Walter Jackson Mitty is a fictional character in James Thurber's first short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", first published in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and in book form in My World—and Welcome to It in 1942. Thurber loosely based the character, a daydreamer, on his friend Walter Mithoff. It was made into a film in 1947 starring Danny Kaye, with a remake directed by, and starring Ben Stiller released in 2013.