Rebecca was extremely popular in Spain, where Joan Fontaine's costuming triggered a craze for women's jackets that came to be called "rebeccas."

Daphne Du Maurier wrote a stage version of Rebecca that premiered in London in 1940. It played Broadway in 1945 with Diana Barrymore as Mrs. de Winter. It only lasted 20 performances.

The Germans used an edition of Rebecca as the basis for a code during World War II; it was mentioned in Ken Follet's novel The Key to Rebecca.

Rebecca was first adapted for television in England in 1947. That version starred Dorothy Gordon and Michael Hordern.

Other television versions of Rebecca aired in the U.S. in l952, with Patricia Breslin and Scott Forbes; in England in 1962 with Joan Hackett as Mrs. de Winter, James Mason as Maxim and Nina Foch as Mrs. Danvers; and England in 1979 with Jeremy Brett as Maxim, Joanna David as his new wife and Anna Massey as Mrs. Danvers.

The most recent television version of Rebecca was a 1997 mini-series starring Charles Dance and Emilia Fox, with Diana Rigg as Mrs. Danvers, Faye Dunaway as Mrs. Van Hopper and Jonathan Cake as Jack Favell. When it aired in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theatre, Rigg won an Emmy for her performance.

Rebecca has also been filmed in India, with Shashi Kapoor in 1973 and again in 2007 with Dino Morea; in Hong Kong in 1964 and as a 2008 Italian television film.

In discussing Rebecca years later with critic-turned-director Francois Truffaut, director Alfred Hitchcock dismissed it as "not a Hitchcock picture" because of its lack of humor and producer David O. Selznick's insistence that he stick closely to the original novel. "It has stood up quite well over the years," he said. "I don't know why" (from Hitchcock/Truffaut).

Hitchcock would also joke about Selznick's penchant for writing lengthy memos: "When I came to America to direct Rebecca, David Selznick sent me a memo...I've just finished reading it...I think I may turn it into a motion picture...I plan to call it The Longest Story Ever Told" (from Inside Oscar®: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards® by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona).

Rebecca provided a plot line for the daytime drama Dark Shadows with Kathryn Leigh Scott in the Joan Fontaine role, David Selby as the husband, Grayson Hall as the housekeeper and Lara Parker as the dead wife's ghost.

Stephen King has included references to Mrs. Danvers in his novel Bag of Bones, in which she serves as a boogeyman figure, and as a servant's name in the 1982 film Creepshow.

In a 1994 episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Crow T. Robot quotes the film's first line, "Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again," while watching the 1961 horror film Bloodlust!

A poster for Rebecca appears in the 2000 video game Tomb Raider: Chronicles.

Du Maurier's novel has inspired three other books, including an official sequel by Susan Hill titled Mrs. de Winter. The Other Rebecca by Maureen Freely updated the story to 1996, while Sally Beauman's 2001 Rebecca's Tale explored four other lives touched by the first Mrs. de Winter.

In 2006 a stage musical based on Rebecca debuted in Vienna. Plans to move it to Broadway fell through when it was deemed too expensive because of its set requirements.

by Frank Miller