clearest of all the characters in the film: the seductive lesbian Lady Fay, who sings raunchy songs at parties and designs interlaced posters for silent films, is the direct actress of the equally sensual Chinese Anna May Wong, and “Daughter of the Dragon” and “The Shanghai Express”. Headlines like ” are annoying.

ELINOR ST. JOHN (Jean Smart) / ELINOR GLYN

In Chazelle’s movie, he is the columnist who has sunk or boosted careers from the pages of “Photoplay”. The character is based on British writer Elinor Glyn, who also collaborated on ‘Photoplay’ and ‘Cosmopolitan’, but St. John has echoes of two great Hollywood columnists, Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.

SIDNEY PALMER (Jovan Adepo) / CURTIS MOSBY

The character of Sidney Palmer, a jazz trumpeter who initially performed at the party and eventually starred in short films at the dawn of sound films, epitomizes the era of all the black ‘jazzers’ trying his luck in Hollywood. Mosby was a drummer and bandleader who worked on King Vidor’s ‘Hallelujah’.

IRRING THALBERG (Max Minghella) / IRVING THALBERG

One of the few characters to appear like this in ‘Babylon’ fiction. Thalberg was one of Hollywood’s great ‘codas’, one of the pillars of old Hollywood, nicknamed the ‘wonder boy’, young and determined. He died very young and Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel ‘The Last Tycoon’ is based on his life.

CONSTANCE MOORE (Samara Weaving) / CONSTANCE MOORE

A strange effect is created in the shooting sequence of Nellie’s first film: the actress who gave her the replica looks like Nellie’s twin; Samara Weaving and Margot Robbie bear a slight resemblance. The actress in question, very anecdotal here, is Constance Moore, a graceful performer and singer of musical films in the ’30s and ’40s.