In exploring The Old Man & the Gun true story, we discovered that the actual portion of Forrest Tucker's life depicted in the movie took place mostly in 1981 when the real Forrest Tucker was approximately 61, about a decade younger than Robert Redford's character in the movie (Redford himself was 80 at the time of filming).

Yes. While an inmate of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in the 1950s, Forrest Tucker (prisoner AZ1047) managed to escape when he was transferred to a county jail in November of 1956 to await a court appearance. Tucker complained of pains in his kidneys and was hurried from the jail to a Los Angeles hospital. Guards were placed at every door. While their heads were turned, he broke a pencil and stabbed himself in the ankle. The injury forced the guards to remove his leg irons. As they ushered him into the X-ray room, he sprung up and strong-armed two guards then fled out of the hospital. He was caught a few hours later in the middle of a cornfield, still in his handcuffs and hospital gown. -The New Yorker

Yes. The Old Man and the Gun true story confirms that Tucker's August 9, 1979 escape from California's San Quentin State Prison unfolded much like it does in the movie. A 59-year-old Tucker (in the movie he is said to be 70) and two fellow inmates, John Waller and William McGirk, constructed a makeshift 14-foot kayak using wood, plastic sheets, duct tape and Formica. They stenciled the name "Rub-a-Dub-Dub" and the words "Marin Yacht Club" on the side, which they had painted blue (the other side was left unfinished to save time). They snuck it from the prison lumber shop into the water and attempted to paddle away as the guards looked on. Their craft was sound, but strong winds caused giant swells to flood the boat. It sank before they made it past the edge of the prison property at San Quentin.

Fortunately for them, they were wearing sweatshirts and hats that Tucker had painted bright orange, with the logo of the nearby Marin Yacht Club. A guard spotted them clutching to their overturned craft as they kicked to the shore. He asked if they needed help. McGirk held up his wrist and shouted, "We just lost a couple of oars, but my Timex is still running." The guard laughed and returned to his post, still unaware that three prisoners had escaped. Waller and McGirk were captured within months and sent back to San Quentin. Forrest Tucker, however, was on the run for the next three years, during which time he and his gang, dubbed the "Over-the-Hill Gang", embarked on a spree of bank robberies. -The New Yorker

Yes. In the movie, a bank manager tells police after being robbed, "He was such a gentleman." Friendly and courteous, Forrest Tucker (Robert Redford) tells the bank employees he encounters, "I'm just making a living." In David Grann's New Yorker article that inspired the movie, the real Forrest Tucker looks back at two bank tellers and says, "Thank you. Thank you," as he makes off with packets of cash. You can read Grann's article in its entirety in his book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession. Grann is also the author of The Lost City of Z, which inspired the 2017 movie of the same name that we researched here.

Police captain James Chinn, who was involved in Tucker's final capture in Pompano Beach, Florida, said that he had never met such a gracious criminal. Even a juror who voted in favor of convicting him commented, "You got to hand it to the guy—he's got style."

Yes. Like in the movie, the real Forrest Tucker carried a gun during his heists. He described it as being an essential "prop" necessary for any bank robbery. He thought of himself as being similar to a stage actor, someone who could hold a crowd's attention with the sheer force of his personality. He was never reported to have shot anybody and says he would normally just flash the gun so the tellers understood the situation. "To me violence is the first sign of an amateur," Tucker said.

A former FBI agent said of Tucker and his Over-the-Hill Gang, "You can't say how many lives they altered by sticking a gun in someone's face." -The New Yorker

Yes. When Forrest Tucker (Robert Redford) is in mid-getaway in the movie, he stops to help Jewel Centers (Sissy Spacek), who is stranded next to her broke-down pickup on the side of the road. He uses the situation for cover as the cops speed by. Tucker charms the divorced farm widow during a meal at a diner. A romance develops between them as they discover excitement and comfort in each other. Jewel is based on Tucker's third wife. In real life, they met in the early 1980s at a private club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, not during one of Tucker's bank getaways. Instead of being a farm widow who drives a pickup, the real Jewel (spelled "Jewell") was an heiress to a modest moving-company empire, Acme Moving and Storage. She was indeed a widow, having lost her first husband shortly before meeting Tucker. When she was younger, the attractive blond is said to have looked a little like Marilyn Monroe. They married in 1982.

