Here’s another example, like the new Showtime series I’m Dying Up Here (about L.A. standup comedy in the 1970s), of Hollywood fictionalizing a story that arguably would be much better if retold as it happened. Al Pacino plays the fictional title character, a long-time journeyman musician who discovers, 40 years later, that John Lennon had sent him a personal letter, with a home phone number and an offer to converse, that the lesser-known artist had never received. In real life, the musician was Steve Tilston, who learned of the letter 34 years after Lennon wrote it in 1971.