If you type any famous person’s name into Google, one of the suggested fill-in options is “…height.” It’s how I know Tom Cruise is 5′ 7″, Nicole Kidman is 5′ 11″, and the tall man from It Follows is 7’7″ (RIP to a legend). With Napoleon out in theaters, I was curious to know if the real-life Napoleon Bonaparte, who was known as “Le Petit Caporal,” is the same height as Joaquin Phoenix, the actor who plays him in the Ridley Scott film.
Phoenix is reportedly 5’8” — or six inches taller than Bonaparte. 5’2” is considered short for a man in 2023, but in the late 1700s, “he was probably of average height,” according to the History Channel. So why is he considered a famous short king?
It was largely the work of one man: the British cartoonist James Gillray (1756-1815). Gillray’s caricatural depictions of the French general were so popular and influential that at the end of his life Napoleon said that Gillray “did more than all the armies of Europe to bring me down.”
One cartoon in particular, “The Plumb-pudding in danger, or, State Epicures taking un Petit Souper,” shows Napoleon as half the size of British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. It has been described as “probably the most famous political cartoon of all time.” OK, yeah, but did the director of Alien and Blade Runner ever depict Pitt of blowing up a pyramid? Exactly.
Napoleon, which also stars Vanessa Kirby as Napoleon’s wife Empress Joséphine, is out in theaters now.
(Via the History Channel)