It's impossible to take a thorough look at the making of Auntie Mame without first considering its colorful literary and theatrical history. It all began with the 1955 novel Auntie Mame written by Patrick Dennis. The hilarious episodic adventures of the impressionable young orphaned boy who is sent to live with his rich eccentric aunt in 1928 was an instant sensation when it hit the bookshelves. It remained on the New York Times bestseller list for two years.

The book's author Patrick Dennis, whose real name was Edward Everett Tanner, was quick to point out that even though Mame Dennis' nephew Patrick shared his own name, the characters and story were pure figments of his imagination. "I write in the first person, but it is all fictional," he told Life magazine. "The public assumes that what seems fictional is fact; so the way for me to be inventive is to seem factual but be fictional."

Theatrical producers Robert Fryer and Lawrence Carr decided very early on that they wanted to turn Dennis' novel into a Broadway play for Rosalind Russell. Fryer had already overseen the great success of the 1953 Broadway musical Wonderful Town, which had also starred Russell and won five Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Actress in a Musical for Russell. Fryer knew how to play to Russell's many strengths as a comedic actress and immediately recognized that she would be perfect for the part of the glamorous unconventional aunt whose joie de vivre could charm her way through any given situation.

Rosalind Russell, who had been at the height of her movie stardom throughout the 1930s and 40s with three Academy Award nominations as Best Actress under her belt, was thrilled to take on a new stage role following her success in Wonderful Town. She instinctively recognized that the part of Auntie Mame would fit her like a glove.

One of the prime backers of the play was the movie studio Warner Bros. At the time, the studio was struggling and desperate for a hit, so part of its deal as investors in the show was to secure the exclusive rights to a movie version.

In a smart move, Rosalind Russell also used her own money to become another of the show's main backers. "In Wonderful Town, I took a lot of money, all salary, and most of it went to Uncle Sam," said Russell in her 1977 memoir Life Is a Banquet. "This time I was willing to settle for less salary, but I wanted a piece of the action."

The writing team of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, who had also penned the hit 1955 stage drama Inherit the Wind, adapted Auntie Mame into a play. Morton DaCosta, who would go on to helm the film version, was hired to direct.

In her memoir, Rosalind Russell takes credit for handpicking DaCosta to direct Auntie Mame after seeing the Broadway production of the hit show No Time for Sergeants, which he had directed. She was impressed, she said, with his ability to take a popular novel, which No Time for Sergeants had been, and turn it into a popular and profitable stage comedy. It was something she hoped could also be done with Auntie Mame.

Russell's version of those events, however, was disputed later by DaCosta himself. "That story in her book is a lot of nonsense," he said according to Richard Tyler Jordan's 1998 book But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame!. "I had known [Robert Fryer] for a long time and he sent me a copy of Auntie Mame while I was in London, and from enjoying the book I agreed to direct the play."

Even though Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee were the official writers of the play, Rosalind Russell also made claims in her memoir that she had all but co-written the play herself with Morton DaCosta. "I don't mean to take anything away from Jerry Lawrence and Robert Lee," she wrote. "They gave us a structure, did the basic play-making, wrote the hunt, which was hilarious. But every single day [Morton] DaCosta and I sat at the bar off my living room and turned out material, which [Morton] would then take down to submit to Lawrence and Lee at the beach where they were working. I made a pact with [Morton] that he was never to mention my name to Lawrence and Lee. 'No writer can take advice from an actress,' I said, 'but they'll take anything from a director.'"

This version of events was also later disputed by DaCosta. He conceded that Russell had indeed brought some of her unique flair to the part and provided touches of her own inspiration, but DaCosta was clear that Lawrence and Lee were the undisputed writers who adapted Patrick Dennis' novel into a play.

Nevertheless, DaCosta and the writers knew that Russell was a smart lady and a first-rate actress, and they allowed her to shape the role of Auntie Mame using plenty of her own style. One of the inspirations that Russell used to help form the character of Mame was her husband Freddie's Aunt Tilde. She described Tilde as "eccentric, not like Mame, but a bit of a dingaling all the same."

