ANGEL'S ALLEY TIDBITS: Character Inspirations-ASH, DUTCH, and Bad Poetry

Alessandro Salvatori Horatio Valerio. Italian(or some other ethnic background--he's dark skinned; not black, just dark skinned). Really good looking. Quiet. Keeps his lips closed. Does what he's told. Tends to be viewed as emotionless. Hates his given name so he changed it, using his initials: A.S.H.

Ash has got to be one of my favorite minor characters. He's one of those awesome people that only says something when he absolutely has to; and most of that time it's succinct and to the point. The only time he ever makes a speech is when he's really upset, but that's about the only hint you get, cause his facial expression stays pretty much the same.  He likes spitting out words just to irritate people. Except Nick.

As mentioned in ALL of my ANGELS ALLEY(formerly TAKING THE RAP) prologues, this whole thing came about due to my obsession with the Dead End Kids. Yeah. So it's only natural that my first picture of Ash in my mind was that of Gabriel Dell--an original Dead End Kid. 

Of course, after that the image kind of blurred and now is mishmashed with two other people. One is Shiloh Fernandez(see below):

and the other person of my acquaintance, who ironically enough has the same last name as the celebrity.  Actually this person is closer to the physical way I now view this character. Tall, dark--his ethnic background is....Filipino Iranian, I think? Yeah....). When I read Ash's lines now, it's kind of fun to hear this guy's voice in my head.  Particularly since  the inspiration for Dutch is two and a half feet shorter than this guy is. 

And, as always, his life sketch: (Note: do not highlight if you don't want spoilers)

Name: Alessandro Salvatori Horatio Valerio

Known As: Ash

Appears In: Not a Criminal, Angel's Alley, Spider's Web

Relationships: Nick Callahan, friend

                         Dutch Kelly, friend

                         Mark Vecchio, mentor--sorta

                         Ivy Callahan, friend

                         Gabe Lindsay, stepbrother(see Spider's Web)

Martial Status: "molls" more than girlfriends, strictly for appearance's sake

                           NOT interested in members of the opposite sex

                           Unmarried at time of death

In Later Years: arrested on numerous occasions for numerous reasons

  *MAJOR SPOILER ALERT* (unless you've read Spider's Web):upon learning of 

                      Nick's death, he goes after and kills Gyp; arrested and pleads guilty for murder and

                            sent to Sing-Sing.

Death: Dies in jail(life sentence); survived by stepbrother Gabe

Last but not least, there is Dutch. So here's a little insight into that character. And, boy howdy, is he ever a character.  Dutch Kelly, also known in later installments as Gil Kelly(I personally prefer "Dutch", how about you?) was one of those characters that pops in out of nowhere and won't go away.  This might have something to do with the fact that his personality was heavily based on my little brother, who I was writing for at the time(thank you Orihah)--who, by the way is the person mentioned in the paragraph above. 

Dutch's first visual inspration came from--guess who?--the DEK. Now, while this visual model isn't short, he's one of those delightful characters who keeps on talking and talking because he has so much to say and keeps going rather like this sentence until someone gives him a good clip round the ear. This character is the one played by Huntz Hall:

A very "Dutch" expression, don't you think?

And then, like all others of my character inspirations, he morphed into someone else. This was largely due to my current film watching, in particular Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Seeing Robert Capron and all his antics was so reflective of Dutch it was unreal.

Cute little Dutch, no?

Finally, as happens sometimes he morphed a third time. He turned back into my brother. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that, so it's left to your imagination. In order to make up for this, here is "Ash" and "Dutch" (aka Gabe and Huntz) have a good "character moment". This is a great visual for both DEK and Angels Alley:

Dutch's Life Sketch:

Name: Gil Kelly

Known As: Dutch 

Appears In: Not A Criminal, Angels Alley, Alley Cats(as Gil)

Relationships: Johnny Moreno, friend and colleague

                         Nick Callahan, friend

                         Ivy Callahan, crush

                         Ash Hurli, friend

                         Mark Vecchio, mentor

                         Kat Kelly, younger sister

                         Danny Kelly, younger brother

Marital Status: Unmarried during series

                           Marries eventually, father of seven

In Later Years: Law school graduate, magna cum laude

                            successful lawyer

                            Integral in Junior Police Clubs

Death: Heart Attack at age 74

             survived by wife, children, and grandchild

The most entertaining thing about Dutch is his poetry. His really bad poetry. Now, I don't by any means consider myself a poet. I'm a writer, but my poetry is---D grade level at best. But I will say that even my worst poetry looks and sounds better than Dutch's, poor guy. So it was very nice to write bad poetry that wasn't mine. Confession: I actually asked another writer friend of mine to give me the worst poetry line she could think of, and then we went "downhill" from there. It also helped that I happened to be re-reading Lauren Willig at the time, who also has a character with a reputation for bad poetry. Two, in fact.

