The year The Fortune Cookie appeared, 1966, Stokely Carmichael issued his public appeal for African-Americans to embrace "black power." In regards to the turbulent Post-Civil Rights climate, some reviewers considered the benign, almost saintly Boom Boom Jackson a throwback to earlier African-American stereotypes.

The Cleveland Browns, Jackson's team, were number one in the NFL in 1964 and 1965, when the film was written and filmed. The year The Fortune Cookie was released, the team fell to second place.

After making his film debut as Boom Boom Jackson, Ron Rich made only two other films and appeared off-Broadway in Big Time Buck White, which he also co-produced. He eventually left acting and served as producer for the 1987 Sherman Hemsley comedy Ghost Fever.

Judi West (Sandy Hinkle) married actor John Rubinstein and is the mother of actor Michael Weston.

With inflation and the proliferation of personal injury lawsuits, the money discussed by Walter Matthau's character now seems small. When he refers to the $200,000 settlement he accepts as "the biggest cash award ever made in a personal injury case in the state of Ohio" today, it gets a big laugh.

Under current Ohio law, awards in personal injury cases are capped at $350,000.

The Fortune Cookie was composer Andre Previn's last Hollywood film. At the time his career as a symphonic conductor was taking off and film work became too time consuming and a scheduling problem.

Previn and his wife at the time, Dory, wrote a title song that was not used in The Fortune Cookie. It was finally recorded, by David Pascucci, for his 2005 CD Inside Andre Previn.

by Frank Miller