Although his fictional characters have fictional names, readers have ascribed the names of real people to almost all of Schulberg's protagonists.

Sammy has been called Louis B. Mayer, David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn; some have even thought of him as Schulberg's father, B. P. Toro Molina has been thought by some to be Primo Camera, and Manley Halliday has universally been considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, despite Schulberg's statement that at least fifteen screenwriters were drawn on for the portrait of Halliday. Nevertheless, the resemblance between Fitzgerald and Halliday is striking. Like Fitzgerald, the protagonist of The Disenchanted rose to fame in the 1920s and was consumed by neglect, and, in turn, alcohol in the 1930s. Only Waterfront escapes the public's penchant for naming Schulberg's characters — perhaps because organized crime figures generally remained nameless until the last few years. (Ironically, it could well be Schulberg's fictional...