Tintin Forums

Tintinologist.org Forums / Tintin news and events /

The real life Tintins

Page  Page 4 of 4:  « Previous  1  2  3  4 

mct16
Member
#31 · Posted: 4 Nov 2009 21:43
I'm just trying to make a point that whereas ordinary members of the public like ourselves may make mistakes and be corrected, it is important for journalists like Dominic to get it right first time. What would happen if the BBC wrongly reported that Gordon Brown had suddenly died? People would look rather foolish in holding premature celebrations.
jock123
Moderator
#32 · Posted: 5 Nov 2009 09:51
mct16:
it is important for journalists like Dominic to get it right first time.

Of course, and I am sure he would not wish it otherwise.
However, journalists are only human, and mistakes do happen - it's why pepers have columns dedicated to offering corrections to their stories.
Were journalists to be infallible, they presumably wouldn't be journalists - they'd have used their psychic powers to predicted the lottery and retire, and newspapers wouldn't have columns dedicated to corrections and clarifications.
mct16:
What would happen if the BBC wrongly reported that Gordon Brown had suddenly died?

Nothing, really.
Just look at the world-wide reporting of the "death" of Jeff Goldblum recently.
That just shows that even with modern communications (or perhaps even because of them), errors will happen. People would look foolish, but at the end of the day - so what? Everything that is reported in the media is only ever a polemic, somebody's take on things.

In any case, there are far more avenues by which the working journalist can check on the veracity of a story like the death of the Prime Minister: Parliament would issue a statement, his constituency office would also do so, as well as his party. A death certificate would be provided by the doctor attending, and that would be a matter of public record, should further corroboration be required.

This is a truly trivial task, compared to finding out about an otherwise obscure person, about whom facts were scarce, and indeed who may have colluded in covering the traces of his life.

When it comes to the Jeff Goldblum story, that he'd fallen to his death on a film-set in New Zealand, which was carried by major news sites and papers, they didn't even seem to notice that the exact same story (word for word) had circulated for both Tom Hanks (2006) and Tom Cruise (2008), so I'm afraid that your zealous pursuit of journalistic perfection really doesn't reflect what goes on.

The Goldblum, Hanks and Cruise story all had been generated using an on-line "joke" website, which allowed visitors to enter a name into a template, producing bogus reports, that then could (and did) circulate as "viral" news stories.

The other thing to remember is that journalists have to make deadlines, and on budget.

Information is only ever as accurate as the money and time allowed. If you have unlimited time and budget, you hop on a 'plane, go to the source(s), and research the subject from end-to-end.

If you have five pounds and five days, you ring up what looks like a reputable expert at the Hergé Museum, say, and you ask them.
Harrock n roll
Moderator
#33 · Posted: 2 Jan 2010 12:09
More information about Henri Dendoncker has emerged via a "secret file discovered at the National Archives". I can't say for sure whether this is actually 'new' information (especially since I missed the 2009 BBC Radio broadcast), but there is an article about him in today's Times newspaper:

The wartime adventures of Tintin the spy, with pistol, chess set and brandy, by Jack Malvern
Colin Walker
Member
#34 · Posted: 2 Jan 2010 13:35
Many thanks for posting the source of this new info. I wonder whether our little skirmish into the Tintin Boy Scouts prompted this very welcome piece of research?

I see Mr Tett echoes my own pleas (made on my Scouting Website) for information about Dendoncker in that he might still be alive aged 93. Alive or not it would be interesting to learn what has happened to him.

I will amend my Hergé entry that has details of Dendoncker, in the light of these latest revelations.

Happy New Year!

Colin
jock123
Moderator
#35 · Posted: 10 Jan 2010 18:48
Right, new year, new question: does anyone know anything about another real-life Tintin?

Nosing about a bit I have found reference to a 10th Anniversary event, celebrating ten years of Le Petit Vingtième. It was held in December 1938 at the Cirque Royal in Brussels, and featured "live" appearances by Tintin, Snowy, Quick, Flupke and the long-suffering Agent 15, as well as a full orchestra and members of the circus company.

This would add another body to the count of the actors who played the boy reporter, not to say what may have been the first Q&F appearance (they performed a sketch, in which they recounted "in their fashion" the Belgian Revolution of 1830).

The question is of course - who were they? Members of the Circus company, or others?
jock123
Moderator
#36 · Posted: 28 Sep 2012 12:28
Sorry to bump this up, but I've just found further information on another of our "real-life Tintin" actors, and thought it worth sharing.

Looking through my copy of Hergé Côté Jardin: Un dessinateur à la campagne [Hergé's Side Garden: A cartoonist in the country (I'm not certain, but I think that that's probably a touch literal; I feel "side garden" may have the sense of "back-yard", when used in English to mean someone's general environment.)] by Dominique Maricq, I found a spread I'd previously over-looked.

It shows a photo of "Tintin" played by the previously mentioned Charles Stie, who was selected by Hergé to "return" from the Orient after The Blue Lotus.

The accompanying text includes recollections from M. Stie, who appears for a time to have been "on call" to play our hero, as he made additional appearances in the rôle, including at a school in Liège.

The photo in the book comes from an event during the return from China in 1935, where after coming from the station in a cavalcade, Tintin appeared before an audience at the Cirque Royal, pre-dating the show mentioned in my previous post by three years, which, together with the recollections in the book, probably rules him out as the Tintin who was at the 10th anniversary show.

He remembers that his "Snowy" for the event was borrowed from an aristocratic friend of Hergé's ("...a baroness or countess, I believe..."), and that he recounted his most recent exploits in character, which was helped by being in the form of a "rambling" conversation with Hergé and Paul Jamin (the cartoonist known as "Jam", who along with Eugène Van Nijverseel (pen-name "Evany") were Hergé's first assistants on Le Petit Vingtième), although M. Stie was also able to improvise answers to questions from the public audience, because, as a subscriber to the paper, he knew his subject!

He then says that going to University and the war ended his contact with Hergé, until he found that they were living in the same neighbourhood in the Seventies.

Page  Page 4 of 4:  « Previous  1  2  3  4 

Please be sure to familiarize yourself with the Forum Posting Guidelines.

Disclaimer: Tintinologist.org assumes no responsibility for any content you post to the forums/web site. Staff reserve the right to remove any submitted content which they deem in breach of Tintinologist.org's Terms of Use. If you spot anything on Tintinologist.org that you think is inappropriate, please alert the moderation team. Sometimes things slip through, but we will always act swiftly to remove unauthorised material.

Reply

 Forgot password
Please log in to post. No account? Create one!