Henry Fonda
Heller echoes the eponymous character in Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem "Miniver Cheevy" in his initial description of Maj. Major as "born too late and too mediocre". The character is further described as having "three strikes against him from the beginning – his mother, his father, and Henry Fonda, to whom he bore a sickly resemblance almost from the moment of his birth. Long before he even suspected who Henry Fonda was, he found himself the subject of unflattering comparisons everywhere he went. Total strangers saw fit to deprecate him, with the result that he was stricken early with a guilty fear of people and an obsequious impulse to apologize to society for the fact that he was not Henry Fonda." After his promotion to squadron commander by Colonel Cathcart, "People who had hardly noticed his resemblance to Henry Fonda before now never ceased discussing it, and there were even those who hinted sinisterly that Major Major had been elevated to squadron commander because he resembled Henry Fonda. Captain Black, who had aspired to the position himself, maintained that Major Major really was Henry Fonda "but was too chickenshit to admit it."