The George Bradshaw short story on which The Bad and the Beautiful was based -- "Memorial to a Bad Man" (Ladies Home Journal, February 1951) -- was actually about the theatre, with the producer modeled on Broadway legend Jed Harris. The film's producer, John Houseman, initially rejected the idea because he was tired of theatre stories (All About Eve (1950) was still fresh in people's minds and seemed the definitive backstage drama). Then he realized the story would seem more accessible and contemporary if he changed the setting to Hollywood. With the industry in decline, he thought the time was ripe for a story about a producer from the golden days facing a new era. He also found a parallel between the story's multiple flashbacks and the most famous film on which he had worked, Citizen Kane (1941).

Bradshaw's story already had the film's structure, in which past associates of an unscrupulous producer think back on the ways he brought them to greatness while betraying them.

When he pitched the idea to MGM production head Dore Schary, Houseman suggested having the screenplay done by Charles Schnee, who had worked with them on They Live by Night (1948) and had been involved with Houseman and Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in New York.

MGM paid $11,500 for the rights to "Memorial to a Bad Man" and a similar Bradshaw story, "Of Good and Evil" (Cosmopolitan, February 1948).

During story conferences, Schnee and Houseman decided to cut the flashbacks to three and spread out the story to mirror changes in the film industry over the past decades. They also departed from the story, which had the flashbacks take place during a reading of the producer's will, in which he asks past associates to collaborate on one last production in his memory. Instead, they had an actress, director and writer reunited by a request that they return to work for the producer who had made their careers.

As the story developed, Houseman was very aware of parallels between the plot and some real Hollywood lives. In particular, the producer fighting to build a career in the shadow of his father was similar to independent producer David O. Selznick. The alcoholic leading lady living in the shadow of her late father, himself an acting legend, was clearly inspired by Diana Barrymore and her relationship to her father John. And the writer married to a fiery Southern belle could easily be linked to F. Scott Fitzgerald and his tempestuous wife, Zelda.

After hits with the comedy Father of the Bride (1950) and the musical An American in Paris (1951), Vincente Minnelli was Houseman's first choice to direct.

The Bad and the Beautiful was originally planned as a small picture with a budget of just over $1 million. When the script and production team proved a draw to bigger names, however, the budget quickly rose and it became a top-of-the-line production.

Although MGM executives suggested contract star Robert Taylor to play producer Jonathan Shields, Houseman had already sent a script to Kirk Douglas, the only actor he thought could capture the character's temperament and charm. According to Douglas, Clark Gable had turned down the role of Shields.

Minnelli and Houseman first offered the role of the film director whose career is launched by Jonathan Shields to Dick Powell. After reading the script, however, Powell asked to play writer James Lee Bartlow, claiming he identified with that role more. The writer's role had already been assigned to studio contract player Barry Sullivan, so he was moved into the director's role.

Minnelli had previously lost out on two chances to work with Lana Turner. He had wanted to cast her in his film version of Madame Bovary (1949), but acceded to executive demands that he use an established dramatic actress like Jennifer Jones. He also was briefly assigned to direct her in A Life of Her Own (1950) before the project went to George Cukor.

Houseman and Minnelli were considering a character actor from the studio's supporting ranks for the role of producer Harry Pebbel when Walter Pidgeon put in a bid for the role. When told he seemed too suave and debonair to play the seedy producer, he showed up in Minnelli's office wearing a crew-cut wig and a poorly fitted suit and won the role.

Dore Schary saw a lot of himself in the characterization of the writer, which led him to suggest Gloria Grahame to play the character's wife, since the actress resembled Schary's wife, Miriam Svet.

Minnelli suggested having Lana Turner play scenes from MGM's 1935 version of Anna Karenina and modeling the directors, eventually played by Leo G. Carroll and Ivan Triesault, on Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang, respectively.

The film's original title was Tribute to a Bad Man.

by Frank Miller