Nick and Nora Charles
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Nick and Nora Charles, or Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Charles (which is short for his Greek moniker "Charalambides"), are the characters created by Dashiell Hammett in his novel The Thin Man. Nick is a retired private detective and Nora a wealthy society woman whose snobbish family thinks she has married beneath herself; Hammett modeled her on his lover Lillian Hellman. Their banter provides comic relief of the type that would later be seen between John Steed and Emma Peel in The Avengers.
The movie adaptation of The Thin Man was a resounding success, and although Hammet never wrote another novel, five movie sequels were produced. In the novel, Nick Charles is overweight and out of shape; the "thin man" is in fact the murder victim. However, Nick Charles was portrayed by the slim actor William Powell, naturally confusing the audience into thinking Nick was the title character. The movie producers capitalized on this confusion, and inserted "thin man" in the titles of the sequels to indicate Nick and Nora stories.
Nora is portrayed by Myrna Loy in the adaptations.