'The Glorias': 5 things that seem unbelievable but actually happened to Gloria Steinem

At 86, Gloria Steinem has a long history of trailblazing journalism and activism. The feminist icon has written columns, edited magazines, spoken at rallies and launched social and political movements in support of women’s rights.

After being the subject of a documentary and TV movie, she's finally the subject of a biopic.

In “The Glorias” (now streaming on Amazon Prime), director Julie Taymor depicts the life of the Presidential Medal of Freedom winner via four actresses (Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander among them), plenty of time-hopping and a number of dreamlike sequences.

But much of Taymor’s film is based on Steinem’s true life experiences. Here are five things in “The Glorias” that may seem unbelievable, but actually happened to Steinem.

Her dad named the family dog Dammit

In "The Glorias," patriarch Leo Steinem (Timothy Hutton) calls the family dog "Dammit." That wasn't made up for the movie.

Growing up, Steinem's father was forbidden by her mother to swear in front of the children. So, as Steinem writes in her 2015 book "My Life on the Road," her dad found a loophole: He dubbed the dog Dammit.

"When he felt something stronger was needed," she recalls, "he made up his own long composite word that he said at top speed: GoshdarnCaloramorbusAntonioCanovaScipioAfricanustheYoungertheEldertheMiddleaged."

She kept a promise to her abortion doctor for nearly 60 years

“The Glorias” shows Steinem (Vikander) enlisting the help of a doctor in England to perform her abortion, an illegal procedure at the time. He tells her he has two rules before he goes forward: “First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.”

This scene is based on a real moment that Steinem wrote about in “My Life on the Road.” She says she was 22 when she had the abortion in 1957. She ultimately broke her doctor’s first rule in the book's dedication, finally sharing his names after keeping it secret for decades:

“Dear Dr. Sharpe, I believe you, who knew the law was unjust, would not mind if I say this so long after your death:

I’ve done the best I could with my life.

This book is for you.”

She went undercover as a Playboy Bunny

Vikander’s Steinem dons the bunny suit and listens to women complain that they get pay cuts if they don’t smile or do a bunny dip while they serve. She takes notes about her experience in the bathroom stall and tucks her notebook into her cleavage. She later publishes a story and gets threatening calls from Playboy about it.

As many people know, Steinem really did go undercover as a Playboy Bunny in 1963 to report on working conditions at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club. Her exposé revealed the sexist and underpaid life of the waitresses, gave her notoriety and set off her career in women’s rights activism.

The club “was not the glamorous place that Hugh Hefner tried to sell it as,” Steinem later noted in the documentary “Gloria: In Her Own Words.” “I regretted for many years having done (the story), because it made me unserious. But as feminism began to dawn on my brain, belatedly in life, I became glad I did it.”

The exposé “A Bunny’s Tale” has been adapted into a TV movie starring Kirstie Alley and an episode of Comedy Central’s “Drunk History.”

The movie’s best lines are based on real quotes

There’s a scene in which Vikander’s Steinem is onstage with lawyer and civil rights advocate Florynce Kennedy (Lorraine Toussaint). Steinem is nervous and a man yells from the crowd, asking if she and Kennedy are lesbians. Steinem is speechless, but Kennedy replies: “Are you my alternative?”

Later in the film, a reporter says, “A lot of people say your looks are why people listen to you.” Steinem doesn’t know how to respond, but a woman in the back chimes in: “Don’t worry, honey. It’s important for someone who could play the game and win to say the game isn’t worth (anything)."

Those quotes come straight from Steinem’s book. The second is spoken by an older woman she recalls rising from the audience to offer her comfort.

She got married, after vowing not to

In “The Glorias,” Moore’s Steinem ties the knot, in her 60s, in a small Cherokee wedding. She has a conversation with her younger self about the event.

“You used to say marriage turns women into half-people,” Vikander’s younger Steinem says. “But ‘partners,’ I like that.”

Steinem really did get married in 2000 to South African-born businessman and activist David Bale, Christian Bale’s father. She issued a statement about her wedding through her Voters for Choice political action committee

“Though I’ve worked many years to make marriage more equal, I never expected to take advantage of it myself,” she said. “I’m happy, surprised and one day will write about it, but for now, I hope this proves what feminists have always said – that feminism is about the ability to choose what’s right at each time of our lives.”

Four years after Bale died of cancer in 2003, Steinem answered a reporter’s question about why she changed her mind on marriage. “I didn’t change,” she told him, according to a New Yorker story. “Marriage changed. We spent 30 years in the United States changing the marriage laws. If I had married when I was supposed to get married, I would have lost my name, my legal residence, my credit rating, many of my civil rights. That’s not true anymore. It’s possible to make an equal marriage.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gloria Steinem: 'The Glorias' most unbelievable moments are real