You're Right! Henri Charrière was born in 1906 in France. He was known as Papillon (French for "butterfly") for the butterfly tattoo on his chest. He was a petty thief and safecracker. He was arrested in 1931 for the murder of a pimp, a charge he denied until his death. He was sentenced to life in France's worst prison, the penal colony on an island in French Guiana. Three years later he attempted to escape by boat. He made it to the mainland and lived for a time with Venezuela's natives before recapture. Papillon attempted escape eight more times before succeeding in 1944. He settled in Venezuela and opened a successful restaurant. He wrote the account of his life in 1968, and it was translated into this film in 1973. Charrière died that same year. In 1973, Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman were two actors at the top of their games. McQueen had already starred in every film that would define his career -- The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Bullitt, The Getaway, and The Thomas Crown Affair. The only film of note he would make after Papillon before his untimely death in 1980 was The Towering Inferno. Dustin Hoffman had also made several of his most critically acclaimed movies, such as Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate, and Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. Unlike McQueen, he continued to grow as an actor and would have many continued successes such as Kramer Vs. Kramer and Tootsie.