Unlike Jewel in the movie, the real Jewel knew nothing about Tucker's criminal ways until after they were married and the police informed her upon his arrest. She thought he was a wealthy securities broker named Bob Callahan. Upon learning he was a criminal, she chose to stay with him and support him while he was incarcerated. As he pleaded for forgiveness, "All I wanted to do was hold him," she recalled. Tucker vowed to reform himself and was sent to San Quentin...again. She stayed married to him during his decade-long prison stint.

Yes. The real Forrest Tucker considered this his trademark. He wore a hearing aid that was actually a police scanner. It was wired through his shirt and allowed him to stay one step ahead of the authorities. In particular, it would help to let him know if any silent alarms had been triggered. -The New Yorker

Yes. After robbing a high-security Massachusetts bank in the spring of 1983 by pretending he and his accomplices were armored car guards, Tucker, 64, fled to Florida to hide out. Tellers had identified him through mugshots. While in Florida, he was in touch with an old friend from Alcatraz, Teddy Green. One day, Tucker went to meet his friend in a West Palm Beach parking garage. He pulled into the garage, and just as his friend walked toward the car, FBI agents jumped out and screamed, "FBI, don't move! You're under arrest." He was certain that his friend had "ratted me out."

Though no gun was ever found, several agents reported that they saw a pistol in his hand. The true story confirms that they opened fire, hitting Tucker three times. "They all opened up on me and hit me three times," recalled Tucker, "in both shoulders with M16 rifles, and with buckshot in the legs." He ducked down and floored it out of the garage, crashing as he exited. He stumbled from the car into the street. A woman passing by with two children offered the bloodied Tucker a ride, believing that he had been hit by a car. It wasn't until she was pulling away with him in the passenger seat that she noticed someone in the rearview mirror holding a rifle. Her six-year-old son screamed, "Criminal!" A half-mile chase ensued and they ended up on a dead-end street. Tucker signaled that the woman could exit the car with her children. He then stepped out and passed out in the street. -The New Yorker

Yes. Bank robber Forrest Tucker had a daughter and a son. They did not know him, as he had no part in their upbringing. "I thought he died in an automobile accident," said his son Rick Bellow. "That's what my mom told me to protect me." Rick didn't learn the truth about his father until his mom told him when he was in his early twenties. After his father was arrested when Rick was a baby, the authorities confiscated almost everything they had, including their furniture. "He left us with nothing. He turned our world inside out," said Rick.

After striking up a correspondence with his father, Rick discovered that he had an older half sister named Gaile Tucker, who was employed as a nurse in Florida. They eventually met and tried to piece together the details they had learned about their father. "I don't have any ill feelings," Gaile said of her estranged father. "I just don't have any feelings."

Forrest Tucker's daughter is represented by actress Elisabeth Moss in the movie. Gaile's name is changed to Dorothy. -The New Yorker

According to Tucker himself, he escaped from prison "18 times successfully an 12 times unsuccessfully." His first escape happened in 1936 at age 15 after he had been imprisoned for car theft. He was arrested for the last time in 1999 at age 78 after committing a string of small-time bank robberies from Texas to Missouri. -The New Yorker

Yes. During a montage of Forrest Tucker's jailbreaks, instead of turning to prosthetics or CGI to make Robert Redford's character look younger, they included footage from his 1966 crime drama The Chase.

Yes. In the 1990s, Tucker wrote two manuscripts chronicling his life, the 261-page Alcatraz: The True Story and a more ambitious account titled The Can Opener. In Tucker's eyes, a Hollywood movie was the ultimate culmination of his life as an outlaw. "I called Clint Eastwood's secretary, but she said, 'Unless you have an agent, he won’t read it,' " Tucker said. Convinced that he needed to become legendary like Bonnie and Clyde, a 78-year-old Tucker went back to robbing banks in 1999. He passed away in prison in 2004, more than a decade before his life story was turned into the Robert Redford movie (watch the trailer). -The New Yorker

Yes. Upon his release in 1993 at age 73, Tucker went to live with his wife Jewel who had purchased a peach-colored house for them in Pompano Beach, Florida. In 1999 at age 78, after trying his hand at giving clarinet and saxophone lessons, and attempting unsuccessfully to get his life story turned into a movie, he returned to robbing banks. He was captured and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Though Jewel remained by Tucker's side until his death in prison in 2004 at age 83, finding herself on her own was difficult to take. "The silence is unbearable," she told an interviewer. -The New Yorker

Watch the trailers for the movie about bank robber Forrest Tucker and his Over-the-Hill Gang.