Inglourious Basterds
The Bear Jewwas one of many standout characters from Quentin Tarantino’sInglourious Basterdsbut does Sgt . Donny Donowitz have a material - life counterpart?Inglourious Basterdswas a project Quentin Tarantino expend over a decade spring up , intend it to a serviceman on a missionary post - style picture show likeThe Dirty twelve . Over the years , actors like Leonardo DiCaprio , Sylvester Stallone , and Eddie Murphy were rumored for leading roles but the project languished as the director struggled to cut it down to a feature - length hand .
The existent production ofInglourious Basterdswent quite fluid , however , and while Adam Sandler was initially rumored for the primal part of The Bear Jew , the role instead went to director Eli Roth ( Hostel ) . The character becomes infamous among the Nazis in the movie for his riding habit of beating German soldiers to death with his baseball game bat , and in the finale , Donny even gets to rewrite history by machine gun Hitler in person .
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The character chop-chop became a fan favorite , but what is Donny Donowitz ’ backstory and does he have a base in real lifespan ?
The Bear Jew’s Backstory
One of the issues Tarantino faced writingInglourious Basterdswas come up with too much material and deciding what to bring down . It ’s no surprisal he shoot down a number of sequences that did n’t make the net slash too , include scenes require Maggie Cheung ’s Madame Mimieux , the original possessor of the French cinema that forms a crucial location in the pic . During Donny ’s violent death of Sergeant Rachtman , there was originally an integral flashback detailing his backstory and that of his bat .
The scene reveals Donny worked in his Fatherhood ’s barbershop in Boston and before he was deployed , he move to his local store to corrupt the heaviest bat he could find . He then went around and expect his Jewish neighbors to sign up the name of a loved one excruciation in Europe on it . The movie does n’t point this out , but Anne Frank ’s name is among the signature . Tarantino also divulge thatDonny is actually the father of Lee Donowitz , the motion-picture show producer played by Saul Rubinek inTrue Romance .
Is The Bear Jew Based On A Real-Life Figure?
While he does n’t have a direct real - life story counterpart , Tarantino appears to have basedInglourious Basterds’Bear Jewpartially on Sam Dreben , a World War I veteran dubbed the Fighting Jew . Dreben was both a decorated soldier and sometime mercenary , but unlike Donny , he was famed for his science with a machine hired gun instead of a squash racquet . In addition to fighting in WWI , he saw legal action in the Mexican Revolution , the Philippine - American War and the Boxer Revolution in China .
Drebin was well - screw for his bravery and fighting skills and was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during WWI . Drebin ’s life was tragically trend light from a medical mistake in 1925 when he was incidentally interpose with the wrong means during a infirmary halt .
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Lt. Aldo Raine speaks to his comrades in Inglourious Basterds
