The movie Black Hawk Down was one of the biggest box office draws of 2001, and it earned its director, Ridley Scott, an Oscar nomination. (He didn't win, but the movie got two Academy Awards for editing and sound.) Based on Mark Bowden's nonfiction book of the same title, it concerns the disastrous raid of Mogadishu, Somalia, by US elite soldiers in 1993. One of these Special Forces soldiers underwent a name-change as he moved from the printed page to the big screen. Ranger John "Stebby" Stebbins became Ranger Danny Grimes when played by Scottish heartthrob Ewan McGregor. Why? Because in 2000, Stebbins was court-martialed and sent to the stockade for rape and sodomy of a child under twelve.
This decidedly numeric turn of events was confirmed by the Army, the Fort Leavenworth military prison (Stebby's home for the next 30 years), and Black Hawk Down's author. Bowden told the New York Post that the Army asked him to change Stebbins' name in the screenplay in order to avoid embarrassing the military.
In an email to the newspaper, Stebby's ex-wife, Nora Stebbins, wrote: "They are going to make millions off this film in which my ex-husband is portrayed as an All-American hero when the truth is he is not."
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