So. There's the yin and yang of Nick's "crew". Next time, we meet Mark, and then Ivy. And we'll go from there. 

ANGEL'S ALLEY TIDBITS-Character inspirations-Johnny

Ok. So I started with Character Inspirations just because I couldn't get Chachi out of my head(confused? check this) But then I thought it might be cool to put up other pictures that have been dancing around up there. And as I started with Nick, the logical move is to put up Johnny!

Johnny Moreno
The reason why Johnny is the logical choice after Nick goes back to my Silver Screen DEK kick. Brother, was that an OBSESSION. All those movies had Leo Gorcey(see link above) and Bobby Jordan as protagonists.
Johnny was very much an incarnation of Bobby Jordan. Sweet, naive, absolutely adorable. Sure, he had bite, but it wasn't as hard as Nick's. A lot of the things that happen to Johnny tie in to the events that occur in the lives of the characters Bobby Jordan tended to play. Also, Johnny kind of looks like him, at least in my head:

Hearing Bobby's voice in my head while I was writing Johnny was so cool, because I didn't have to worry about how it sounded. I was so familiar with him I knew exactly! As with Nick, I present as a final tidbit, his sketch.

Name: John Moreno
Known As: Johnny
Appears In: Not A Criminal, Angels Alley, Alley Cats, Fire Escape
Relationships: Julia Moreno, older sister
                         Mark Vecchio, brother-in-law
                         Ivy Callahan, childhood sweetheart; eventual wife
                         Nick Callahan, best friend, later brother-in-law
                         Ash Hurli, friend--sorta kinda
                         Dutch Kelly, friend
Marital Status: Happily married to Ivy
                           father of six
In Later Years: Deputy Commissioner of police
                            Runs Junior Police Clubs
                            Assists in FBI Investigations
 Death: Natural causes; dies shortly after birth of first great-grandchild

ANGELS ALLEY TIDBIT: CHARACTER PARALLELS

I was overhauling the second half of my script the other day,("TAKING THE RAP" which I have renamed "ANGEL'S ALLEY"--like my series) and I noticed something: every single one of my characters--ok, half of my characters--in each script has a strong resemblance to somebody I know. And the really scary part? Some of these half are related to me. For example:

NICK CALLAHAN-my cousin Collin. Now, while I don't think Collin would ever knock somebody's lights out any time he wanted to, I can see him saying quite a few of these things if he happened to be in the context of a play. Plus, it's kind of fun to make him hide under something so he doesn't get caught--because I could totally see him doing that.

ASH VALERIO-my brother Ian. Yes, this is the same Ash who was in Rap and Spider's Web, but I've fixed him a little bit. His name is now Alessandro Salvatori Horatio Valerio(oh, the things I do to characters I like!) and he changed it to Ash(A.S.H.). Ian never says anything unless it's worth saying, like Ash. When he does speak, it's in as few words as possible, like Ash. If anyone is doing something wrong, he doesn't exactly call them up to the carpet, but he does point it out--like Ash.

DUTCH KELLY-my brother Orihah. This is the most perfect parallel in the whole bunch. Dutch talks like Orihah, Dutch acts like Orihah, Dutch probably even thinks like Orihah. I was in the car with him the other day and the antics he was pulling were so reminiscent of Dutch I about died. Granted, Dutch would never be in a car with automated windows, because there were not automated windows in 1942, but still.

JULIA MORENO-my sister Alisse. This girl is the sweetest little woman I have ever known. She's got spunk, but she also has a strong moral compass, and if anybody she knows is in trouble she goes out of her way to help them. That's Julia. That's my sister.

There's more, but after those four it just gets complicated, because the rest of these characters turn into mishmashes of other peoples personalities and that's really too complicated to go into unless you've got about two hours, lots of paper and pens or fifteenish pages of screen room on the computer. Not of which I have.

Sometimes, I really love being a writer.