car, with all her toes shown to be intact. In a later scene, it is revealed that the severed toe came from the girlfriend of one of the nihilists. Returning home, The Dude finds Maude, who has sex with him. She explains that she is trying to become pregnant with a father whom she will not have to interact with socially. She reveals that her father has no money of his own; his wealth came from her late mother. The Dude and Walter confront Lebowski, and find that Bunny has returned, having simply gone out of town without telling anyone. He explains that Bunny's nihilist friends had taken the opportunity to try and blackmail Lebowski, who, in turn, had tried to embezzle money from the family charity, blaming its disappearance on the blackmailers. The briefcase given to the Dude never contained any money. An enraged Walter insists that Lebowski is faking his paralysis and lifts him out of his wheelchair, but discovers that the paralysis is real. In a final confrontation outside of the bowling alley, the nihilists set fire to the Dude's car, and demand the ransom money. Walter fights them off, but during the altercation, Donny dies from a heart attack. Walter scatters Donny's ashes from a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, but they are blown back over himself and the Dude by an updraft. The two go bowling. At the alley, the Dude encounters the Stranger, the film's narrator, who sums up everything that happened in the movie, noting that while he "didn't like seeing Donny go," he remains optimistic and reveals that Maude is pregnant with a "little Lebowski on the way." Cast Production Development The Dude is mostly inspired by Jeff Dowd, an American film producer and political activist the Coen brothers met while they were trying to find distribution for their first feature, Blood Simple. Dowd had been a member of the Seattle Seven, liked to drink White Russians, and was known as "The Dude". The Dude was also partly based on a friend of the Coen brothers, Peter Exline (now a member of the faculty at USC's School of Cinematic Arts), a Vietnam War veteran who reportedly lived in a dump of an apartment and was proud of a little rug that "tied the room together". Exline knew Barry Sonnenfeld from New York University and Sonnenfeld introduced Exline to the Coen brothers while