Was Mr Big in the film version of LALD based on real-life American drug kingpins of the early 1970s?

I think that Mr Big may have been based on certain drug dealers, as an update to the character from the novel, which of course did not concern drugs, but the smuggling of gold coins to finance Soviet operations in the United States.

So, my question remains, was Mr Big, as written by Tom Mankiewicz, based on real life drug kingpins of the early 1970s in America? If so, whom, would you say? A book I bought recently has given me a few possibles, but I'd like to hear from the good folks at BaB first of all.

I couldn't name anyone in particular, but it wouldn't surprise me. However, I don't think any of them owned any extravagant big baddie lairs. Never know though.

Toppers wrote:

I couldn't name anyone in particular, but it wouldn't surprise me. However, I don't think any of them owned any extravagant big baddie lairs. Never know though.

No, well, they didn't own any Bond villain lairs perhaps, but there may have been other similarities. I have one name in mind here, as I'm writing an article on the influences for the Tom Mankiewicz LALD script from Fleming's oeuvre and indeed beyond.

Looking forward to reading it.

Thanks. It'll be on The Bondologist Blog at some point.

Mr. Big feels more like white American culture's view of the black drug dealer. Big comes more from blaxploitation tropes than anything real.

For one thing, I'm pretty sure that in the early 1970s the big crime lords were still mostly of European extraction, with the blacks working under them, although that was starting to change.