NAMES IN THE NEWS : ‘Poets’ Model Hasn’t Seen Film

MEMPHIS — Samuel F. Pickering, the inspiration for the offbeat prep schoolteacher played by Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society,” still has not seen the popular movie.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t know who Robin Williams was,” said Pickering, 48, a professor of English literature at the University of Connecticut. “I finally saw him on TV the other day. He’s a nut.”

Pickering, a Nashville native interviewed by phone from his home in Storrs, Conn., said he does not mind the celebrity the film has brought.

“A woman walked up to me in the supermarket the other day and told me I was such an inspiration that she was giving up the insurance business to go back to being a schoolteacher,” he said.