Television
Premiering September 19, 2010, an HBO series titled Boardwalk Empire fictionalizes the life and times of "Nucky Thompson," along with other players, at the start of the Prohibition era in Atlantic City. The series is produced by Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg and stars Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson, a fictionalized version of Johnson. Show creator Terence Winter elected to portray a fictionalized version of Johnson, to give the writers creative license with history, and to maintain suspense. One great difference between the real Johnson and the fictional Thompson is that the real Johnson is not known to have killed anyone personally, as the fictional Thompson has done; there is also no evidence that Johnson ever ordered someone to be killed. Also, Thompson is portrayed as running his distillery for bootlegging and competing directly with real-life gangsters, whereas the real Johnson took a cut of all illegal alcohol sold in Atlantic City but was never known to engage in competition or turf wars with organized crime. Johnson did not remarry until 1941, after his wife's death in 1912; in the show Thompson remarries in 1921.
Read more about this topic: Enoch L. Johnson
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy.... In other countries, the business of laughing is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The technological landscape of the present day has enfranchised its own electorates—the inhabitants of marketing zones in the consumer goods society, television audiences and news magazine readerships... vote with money at the cash counter rather than with the ballot paper at the polling booth.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“... there is no reason to confuse television news with journalism.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)