A Star Is Born - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[michele]

In October 1954, after the film had opened and been reviewed, Harry Warner, head of the studio's business side in New York, decided that the picture was too long. He ordered another half-hour of cuts so that exhibitors could get in one more showing per day. By this time, George Cukor was in India filming Bhowani Junction (1956), so he was unable to influence the re-editing of the film. The cuts included an entire sequence in which Norman and Esther lose touch with each other while Norman is on location. A comic scene of her getting sick on the way to her first preview was also deleted, along with two complete numbers, "Here's What I'm Here For," the song Esther is recording when Norman proposes to her, and "Lose That Long Face," the number she does before and after she breaks down in her dressing room. The cuts represented most of the scenes that developed Norman and Esther's relationship. To make matters worse, the studio melted the negative from the cut scenes to retrieve the film's silver content. Word of the cuts hit the press and generated such a strong backlash against the film that attendance dropped precipitously. As a result, despite the film's promising opening, it ended up losing money.

[sylvia]

The film's completion was particularly joyous for Judy Garland, who had just learned that she was pregnant for the third time.

[francisco]

Matt Libby's "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, with a whimper" comes nearly verbatim from the last two lines of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men": "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper".

[duane]

The moment where Esther's widow's veil is ripped from her face by a fan at a funeral, was imitated in real life in 1958. During the graveside service for her husband Mike Todd (who had died in a plane crash), Elizabeth Taylor was traumatized when one of her fans thoughtlessly tore the widow's veil from Taylor's face.

[harry]

Norman Maine is whisked away on location to film an unnamed "sea epic." This same year, James Mason appeared in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954).

[alyssa]

The initial Columbia Records soundtrack LP (now reissued in the original mono sound on a British CD from Prism Leisure) reached the fourth slot on "Billboard"'s popular albums chart. Subsequently, two "improved" versions of the soundtrack have been released by the Sony label: a 1988 CD in mostly true stereo; and a 2004 deluxe package containing a second, unused Judy Garland rendition of "It's a New World"; the singing commercial on TV for Trinidad Coconut Oil Shampoo; the discarded chorus of "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street" (Judy with Jack Baker) from the "Born in a Trunk" sequence; the full orchestral introduction to "Gotta Have Me Go with You" (Judy with Don McKay and Jack Harmon); the complete orchestral introduction, not totally heard in the release print, to the Academy Award-nominated Garland trademark, "The Man That Got Away"; and musical director Ray Heindorf's Oscar-nominated background score, including portions not included in the finished picture.

[ethel]

A torch song supreme which was nominated for an Oscar, "The Man That Got Away" (music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Ira Gershwin) had been photographed in three diverse schemes on a nightclub floor using distinctly different camera setups, lighting, placement of the band members and furniture, costuming for Judy Garland and the musicians, hairstyles for Miss Garland, and bits of business before she sings. (In the initial footage, Tommy Noonan lightly shoves Judy off the piano bench. In the next design, Judy serves coffee to Tommy and the on-screen trumpeter.) Ultimately, the "dark" version was chosen - with the club appearing somewhat cavernous in mostly dark-brownish hues, plus Judy wearing a navy-blue dress. The various permutations of this famous film number can be compared on the DVD from Warner Home Video.

[cameron]

Judy Garland was nominated for an Oscar as best actress and James Mason was nominated for best actor. These two nominations are the first time in Academy Awards history for two people in the same film playing roles for which different people were earlier nominated for Oscars: Janet Gaynor and Fredric March in the 1937 version.

[veronica]

Esther's Grandma Lettie from the original A Star Is Born (1937) was written out of this version. Her lines were divided between Norman Maine in the early scenes and Danny McGuire in the later part of the movie.

[harry]

The church for the funeral scene is the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, California. Real-life celebrity funerals there have included Rudolph Valentino (1926), Carmen Miranda (1955), Gary Cooper (1961), William Frawley (1966), Pier Angeli (1971), Jack Haley (1979), Alfred Hitchcock (1980), Vincente Minnelli (1986), Rita Hayworth (1987), Danny Thomas (1991), Eva Gabor (1995), Mary Frann (1998), Frank Sinatra (1998), Don Adams (2005), Merv Griffin (2007) and Zsa Zsa Gabor (2016).

[francisco]

Shortly before the premiere, George Cukor cut the film down to 181 minutes. Among the footage removed was a segment from the "Born in the Trunk" number; Norman's return to the Shrine Auditorium to try to learn Esther's name; Norman and Esther planning the beach house; and a montage of scenes from Norman Maine's leading roles. The musical number is included in the most recent DVDs of the film but the other footage has never been recovered.

[steve]

Humphrey Bogart: (unconfirmed) Some sources credit Bogart, who turned down the role of Norman Maine, as the voice of the drunk café patron requesting "Melancholy Baby". Other listeners insist that it sounds nothing like him.

[cameron]

Judy Garland's musical mentor, Roger Edens, came over from MGM to supervise the arrangements of her numbers.

[darrell]

For the last two weeks of production, during which the "Born in a Trunk" number was completed, Jack L. Warner approved a night-time shooting schedule to better accommodate Judy Garland's "body clock." This added still more to the budget, as the unions required extra payments for evening work.