Dr. Fauci Was the Hot Scientist Inspiration for 1991 Romance Novel

Image taken from White House coronavirus briefing

Sally Quinn, celebrity journalist and widow of Washington Post Managing Editor Ben Bradlee, admitted to the Washingtonian that the hot scientist in her best-selling romance novel Happy Endings was based on none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci. Quinn said she sat next to Fauci at a Washington D.C. dinner party and “just fell in love with him.”

In her 1991 novel, Quinn’s protagonist Sadie Grey, a widowed first lady, falls in love with a leading government scientist named Michael Lanzer ― who had discovered a treatment for AIDS.

Quinn said she had been looking for a love interest in her novel who was not wealthy or from a well-known family but instead “really brilliant, and compassionate, and kind, and decent, and honest. All of those things — and sexy.” When she met Fauci, he fit the bill.

Quinn said that Fauci had known for a long time that he had been the inspiration for love interest in the novel and that she believed he was somewhat embarrassed by it.