Writer Damon Runyon, so closely associated with New York, was actually born in Manhattan, Kansas.

When Runyon died of cancer in 1946, his son fulfilled his father's wishes by scattering his ashes over Times Square from a chartered plane.

The names of popular Broadway landmarks and hangouts were transposed for use on the films stylized sets: Trand's Bar (for Strand), Don (Bond) Clothes, Sard (Sardi's). The familiar Pepsi-Cola logo lettering appeared on a Times Square billboard as Perc's Cars. Another billboard advertised a movie called "Best Years," an homage to one of Goldwyn╒s most-honored films, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

Legendary producer Sam Goldwyn (the "G" of MGM before he left that company) made more than 100 pictures in a career spanning more than 40 years, many of them acclaimed adaptations of hit plays and literary works. He produced only one more film after this, Porgy and Bess (1959), although he is sometimes acknowledged as an uncredited executive producer on the low-budget supernatural thriller The Visitor (1979), released five years after his death.

Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz began his career as a screenwriter and later became a producer at MGM before turning to directing in 1946. He received Oscars® for his direction of A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), the latter also winning him a Best Screenplay Award. Guys and Dolls was his only musical.

Composer Frank Loesser began his film career in 1936, contributing songs and scores to a number of movies, including the Goldwyn-produced Danny Kaye vehicle Hans Christian Andersen (1952). He won a Best Song Oscar⌐ for "Baby, It's Cold Outside" from the Esther Williams movie Neptune's Daughter (1949). He and his Guys and Dolls collaborator Abe Burrows won a Pulitzer Prize in 1962 for their play How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.

Michael Kidd did the choreography for both the film and the stage version (for which he won his second of five Tony Awards). He has choreographed a number of film musicals, including Hello, Dolly! (1969), The Band Wagon (1953) and, most memorably, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). He also appeared in five feature films, including It's Always Fair Weather (1955), with Gene Kelly, and as the temperamental beauty-pageant director in Smile (1975).

FAMOUS QUOTES from GUYS AND DOLLS

HARRY THE HORSE (Sheldon Leonard): "I just acquired 5000 fish."
NICELY NICELY JOHNSON (Stubby Kaye): "5000? If it can be told, where did you take on this fine bundle of lettuce?"

HARRY: "I have nothing to hide. I collected the reward on my father."
BENNY SOUTHSTREET (Johnny Silver): "It is an advantage to have a successful father. Nobody ever wanted my old man for as much as 500."

NATHAN DETROIT (Frank Sinatra): "I have been running the crap game since I was a juvenile delinquent."
ADELAIDE (Vivian Blaine): "Speaking of chronic conditions, happy anniversary."



SKY MASTERSON (Marlon Brando): "One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you're going to wind up with an ear full of cider."

SARAH BROWN (Jean Simmons): "It's so unusual for a successful sinner to be unhappy about sin."



NATHAN DETROIT: "Everybody in the whole world who hates me is now here."