About seven years later, actress Mariel Hemingway would also play a brutalized glamour model in the form of Dorothy Stratten in Bob Fosse's drama Star 80 (1983).
This was meant as a showcase for then supermodel Margaux Hemingway. However, the public and critics alike took more notice of the new young actress playing her younger sister, Margaux's real life younger sister, Mariel Hemingway. This led to some modeling and commercial gigs for Mariel and during the following decade she appeared in some high-profile feature films. Mariel's career in film and television continues more than forty years after this film was released.
Dino De Laurentiis got the idea of turning Margaux Hemingway into a star after seeing her face on the cover of Time magazine. At the time, Hemingway was one of the most in-demand models in the world, and the first to command a US $1 million fee.
The film attracted a great deal of controversy at the time of release on account of the graphic nature of the rape scene. Rapes had been depicted onscreen before, Hope Lange's violation in Death Wish (1974) being a notable example, but they had rarely been shown in such detail and at such length. Lamont Johnson intended with the rape scene to almost make the audience feel that they were being subjected to the ordeal themselves. Unfortunately, many groups, mainly feminist ones, felt that he was merely exploiting the situation and his lead actress.