Russell also drew ideas from the various newspaper and magazine clippings that Tilde was always sending her. "She'd mailed me a picture of a goblet with a flame coming out of the top-I thought it was a drink," explained Russell, "though come to find out, after a second or third look, I realized it was an ad for a gas company-and I used that picture as a model for the flaming drinks in the play."

In another instance, Tilde inspired one of Mame's stylish costumes. "Aunt Tilde also sent me a picture of a woman looking over her shoulder, with a dress cut down to her coccyx and a rose on her behind," said Russell in her memoir. "'This would be wonderful on you,' Aunt Tilde had scrawled across the picture. I used a dress like that when Mame was in mourning. There she was, crying, draped in a black veil, and then she turned around to the audience, and she had a totally bare back and a rose on her behind."

Auntie Mame opened on Broadway in 1956 and was an instant sensation. Its success made Rosalind Russell the toast of Broadway and helped breathe new life into her career.

When the time came for Warner Bros. to make the film version in 1958, it was a no-brainer that the studio would use Russell as its star. "I'd have stayed on Broadway with Mame forever," said Russell, "but I had to leave after a year and a half to make the movie. That was part of the deal with Warner."

Russell was reportedly proprietary about the character of Mame and didn't like the idea of anyone playing her on the stage once she herself was no longer in it. She wanted the Broadway show closed when she left it to make the film. The show, however, was a cash cow, and the producers refused to shut it down. To fill Russell's rather large shoes in the play, they hired actress Greer Garson to take over the role on Broadway, much to Russell's dismay, although she was gracious in her public remarks about passing the torch to Garson.

It seemed a natural for the playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee to land the job of penning the film's screenplay, but that didn't come to pass. "It was partly because Roz was furious with us for letting anyone else play the part," Lawrence later explained. Instead it was the veteran writing duo of Betty Comden and Adolph Green that got the plum assignment. The talented married team had previously penned the lyrics for Russell's Broadway hit musical Wonderful Town.

In the end, the play was so perfect that Comden and Green couldn't find much to improve upon and changed very little. They added a few new scenes of Mame trying out various jobs during The Great Depression and invented the comical rising and falling furniture in the last sequence of the story that sees Mame having a wild dinner party with the snobbish Upsons.

Morton DaCosta, with whom Rosalind Russell got along "famously," would once again direct her in the film version, and talented Art Director Malcolm Bert was hired to create the fun sets which centered around Mame's ever-changing taste for eye-popping decor.

Russell and the producers chose three cast members from the play to reprise their memorable roles in the film. There was Yuki Shimoda as Mame's loyal servant Ito and Peggy Cass, whom Russell had hand-picked for the Tony Award-winning role of Agnes Gooch. Last but not least was Jan Handzlik, who had won the role of Mame's young nephew Patrick after his mother answered a newspaper ad casting call. In her memoir Russell expressed some doubt over Handzlik's casting in the film. "I wanted Jan Handzlik in the film because he was a darling, and I loved him and we'd done the play together," she explained, "but he was too old by the time we made the movie. They dyed his hair, and rather than seeming innocent, he seemed precocious, as though he knew just what he was doing. There's a vast difference between a nine-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old."

It was no secret that there was some resentment from some of the other cast members in the Broadway play who were not asked to join the film. With Greer Garson having the unenviable task of taking over for Russell, she reportedly wanted the comfort of being surrounded by at least some of the veteran cast members on the stage to help ease the transition.

I Love Lucy's Vivian Vance was among the many actresses who tested for the featured supporting role of Mame's boozy best friend Vera Charles. At the last minute, however, director Morton DaCosta chose Coral Browne, a British actress, who had impressed him in an earlier production of Macbeth at the Winter Garden Theater. Browne was flown in from London to make the film.

With all the pieces finally in place to bring Auntie Mame to the big screen, expectations were very high with the hopes that Warner Bros. could score a film triumph equal to that of the Broadway play. It was a tall order, but everyone was up to the challenge.

by Andrea Passafiume