What Peaky Blinders characters looked like in real life

While not a strictly historical series, Peaky Blinders does have some connections to the real world. the showrunner Steven Knight He created it by mixing British family legends with events that happened.

The gang led by Tommy Shelby, in fact, is inspired by the one that existed and many characters that take place in the plot are representations of people who once walked on our Earth.

Winston Churchill and Charles Chaplin are two good examples of beings from the extradiegetic world who have slipped into Peaky Blinders. They don’t need to be shown there are other more curious cases.

During his six seasons (the most recent, which would be the last, he reports on Netflix) Knight has brought names – some very questionable – that aren’t as well known as Churchill or Chaplin. Let’s see who they are and how they were portrayed in Peaky Blinders by the actors and actresses who played them..

alfio solomon

Actor: Tom Hardy

The leader of the Jewish band of Peaky Blinders appears in the second season and does not differ much from the character on which it is based, beyond the fact that the real surname does not end with “s”.

The real Solomons, who ended up as a police informant, was part of an Italian mafia gang (the Sabines) very influential in the racing world. He has been arrested several times for acts of armed violence.

Brilliant Chang

Actor: Andrew Koji

The criminal who supplies Tommy with opium and first appears in Season 5 is inspired by a man known in the press as “The Drug King”.

The royal, before devoting himself to drug trafficking, ran a Cantonese restaurant.

Billy Kimber

Actor: Charlie Creed Miles

In the series he is one of Thomas’ first enemies; in real life, head of the Birmingham Boys.

While it sounds a bit confusing, Kimber led the gang that Shelby’s gang is inspired by. He became famous between 1910 and 1930 for having acquired control of several racecourses.

Sir Oswald Mosley

Actor: Sam Claflin

In the series, Claflin plays a member of parliament who begins by asking Tommy for help and ends up being his enemy.

The royal politician, a far-right man who supported Adolf Hitler in Britain, founded the British Union of Fascists (BUF).

Jessie Eden

Actress: Charlie Murphy

Eden is a communist and trade union coordinator who is prominent in the fifth season epilogue. The real one, advocate of women and social justice, she led the 1939 rental strike in Birmingham.

Greater Arthur

Actor: Donald Sumper

The character who in Peaky Blinders is the first Baron of Stamfordham and serves as the king’s private secretary, in the underworld was a British Army officer and Queen Victoria’s private secretary during the last years of her reign and George V for most of his kingdom. of the same.