What a wonderful experience sitting out under the stars in Priest River’s City Park the other night watching the Roxy Theater’s complimentary showing of “The Greatest Showman.” I’d missed it on the big screen and hadn’t pursued it further. It seemed the kind of movie to see in broad strokes. I was being given a second chance.

The story of P.T. Barnum, founder — in 1881 when he was 60 years old — of the traveling circus with his name, is not exactly what the movie version leads one to believe. By the time I returned home from “The Greatest Showman” it was nearing midnight, but I researched the man’s life to discern fact from fiction.

He did open Barnum’s American Museum, with its displays of oddities, in New York City. The mystery fire that burned it to the ground in 1865 could likely have been a Confederate arsonist, enraged by P.T.’s support of the Union in his exhibits and lectures.

Surprisingly, given his later views, Barnum got his start as a showman in 1835 at age 25 through a black woman, Joice Heth, to whom he paid her Kentucky slaveholder $1,000 to take her on “tour” for a year. P.T. claimed she was George Washington’s “mammy” — and was 161 years old. She was on public display as long as 12 hours a day, six days a week.

While on “tour,” Miss Heth was dying. She was blind and feeble, lasting only a few months. But even death did not free her from sensationalism. Barnum sold tickets to her autopsy, performed in front of 1,500 gawkers. The surgeon ascertained she was not any older than 80 years old. P.T.’s answer for this was to declare her death a hoax — to say he’d given the surgeon a different body.

Real life isn’t lived on a screen. P.T. Barnum, with his attraction to hoaxes, would be the first to see through that. The image is not always the person.

Did I like the movie? Yes. Did I like what I found out about the real Barnum? No. Is it disillusioning? Not really. It’s made me think, though. It may not always happen — but I’d very much like to be my best self on screen and off screen.