Nixon's Cheeseburger Conversation

Did you read the post I wrote earlier this month about the "cheeseburger" conversation depicted in the motion picture Frost/Nixon? In the post, I wrote this:

The night before his final interview with former President Richard Nixon, journalist David Frost is in his hotel room. The phone rings and he answers it, expecting that his girlfriend is calling to ask him what kind of food Frost wants her to bring back. But the caller is Nixon — not his girlfriend.

Before the ex-president can utter a word, Frost makes this declaration: "I'll have a cheeseburger."

Nixon, who has been drinking, tells Frost that he too likes cheeseburgers, but that his physician has discouraged him from eating them for health reasons. His physician, says Nixon, "switched me to cottage cheese and pineapple instead. He calls them my Hawaiian Burgers."

Well, I just learned from an article I found at The Daily Mail of Britain that this conversation never happened. Nixon did eat a lot of cottage cheese so at least the details of the conversation are a loose reflection of his dietary habits.