12 American Horror Story Characters That Are Based On Real Life People
American Horror Story is an amazing television show on FX created by the powerhouse team of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck. The show finished up its sixth season last fall and viewers have been eagerly awaiting season seven, which is likely to air in September of this year.
Each season presents an entirely new story based around a theme. Each season has all new characters, though the show has a pretty solid main cast all of whom take one new the new characters each season.
The storyline is also contained within a single season, which makes the show particularly binge worthy. The seasons are between ten and thirteen episodes long and the viewers know that if they just keep pressing “Next Episode” on Netflix, they'll get the whole story, maybe even in one sitting.
The first season focuses on a haunted house dubbed the “Murder House,” where characters who die there cannot leave and don't necessarily know they're dead. The second season focused on an old school mental institution and its patients, some of whom were supernatural. The third season was all about witches, as in the descendants of the Salem witches and the voodoo priestesses of New Orleans. Season four took on a traveling Freak Show, complete with a Killer Clown. Season five was all about a hotel where the dead took corporeal form and preyed on the guests. Season six found the show back at its ghostly beginnings with the spirits of America's pioneers haunting its current residents.
Throughout the seasons, the stories of individual characters often seem familiar to true crime buffs. This is because the creators often draw on real life people to inspire their villains. Here are a few characters whose storylines were inspired by real people. Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen all the seasons of AHS.
12 Dr. Charles Montgomery from AHS: Murder House is Dr. Walter Bayley
The main villain of the first season of American Horror Story, AHS: Murder House, is Dr. Charles Montgomery. The good doctor performs procedures, mostly on women, out of the basement of his California house. Montgomery is a “doctor to the stars,” and he often secretly performed discrete procedures like plastic surgery and abortions. Unfortunately for his patients, more women died on his table than survived his procedures.
The real clue as to the inspiration for Dr. Charles Montgomery's character is revealed when Montgomery becomes involved in the Black Dahlia murder. In the show, he's not portrayed as the Black Dahlia killer, but after the crime occurs, he mutilates victims in a similar way.
One of the real life main suspects in the still unsolved Black Dahlia case was a doctor named Walter Bayley. Bayley was a gifted surgeon and his house was very close to the vacant lot where the body of Elizabeth Short, the woman who became known as the Black Dahlia, was dumped. Bayley was well known for performing illegal abortions, which is a striking similarity to Montgomery's character.
It's possible that Bayley was at least partially an inspiration for Dr. Montgomery in AHS: Murder House, but the connection hasn't been confirmed by the show's creators.
11 Dr. Oliver Thredson from AHS: Asylum is Ed Gein
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Ed Gein's horrendous crimes have been the inspiration behind many fictional serial killers including Buffalo Bill from “Silence of the Lambs,” Norman Bates from “Psycho,” and Dr. Oliver Thredson from American Horror story's second season, Asylum. Ed Gein is best known for his predilection for literally wearing his victims. Before he ever murdered anyone, he was a prolific grave robber. He would dig up bodies and take body parts as trophies. He would use the body parts, including skin, to make things including masks, lampshades, bowls, and belts.
Gein's skin masks were clearly the inspiration for the masks made by Dr. Oliver Thredson in American Horror Story: Asylum. Dr. Thredson is a psychiatrist who gained access to the Asylum to assess a patient confined there. He begins to work with other patients there and eventually abducts one of the patients and takes her to his “Playroom.” There it's revealed that Thredson is actually a serial killer known as Bloody Face who kidnaps women, murders them, and makes masks out of their skin.
Thredson's back story is also similar to Gein's in that they both involve a fixation on mothers. Gein suffered a mental break after the death of his mother, to whom he was creepily close, and began grave robbing after that. Thredson's mother abandoned him and part of his motivation for murder is to find “a mother's touch” which he seeks by wearing the skin of his female victims.
