There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)/Trivia


 * Johnnie Ray, who plays the older son Steve, was a popular singing star of the early 1950's, and had recently had a chart-topping hit with his version of "Cry." According to screenwriters Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron, 20th Century Fox hired Ray for this film, hoping that the singer could duplicate the success of Frank Sinatra, and become a major movie star. Then they discovered that, unlike Sinatra, Ray couldn't dance or act! The studio's solution was to have the Ephrons rewrite the film so that Steve Donahue leaves the family act early on to become a priest, as a way to "get [Ray] off-screen as quickly as possible." Movie-goers did not respond well to Ray's acting debut, and this remains the best known for major film in which he ever appeared.
 * Dan Dailey, playing Donald O'Connor's father, was only 10 years older. Dailey was born in 1915, O'Connor in 1925.