The celebrated final line of the film was an afterthought. The original scene had Esther arriving at the Chinese Theater and collapsing in the forecourt sobbing, "Oh, Norman! Norman!" The scene was reshot two ways: with the familiar "Mrs. Norman Maine" tagline and the oddly irrelevant "Hello, everybody, this is Vicki Lester."The movie's line "Hello, everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine." was voted as the #52 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
David O. Selznick originally rejected the story, as films about Hollywood had generally failed, but was persuaded to do the film by his wife Irene Mayer Selznick. Writer-director William A. Wellman had alternately suggested a sequel to The Public Enemy (1931), titled "Another Public Enemy".
The character of Norman Maine was based on several real actors, including John Barrymore, John Gilbert, and John Bowers, who drowned off Malibu during the film's production.
The funeral scene was inspired by the funeral of Irving Thalberg, where fans swarmed around his widow Norma Shearer outside the church. A similar scene occurred at Jean Harlow's funeral two months after the film's release.
Plans were announced in 1938 for a sequel entitled Heartbreak Town, about a child actor but it was never made.
The Oscar that Janet Gaynor receives in the film is her own Oscar, which she won for her role in 7th Heaven (1927).
When the drunken Norman Maine character raucously interrupts the Oscar presentation, it was déja vu for Janet Gaynor. She had brought her sister to the Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, when she won the first Best Actress Oscar ever awarded, for 7th Heaven (1927). Her sister became very drunk and completely out of control, thoroughly embarrassing Gaynor.
Some cinematic theorists believe that the marriage of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay was the film's real-life inspiration. John Bowers has also been identified as inspiration for the Norman Maine character and the dramatic suicide-by-drowning scene near the end of the film (Bowers drowned in November 1936). The film contains several inside jokes, including Gaynor's brief imitations of Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, and Mae West; the "Crawford Smear", referring to Joan Crawford's lipstick; and the revelation that the glamorous Norman Maine's real last name is Hinkle. (Hinkle was the real last name of silent film star Agnes Ayres, and not far removed from Fredric March's real last name, Bickel.) The film also has some similarities to the earlier film What Price Hollywood?, whose creators actually considered suing, but never did.
A common Hollywood myth about the film is that Lana Turner appeared as an extra in one of the scenes in the film. Turner often denied the myth over the years, mentioning that she was discovered several months after the picture had finished production.
Cast of A Star Is Born
Janet Gaynor as Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester
Fredric March as Norman Maine
Adolphe Menjou as Oliver Niles
May Robson as Grandmother Lettie
Andy Devine as Daniel 'Danny' McGuire
Lionel Stander as Matt Libby
Owen Moore as Casey Burke
Peggy Wood as Miss Phillips
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