In November, Shirley’s nephew Edwin Shirley III and the pianist’s 82-year-old brother, Maurice Shirley, told NPR’s 1A Movie Club that the film is brimming with inaccuracies. In the film, Shirley hires Tony Lip to act as a driver and bodyguard as he embarks on a musical tour of the Jim Crow South in the early 1960s. Tony Lip is charming but rough and is overtly racist. The two bond after Tony Lip introduces Shirley to Little Richard and fried chicken, and he saves Shirley from multiple racist incidents. By the end of the film, Tony Lip is less racist and is said to have become lifelong friends with Shirley.

Source: Huffington Post December 17, 2018 23:15 UTC