1986's Top Gun featured a fun romance between Tom Cruise's Maverick and Kelly McGillis' Charlie, but many people don't know that the latter character was actually based on a real-life person. The now-iconic, comedy-infused military drama followed Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a spunky, young naval pilot who's trying to get through the elite TOPGUN school while managing to have as much raucous fun as possible. Along the way, audiences get to know other characters in his orbit.
One of those people is Charlie Blackwood, one of Maverick's instructors at the school and eventually his romantic interest. Though Top Gun is a film about naval aviation, romance plays a key role in it, too. After all, the movie's sexually charged and filled with palpable amounts of youthful fun. Charlie isn't a military member herself; she's a civilian instructor and astrophysicist. Even so, she isn't intimidated by the rowdy servicemen she teaches. In fact, she's one of the key characters who help keep Maverick somewhat anchored and eventually pull him back into the fold when he suffers from immense guilt and grief in the wake of Goose's tragically famous Top Gun death.
Interestingly, though, Charlie Blackwood wasn't just a character written for the film but was actually based on a real-life person: Christine Fox. Fox met the producers of the film when she consulted for the role and they used her as inspiration. Like Charlie, Fox was a civilian employee at the Naval Air Station Miramar, the California base where the film itself is set and where the real-life TOPGUN school was located during its most popular years. Charlie's fictional career also mirrors Fox's real-life arc. Currently, Fox serves as the Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where she's been since 2014. As a civilian in the military, she's held numerous other prestigious positions and has served on multiple high-level boards, like that of the U.S. Naval Academy. She was even the U.S. Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense at one point, becoming the highest-ranking woman to ever hold a position in the Pentagon, which still holds true today.
Charlie Blackwood is a great example of a Top Gun character who's much more than just a romantic interest for the film's protagonist. She's an independent, brilliant, and three-dimensional character who was portrayed on screen when it wasn't quite as celebrated. She plays an integral role, one that aided in molding the explosively popular film into what it became. Part of this is due to her character being so well-written, seeing through many of her pupils' wild antics and Maverick's outwardly larger-than-life persona from early on. It's an added bonus that she's based on a real-life person.
It's a shame that Kelly McGillis' Charlie won't be returning in the upcoming sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, but she's at least been immortalized in the 1986 classic. And as far as Christine Fox, the real-life Charlie, she has an astounding amount of accomplishments under her belt for someone who's still only in her 60s. Her service is beyond impressive, and she's even been acknowledged for it with a handful of distinguished medals and awards. Knowing that she's the inspiration behind Top Gun's Charlie Blackwood certainly adds to the famous '80s character's layered legacy.