This Hollywood treatment of The Negro Motorist Green Book begins with a title card reading "Inspired by a true story," and then swiftly focuses on Frank Anthony Vallelonga (1930–2013), an Italian American known as Tony Lip (played by Viggo Mortensen). A tough, fearless bouncer at New York's Copacabana nightclub, Vallelonga is hired to drive Don Shirley through parts of the Midwest and South on an eight-week concert tour in late 1962. Although initially prejudiced against African Americans-even trying to toss into the trash the glass tumblers from which two black workers in his home have sipped-Vallelonga becomes close friends with Shirley over the course of the film, as they learn to understand and respect each other. Green Book formulaically concludes with Vallelonga and his family warmly welcoming Shirley to their Bronx home on a snowy Christmas Eve not long after the two have just returned from their final concert stop in Birmingham, Alabama. The Hollywood version even has Shirley driving the car-a beautiful turquoise Cadillac DeVille-for the first time in order to relieve the exhausted Vallelonga and get him home to his family in time for Christmas. It's a heartwarming ending, but entirely fictional, as one might imagine. Shirley's actual concert tour with Vallelonga as his driver extended into the fall of 1963.
