Spoiler alert! We're discussing major details about the Anthony Bourdain biopic “Tony” (in theaters now nationwide). Stop reading if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to know what happens.
“Tony” doesn’t follow the recipe of most Hollywood biopics.
Loosely based on a few short sections of Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential,” the movie imagines the celebrity chef in the mid-1970s as a college-age, misanthropic rebel (played by Dominic Sessa), who begrudgingly picks up a summer job dishwashing at a seafood restaurant known as The Flagship in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Most of the characters are amalgams of people who knew and worked with Bourdain, who died by suicide in 2018 at age 61. The Flagship, too, has since closed, although many
of the restaurants featured in the film – including Spiritus Pizza and Ciro & Sal’s – are still around.
Here’s what else is fact and fiction in “Tony,” according to director Matt Johnson and co-screenwriters Lou Howe and Todd Bartels:
Who is Antonio Banderas' character based on in 'Tony?'
When Tony stumbles into Provincetown, he’s taken in by The Flagship’s mild-mannered owner, who is simply known as Chef (played by Banderas). The culinary guru is a composite of several mentors that Bourdain had in both New York and Provincetown, most prominently a boss nicknamed Bigfoot, who is mentioned in “Kitchen Confidential.”
“Antonio’s character encapsulates an important part of Provincetown to us, which was the Portuguese fisherman,” Bartels says. “He’s symbolic of the past, and there continues to be remnants of that today. … His character symbolizes the righteous path: Tony at his best.”
Did Anthony Bourdain have a girlfriend named Nancy?
The film depicts Tony meeting Nancy (Emilia Jones) and chasing her to Provincetown, where he attempts to win her affection from another man. In reality, Bourdain and Nancy Putkoski were high-school sweethearts long before the events of the movie. They married in 1985 and divorced in 2005; he got remarried two years later to Ottavia Busia, but they would also split.
The screenwriters weren’t able to speak to Putkoski for the project: “She's a very private person,” Howe says. Putkoski contributed to Laurie Woolever’s "Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography,” in which “people talk about their dynamic at that time. But otherwise, we didn’t know that much about her.”
“We always heard that their connection was based on a meeting of the minds; they were both wordsmiths who got a kick out of each other’s brains,” Bartels adds. “They were both the smartest, quick people in the room – always going for the joke. This was a very playful, witty relationship, so we tried to capture that.”
Did Anthony Bourdain actually lie about writing a book in Provincetown?
Much of the movie is framed around a fabrication, as Tony tries to impress Nancy by telling her that he’s only in Provincetown for a few months to research and write a novel. That particular storyline is embellished: In actuality, Bourdain spent multiple summers working in Cape Cod restaurants, and he was already dating Nancy at the time.
But he always had literary ambitions – spurred in part by his mom, Gladys, who was a longtime copy editor at the New York Times.
“He did write quite a bit before ‘Kitchen Confidential,’ ” his 2000 memoir, Howe says. “He wrote crime novels, and it was really the meeting of the kitchen life with the writing life that created his breakthrough as a writer. So the idea of him always wanting to be a writer is totally true. The fact that he didn’t figure out his voice until much later in his career liberated us to give him this ego,” despite having no “clear purpose in what he wanted to say.”
How much of the 'Tony' soundtrack is music that Anthony Bourdain listened to?
“Tony” has one of the most memorable movie soundtracks of the year so far, with an eclectic mix of rock, R&B and jazz artists including the Modern Lovers, Kool & the Gang, Art Pepper and Brian Eno.
“Every single song that we use are songs that Tony mentioned by name as loving,” Johnson says. Take, for instance, “Strawberry Letter 23” by the Brothers Johnson: “He is on the record saying that when he listens to that song, he remembers working in the kitchens in Provincetown and he starts to cry, because there’s just something about it."
Did Anthony Bourdain really burn down a restaurant cooking lobster thermidor?
In a pivotal scene, Tony accidentally burns down The Flagship while cooking lobster thermidor: a broiled seafood dish topped with cheese and cooked in a wine, cream and cognac sauce.
Although the cataclysmic kitchen fire was entirely fictional, lobster thermidor is one of the many recipes found in Auguste Escoffier’s “Le Guide Culinaire.” Bourdain worked his way through the 1903 cookbook alongside his real-life pal, Dimitri (Stavros Halkias).
“Does he single that out as the thing that unlocked his culinary palate? No, that’s sublimated from an entire cookbook,” Johnson says. “The reason we’re using it is because it was a great centerpiece of the ingredients that Chef has in the kitchen. So we’re cheating a bit, but did Tony cook many lobster thermidors and eat dozens of them? Of course.”
If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting "988."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is 'Tony' a true story? We fact check the Anthony Bourdain biopic
