| REEL FACE: | REAL FACE: |
Robert Redford
Born: August 18, 1936 Birthplace: Santa Monica, California, USA | Forrest Tucker
Born: June 23, 1920 Birthplace: Miami, Florida, USA Death: May 29, 2004, FMC Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, USA (natural causes) |
Danny Glover
Born: July 22, 1946 Birthplace: San Francisco, California, USA | Theodore 'Teddy' Green
Born: c. 1915 Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts, USA |
Tom Waits
Born: December 7, 1949 Birthplace: Pomona, California, USA | John Waller
Born: July 3, 1942 Birthplace: Napa, California, USA |
Casey Affleck
Born: August 12, 1975 Birthplace: Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA | John Hunt
Born: c. 1942 Birthplace: Texas, USA |
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. 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
Tucker is estimated to have stolen millions of dollars during his career as a bank robber and criminal. He also stole the equivalent of a fleet of sports cars. As a member of The Over-the-Hill Gang alone, he is believed to have stolen more than $1 million in cash and jewelry in the early 1980s. -Los Angeles Times
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
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 addition to building a kayak to escape from San Quentin, which starts the period of Forrest Tucker's life depicted in the movie, he had many other impressive escapes. They are chronicled in more detail in David Grann's article, which can be found in his book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession. On one occasion in the early 1950s, Tucker escaped from county jail by feigning severe stomach pain. He was rushed to the hospital and the doctors concluded that it had to be appendicitis. They removed his appendix, and while he was recovering he picked the lock on his shackles and strolled out of the hospital, unnoticed. Losing his totally-fine appendix was a "small price to pay," said Tucker.
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.