10 Grace Bertrand from AHS: Asylum is Lizzie Borden
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One of the patients in American Horror Story's Asylum is a young woman named Grace Bertrand. Grace was committed to the Asylum after being convicted of killing her parents, with an axe. Early in the season, Grace insists that she is innocent and tells other patients various stories about how someone else killed her mother and stepfather. Later, Grace reveals that her stepfather had been molesting her for years and that her mother had done nothing to stop it. She then admits to killing her stepfather to stop the abuse and her mother as revenge for the fact that she never intervened.
There is, of course, another woman who was accused of killing her parents with an axe: Lizzie Borden. Lizzie lived in Massachusetts with her parents in the late 1800's. When her parents were found hacked to death by an axe, Lizzie was the primary suspect. Eventually, she was acquitted, but it's widely believed that she did, in fact, commit the murders.
The murders have become embedded in pop culture, with many dramatization of Lizzie's story, including the homage to her that is Grace Bertrand.
9 Dr. Arden from AHS: Asylum is Josef Mengele
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American Horror Story's second season, Asylum, had quite a few characters that were inspired by real people. Another is Dr. Arden, the Asylum's in house physician. Dr. Arden lives in the Asylum under an assumed named because he is a Nazi War criminal. During the Holocaust, he was the head of a concentration camp and performed awful experiments on the people imprisoned in his camp. Arden continues his “research” at the Asylum, which pretty much consists of torturing the patients and creating disgusting animal/human hybrids that roam the grounds of the Asylum.
Dr. Arden is clearly based on the real life German doctor Josef Mengele. Mengele was a member of the SS, the Nazi Special Forces. He was also a medical doctor. Early on in his Nazi career he saw combat, but after being injured he returned to Germany and started working for the Nazis on Eugenics, a now debunked branch of science that believed in scientifically proving the inferiority of non-white races. Eventually Mengele ended up at Auschwitz, where he became infamous for the cruel experiments he performed on the people imprisoned there.
8 Madame Delphine LaLaurie from AHS: Coven
In the previous seasons of American Horror Story, many characters were loose adaptations of real life villains. In the third season, AHS: Coven, the show's creators started to use reincarnations of real life people as the show's villains.
One of these reincarnations is Madame Delphine LaLaurie. In real life, Madame Delphine LaLaurie was a member of New Orleans' high society in the mid 1800's. When a fire broke out in her house in 1834, neighbors wondered why her slaves weren't fleeing the building with her. She was known to have many slaves. When the house was examined after the fire the answer was discovered.
LaLaurie's attic had been converted in to a torture chamber where she would force her slaves to endure unspeakable horrors. The rumors of her cruelty have likely been exaggerated, but it is true that she regularly tortured the slaves who lived with her.
In American Horror Story: Coven, LaLaurie's family was killed by the Voodoo Priestess Marie Laveau as retribution for the crimes LaLaurie committed against her slaves. Laveau also made her immortal so she'd have to live with her crimes forever. One of the witches of a local coven tracks down LaLaurie to learn the secret of immortality. LaLaurie's portrayal in the show is intended to be a direct portrayal of the historical woman on whom she's based.
7 Marie Laveau from AHS: Coven
Another reincarnation in American Horror Story: Coven is Marie Laveau herself. In the show, Marie Laveau is a Voodoo priestess of the Haitian tradition who's found the secret to immortality. She was a contemporary of Madame LaLaurie, and has survived to the modern day. The show portrays Laveau in modern times as a hairdresser/guru for New Orleans black community. She is still revered as a wise woman in the community and occasionally brews home remedies, which are really potions, for those who believe in her powers. The show pits her Voodoo magic against the magic of the Salem witches and much of the plot revolves around her centuries old vendetta against Madame LaLaurie.
In real life, Marie Laveau was a respected Creole woman who lived in New Orleans in the 1800's. Like her AHS reincarnation, Laveau was a hairdresser who also dealt in Voodoo magics. She was a fortune teller and everyone sought her prophetic guidance. She also made potions and charms that were bought by every social class in the city.
