Dame Joan Collins (Lorraine Sheldon) wrote in her autobiography "Past Imperfect" that Orson Welles (Sheridan Whiteside) read "every single line" of his part from cue cards.
In his autobiography, Don Knotts (Dr. Bradley) said that most of the performers got sick due to Orson Welles' (Sheridan Whiteside) insistence that the air be turned down to keep him cool. Marty Feldman (Banjo) had to be carried from the hotel to the stage because he was so weak from the flu.
Mary Wickes not only played "Nurse Preen" here, but created the role three decades earlier in the original Broadway cast and made her screen debut in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941), both with Monty Woolley.
In an interview, Writer and Producer Bill Persky said that Orson Welles alienated virtually everyone in the cast and crew with his behavior, and battled constantly with Director Buzz Kulik. The fights with Kulik got so bad that Welles finally stormed off the set and wouldn't come back until Kulik apologized. Kulik finally apologized, but did it over the P.A. system, refusing to talk to Welles face-to-face.
The original Broadway production of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman opened at the Music Box Theater on October 16, 1939 and ran for seven hundred thirty-nine performances.
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Top Gap
By what name was The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) officially released in Canada in English?
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