Six Degrees of Separation is a 1993 American comedy-drama film directed by Fred Schepisi and adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-nominated John Guare play of the same title. The plot of the film was inspired by the real-life story of David Hampton, a con man and robber who managed to convince a number of people in the 1980s that he was the son of actor Sidney Poitier. The writer John Guare was a friend of Inger McCabe Elliott and her husband Osborn Elliott. In October 1983, Hampton came to the Elliott's New York apartment and they allowed him to spend the night. The next morning, Inger Elliott found Hampton in bed with another man and later called the police. The Elliotts told Guare about the story and it inspired him to write the play years later. For her lead performance as a fictionalized v