This film neglects to mention any of Jean Harlow's actual movies by name, or even that she was under contract to MGM (she works at the fictitious "Majestic Studios" in this account of her life). None of her real-life co-stars is named or depicted, nor are her unsuccessful first and third marriages mentioned. She is said in the film to have died from pneumonia, but, in actuality, it was uremic poisoning which killed her. The only characters given their real names are Harlow, her second husband Paul Bern, her agent (as well as the source of this movie), Arthur M. Landau, and her mother and stepfather. The fictitious studio boss "Everett Redman" is a fairly blatant caricature of Louis B. Mayer, who was also the obvious basis for the similar character the same actor, Martin Balsam, played the previous year in "The Carpetbaggers". This movie's claim that Paul Bern committed suicide because he was impotent has been widely questioned - some, such as his close friend, director Henry Hathaway, have suggested he was murdered by gangsters, and that the studio covered this up to avoid bad publicity. Another (highly feasible) explanation is that Bern was murdered by his former mistress Dorothy Millette, a woman with a history of mental illness who is known to have left Connecticut for Los Angeles two days before Bern's death, and who committed suicide two days after it.
This movie appeared after Carroll Baker had played "Rina Marlowe" - a Harlow-type sex siren, in The Carpetbaggers (1964), which was also produced by Joseph E. Levine. Critics laughingly suggested that, in a few years' time, Levine might produce a biopic called "Baker". It was only another year before he produced The Oscar (1966), in which Jean Hale, made up to look like Carroll Baker, played a Hollywood actress named "Cheryl Barker".
Dame Angela Lansbury, who played the mother, and Carroll Baker, who played the daughter, have only a six-year age gap.
In the late 1950s and early 60s, 20th Century Fox proposed a film on Harlow. The role was promised first to Jayne Mansfield and years later to Stella Stevens. It turned out it was never seriously considered, but just bait to keep blonde starlets in line doing roles they didn't want. Later, Stella Stevens was under contract to Paramount, where this film was made, but left Paramount under mutual agreement after not getting a role in The Carpetbaggers. Had she stayed, she would have been under serious consideration for this role. She has stated she doesn't regret losing the role.