The real Peter Turner, on whose memoir this movie was based, has a cameo as Jack, the stage manager who brings out chairs before Peter and Gloria perform Romeo & Juliet.
Before Annette Bening depicted Gloria Grahame in this movie, she had used Grahame's performance in The Big Heat (1953) as an inspiration for her own depiction of a femme fatale in The Grifters (1990).
Annette Bening had the rare opportunity to meet with Terry Moore, an old friend of Gloria Grahame who played her stepmother in Man on a Tightrope (1953). Moore and Grahame had attended the Academy Awards on the night Moore was nominated for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) and Grahame won for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). Annette was able to learn that Grahame was quite a private person who'd never discuss her husband or family life in general. She was also so stubborn that Director Elia Kazan only managed to get her to weep for a scene in Man on a Tightrope (1953) by telling her that co-star Moore was a better actress.