Today the grave of the real-life Marie Laveau is a tourist attraction. People leave gifts on her grave hoping that she will grant them wishes.
6 The Axeman from AHS: Coven
In the 1910's a serial killer terrorized the city of New Orleans. He was never caught and was known only as “The Cleaver,” later renamed “The Axeman.” The Axeman had strange taste in victims. He almost exclusively attacked Italian immigrants who owned businesses, specifically grocery stores.
Shortly after the murders began, a local paper published a letter they claimed was written by The Axeman. In the letter, the supposed Axeman said that he loved jazz music and that anyone playing jazz in their household would be safe from his axe. The homes of New Orleans filled with jazz after dark to ward off the mysterious and terrifying Axeman.
In American Horror Story: Coven, the Axeman becomes a central character, raised by the younger witches and romantically involved with one of the elder witches. Since the real Axeman was never discovered, the show's creators were allowed to take liberties with the character's backstory and they eliminated his preference for Italian grocers as victims. The Axeman on the show kills indiscriminately, unless of course, the homeowners are playing jazz music. But there's no question the character is based on the real life murderer who terrorized New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century.
5 Jimmy Darling from AHS: Freak Show is Grady Franklin Stiles, Jr.
American Horror Story's fourth season used the backdrop of a traveling circus, filled with freaks of nature that the show's owner calls her “monsters.” One of those “monsters” is a young man whose hands are deformed. His fingers are fused together, creating the illusion that he has claws for hands. The character, Jimmy Darling, is often referred to as “Lobster Boy.”
The condition that causes Jimmy's hands to appear like claws is a real condition called ectrodactyly. His character is loosely based on a real circus performer from the 1930's named Grady Stiles Jr. Stiles Jr.'s father also had ectrodactyly and was known in the Freak Show circuit as Lobster Man, thus Stiles Jr. became Lobster Boy.
The deformity and the name are where the similarities between Jimmy Darling and Grady Stiles Jr. end. In fact, Stiles Jr.'s story is much more sordid than Darling's. Stiles Jr. was an alcoholic who brutally abused his wife and children. It got so bad, that his wife hired someone to kill him. He was murdered by the hired killer.
Stiles Jr.'s alcoholism is hinted at in Jimmy Darling's character, but Darling chooses to avoid the bottle because he's seen his mother's descent in to alcoholism. Throughout the show, Darling is actually a pretty good guy, which is in sharp contrast with the man who inspired his character.
4 Twisty the Clown from AHS: Freak Show is John Wayne Gacy
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Of course, American Horror Story couldn't do a season about a Freak Show without playing including the trope of the Killer Clown. In the show, a silent clown stalks the quiet town of Jupiter, Florida, abducting children and murdering families. It's not until midway through the season that we discover his motives. He was a simple man who truly loved children and being a clown, but rumors that he was inappropriate with the children drove him out of the business. It's revealed that he sought to abduct a captive (literally) audience that he could perform for, so he could be a clown again.
Like many other Killer Clowns in modern pop culture, AHS's Twisty the Clown was inspired by a real life serial killer named John Wayne Gacy. Gacy was a pillar of his community and liked by his neighbors. He often dressed as a clown and performed at neighborhood children's birthday parties. Gacy led a secret life, where he was tortured by his sexuality and his troubled past. He was accused multiple times of molesting young boys and even convicted once.
When a young boy from his neighborhood went missing, the police suspected Gacy and a search of his house revealed the bodies of twenty-seven boys buried in a crawlspace. Gacy later confessed to thirty-three murders and said that sometimes when he killed he would dress in the clown costume he used at birthday parties. He referred to the clown as his alter ego: Pogo the Clown. John Wayne Gacy became known as the first Killer Clown.
