You've definitely never heard of these real-life prototypes of famous characters

The creators of famous Betty Boop were inspired by Helen Kane, a singer popular in the 30s. People adored Kane's style, so the cartoon character inspired by her quickly became popular. Anyway, Kane herself didn't like this idea – in 1932, she filed a $250,000 infringement lawsuit against Max Fleischer and Paramount. But she lost – the judge decided that her manners and image weren't original at the first place.

The most legendary detective of all times didn't appear out of nowhere. Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, had a brilliant professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. Dr. Joseph Bell was not only an outstanding doctor, but also a talented poet, a sportsman and a bird-watcher.

Conan Doyle was a great student, so he had an opportunity to assist Dr. Bell in his ward. Conan Doyle observed Bell's incredible ability to deduce a lot about his patients from their appearance and the way they talked. For example, by the calluses on their hands he could guess their occupation.

This man was a real WWII hero and one of the greatest British secret agents. He was known by the code name White Rabbit. Yeo-Thomas was parachuted into occupied France several times, tortured by Gestapo and captured in the Buchenwald concentration camp, from where he escaped. Ian Fleming, the author of the famous books about Bond, was deeply impressed by Yeo-Thomas' military career. In his memoirs, Fleming wrote about Yeo-Thomas as of one of the main inspirations behind the fictional character James Bond.

During the California Gold Rush, Joaquin Murrieta was a rebel well-known in California. He passionately fought against racism and even got nicknamed the Robin Hood of El Dorado. Johnston McCulley, who lived 50 years after Murrieta, created the famous character Zorro after he found out about Murrieta's outstanding personality.

Many people know that Christopher Robin from "Winnie-the-Pooh" was inspired by A. A. Milne's son and even named exactly after him. In fact, Christopher Robin Milne's contribution into the famous story does not end here! The thing is that Milne's son had a favorite animal in the London Zoo – it was Winnipeg The Bear, a young bear cub who was brought from Ontario after his mother died. Little Christopher named his teddy bear after Winnipeg, which later inspired his father to create Winnie-the-Pooh.

Lewis Carroll’s famous character began in 1862 with a short story he made up for the little daughters of one of his friends. One of them was Alice Liddell, and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll's real name) named the girl from the story after her. Alice asked him to write the story down for her, but she had to wait for 2 years – Dodgson couldn't stop working on this amazing idea, and presented Alice with the manuscript of 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground' in November 1864.

John Gray was a young poet and Oscar Wilde's friend. Many people saw some similarities between him and Wilde's character, and John didn't argue with that at the first time. Later unacceptable articles damaging his reputation started appearing in local newspapers: apparently, Dorian Gray's image was involved. After that, John Gray's friendship with Wilde was ended.