Mildred Dunnock - who here cameos as herself - had met Patricia Neal in 1946 when Neal made her Broadway debut starring in the Lillian Hellman play ''Another Part of the Forest'', with Dunnock playing her mother. Dunnock was a co-star in 7 Women (1965), the movie Neal was filming at the time of her crippling brain aneurysms.
Dirk Bogarde was only 5'8", yet portrayed Roald Dahl who was 6'6".