How the FBI secretly shapes movies and TV shows about Bureau
Anne Beagan was the FBI's "special entertainment liaison" for a decade, helping movie makers and TV producers accurately portray the bureau.
When the FBI’s first director, J. Edgar Hoover, saw that a new film from Paramount Pictures was going to be called “Federal Dick,” he was apoplectic.
He called the title of the 1935 movie, about four G-men, “particularly obnoxious… most humiliating and repugnant,” and demanded it was changed before it ever appeared on a marquee.
Hoover declared: “The agents of this Bureau are not Dicks.”
The 1935 film was never released, showing Hoover’s power to force Hollywood to give the Bureau script approval and other controls over any project with an FBI storyline.
Ever since, the nation’s premier law enforcement agency has had a love-hate relationship with Hollywood.
As Ron Kessler, author of “The FBI: Inside the World’s Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency,” says, “Under Hoover, the Bureau created this image of this invincible agency…They did this through the media, through radio shows, TV shows, movies that they controlled.”
“Hollywood’s mission is to tell stories that captivate, enthrall, seduce, entertain and educate,” Beagan told The Post. “FBI investigations naturally contain all of those elements. This creates a mutually beneficial relationship for both parties.
“My goal — and my responsibility — is to portray the Bureau and the people within it in both a compelling and authentic fashion.”
During her assignment, from 2010 until her retirement from the Bureau in 2020, she was the FBI’s main contact with Hollywood.
She worked with top film and TV directors and producers — among them Martin Scorsese, Law & Order creator Dick Wolf, and former CBS News president Susan Zirinsky — who have praised Beagan’s assistance in their various FBI-related projects.
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