3 The Countess from AHS: Hotel is Elizabeth Bathory
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People completely lost it when they found out that Lady Gaga was slotted to star in American Horror Story's fifth season. They lost it even more when they found out she would play a vampire, right at the height of the vampire craze that had taken over television and movies.
Lady Gaga's vampire character, The Countess, rules the Hotel Cortez, where she and her paramour of the day lure their victims, slice them open, and drink their blood. In this interpretation of the vampiric tradition, there is no biting and no blood sucking. The Countess uses special gloves, with knife sharp nails to slice open the throats of her victims. Why the deviance from traditional vampiric lore? Because the character is based on a real life serial killer who sliced open her victims and consumed their blood.
Elizabeth Bathory was a Transylvanian noblewoman born in the mid 1500's. She married a count when she was only fifteen years old and she asked him for a very odd wedding present: a torture chamber within his castle. Bathory believed that drinking the blood of young women would keep her eternally young, so she frequently tortured the female servants, draining them of their blood in the process. But her torture wasn't exclusive to slicing and dicing. She was also known to cover young girls in honey and watch as insects stung them. Sometimes she forced her victims to eat parts of their own bodies.
Her crimes were suspected by the local government, but she was rich enough that her crimes were ignored. That is, until she started murdering the daughters of noblemen. She was convicted of murder, but not sentenced to death. She lived out her remaining days in confinement in her castle.
2 James Patrick March from AHS: Hotel is H.H. Holmes
Wikipedia
The ghostly proprietor of the Hotel Cortez, the setting of American Horror Story's fifth season, is James Patrick March. It's revealed a few episodes in to the season that the hotel was originally built by March to serve as his very own murder house. The Hotel was built with hidden rooms, hallways to nowhere with doors that don't open, and chutes that bodies could be dumped down. March is a maniacal killer who claims to have killed hundreds.
If you think the character sounds to evil to be true, you'd be wrong. James Patrick March is based on real life serial killer HH Holmes. Holmes moved to Chicago in the 1880's and built a house that would become known as the “Murder Castle.” All the murder friendly features of the Hotel Cortez are based on the actual Murder Castle commissioned by HH Holmes.
Holmes was a pharmacist in Chicago and was well liked by pretty much everyone who knew him, even though he was a notorious con man. He was famous for life insurance scams. And people had a habit of disappearing after they met him.
When the World's Fair came to Chicago, HH Holmes opened up the Murder Castle as a hotel, and let's just say most of the people who checked in never checked out.
1 Miranda and Bridget Jane from AHS: Roanoke are Catherine May Wood and Gwendolyn Gail Graham
Season six, the latest season of American Horror Story features two murderous sisters, who are also lovers. The sisters are nurses at a nursing home, who are driven out by accusations of murder. They leave town and head to North Carolina, where they find the Roanoke House that serves as the central location for the season's story.
The sisters convert the house in to an assisted living facility and begin taking in patients. They ensure that the patients they're taking in are loners, people who wouldn't be missed if they were to suddenly go missing. The sisters engage in a murderous game, torturing and killing their patients. They document their murders by writing the names of their victims on the wall, with the first letter in each name used to spell the word “Murder.”
The serial killer sisters are based on a real-life crime couple from the 1980's. Gwendolyn Graham and Catherine May Wood fell in love while they were both working as nurses at a nursing home. One of the women smothered an elderly patient and confessed her crime to the other. Instead of the confession ruining the relationship, it sparked a murder spree in which the women killed five people over a two-month period. The killings were described as a twisted “lover's ritual.”
Often in this screwed up world, truth is stranger and more gruesome than fiction, so it's not surprising that the creators of American Horror Story repeatedly draw inspiration for their characters from real life psychos. They always add their own twist to the characters, expanding their stories to flesh out the characters, but the inspiration is always apparent.
Season Seven, due out in the fall of this year, is reportedly about the 2016 Presidential Election, so the majority of the characters are likely to be based on real people. I, for one, can't wait to see how this season plays out!