STILL SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGINAL OF PROFESSOR KINGSFIELD (COMMENT).

STILL SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGINAL OF PROFESSOR KINGSFIELD (COMMENT). Kaehu commented on this post which speculated about the identity of the law professor who was the model for Professor Kingsfield in THE PAPER CHASE. Kaehu nominates Professor Stefan Riesenfeld of Boalt Hall (U.C. Berkeley’s law school) and provides evidence which makes Professor Riesenfield a plausible model. This article in the Harvard Gazette on the 40th anniversary of THE PAPER CHASE describes Kingsfield as “curmudgeonly” and “imperious”, which squares with the description of Professor Riesenfield. The article reports on an interview with John Osborn Jr., the author of THE PAPER CHASE, in which Osborn gives some details about the movie and television show which followed the book. Osborn still insists that the character of Kingsfield was based on “a composite of several people”. He adds: “It wasn’t like it was hard to find role models.” The problem of identifying the real Kingsfield is that there were a lot of law professors like that back in the day.