I don't know this for a fact, but my guess is that the lead character, Carl Denham, is based on the late Robert Leroy Ripley, of Ripley's Believe it Or Not fame. Back in the 1930s, Ripley was exactly the type of showman who traveled the world making movies of the unusual and exotic. Not one to be frightened by differences in nature, Ripley took pleasure in the wide variety of life and that included people of all races.

At about the same time, another showman by the name of P.T. Barnum, of Barnum and Bailey's Circus, had gone on record as saying that, of all the people in the world, he loved his freaks the best. Legend has it that, after the show would close for the night, Barnum would hang out and play cards with his various sideshow freaks. These two men, who were larger than life for their time and known world wide, may have been influential in the creation of the fictional Carl Denham. KING KONG creators Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace (the latter of whom died before the completion of KING KONG) may have modeled Denham on the social bravery of men like Ripley or Barnum, who went into uncertain circumstances with a camera and the hope of friendship, than some "Great White Hunter" (the nomenclature of the period) standing behind a group of hired thugs and an elephant gun.