UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 17, Page 11
January 21, 1993
Faculty author of 'Hoffa' book comments about the movie

     Hollywood watchers who are saying Jack Nicholson is a sure bet to get
an Oscar nomination for his intense portrayal of union legend Jimmy Hoffa
in the film, Hoffa, and the labor leaders biographer, Arthur Sloane agree
on that point.
     But, while Sloane, a University of Delaware professor and author of
the biography, Hoffa, enjoyed Nicholson and the film, he said he was sorry
it didn't reveal more of Hoffa's complex personality.
     "It's an impressive, very big movie but I missed some of the other
dimensions of Hoffa. He came across as tough, fearless and driven, but the
movie made no effort to show his intelligence. He was as bright a man as
I've ever met," Sloane said.
     He missed images of Hoffa's kindness, his love for his family and his
Victorian nature. "He laughs at blue jokes in the movie, but, in real life,
he was very puritanical, and the truth is, he couldn't fire anyone," Sloane
said. In the movie, Hoffa twice orders the wholesale firing of union
administrators.
     This movie is exciting, does a lot of things very well and is faithful
to Hoffa as far as it goes, but it is still fiction, Sloane said. For
example, there never was anyone in Hoffa's life like the character Danny
DeVito plays. DeVito plays a truck driver who becomes Hoffa's best friend,
goes to jail with him and is murdered alongside him.
     While Hoffa and the Teamsters were deeply involved with the mob,
details of that involvement are a bit skewed in the film, Sloane said. It
was Hoffa who first approached the mob for help in organizing the
Teamsters, not the other way around, he said, and there is no evidence the
labor leader asked the mob to kill acting Teamsters president Frank
Fitzsimmons after Hoffa was released from prison. In fact, just the
opposite occurred, Sloane explained.
     Despite the differences between the events chronicled in Sloane's
biography, Hoffa and the movie, Sloane has become the media's most sought
after authority on the legendary labor leader.
                                        -Barbara Garrison