FILM · 1959
Pillow Talk
53 archived facts 8 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (53)
- #001
Ross Hunter wrote that after making this film, no theater manager wanted to book it. The popular film themes of the time were war films, westerns and spectacles. The major theater chains told Hunter that sophisticated comedies like this one had come out with William Powell. They also believed that Doris Day and Rock Hudson were a thing of the past and that new stars had surpassed them. Hunter persuaded Sol Schwartz, owner of the Palace Theatre in New York, to book the film for a two-week run, and it became a huge success. The public had been starved for romantic comedy, and the theater owners who had previously turned Hunter down now had to deal with him on his terms.
- #002
After Jonathan (Tony Randall) slaps Jan (Doris Day) in the restaurant, a truck driver (John Indrisano) punches him in the jaw. In an interview, Randall said that he and Indrisano had rehearsed the punch many times and that Indrisano assured him he would not be hit. During the shoot, Indrisano misjudged it and Randall was actually struck and lost consciousness.
- #003
This film was the first of three romantic comedies starring the trio of Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Tony Randall. It was followed by Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964), in each of which the three actors played different roles.
- #004
Although Rock Hudson was under contract to Universal to make the film, he turned it down three times, fearing it was "too risqué" and would damage his masculine image. Doris Day eventually persuaded him to take the role, and the film later became one of his biggest hits.
- #005
The first scene shot was the one late in the film in which Rock Hudson lifts Doris Day out of bed and carries her in her pajamas through the New York streets to his apartment. After many takes Hudson's arms were aching, so they created a kind of harness that held Day in a crate-like device and hung from Hudson's shoulders to distribute her weight evenly. According to Hudson, "If it had been just one shot I could have made it, but we kept going on and on, because first of all there was an actor playing a policeman on the street, and as we passed him Doris had the line 'Officer, arrest this man,' and the policeman was supposed to say to me 'How are you, Brad?' But the stupid actor kept calling me Rock (01:39:36). So we went back to our marks, went to another take, and another, and another. I bet we shot that scene 20 times. Hence the shelf for Doris to sit on." Hudson also related that when he pulled Doris Day out of bed, he forgot to let go of her ankles, "…as a result of which my leading lady fell to the floor."
- #006
Among the film's distinguishing elements is its innovative use of the widescreen format, particularly the sly sexual innuendo created by split-screen optics, the most famous of which suggests that Doris Day and Rock Hudson are sharing the same bathtub and that toes sliding down the wall are tickling her foot.
- #007
Marilyn Monroe wanted to play Jan Morrow.
- #008
This is the film that earned Doris Day her only Oscar nomination.
- #009
Michael Gordon hoped to make a sequel to this film in 1980. The film would have been set 20 years after the events of this one and would have centered on Brad and Jan's first daughter, played by Kristy McNichol, and her boyfriend Gregory Harrison. Brad and Jan would have been divorced, allowing Jonathan to court Jan again. As Jan made plans to win Brad back, he would have engaged in some schemes of his own. Doris Day and Rock Hudson wanted to return for the sequel, but it never happened, partly because Day had retired from acting.
- #010
Doris Day wears a platinum blonde wig for this film. It was widely imitated over the following few years, and the color accounted for the highest percentage of wig sales to suburban women.
- #011
Rock Hudson insisted he would not be in the film unless Nick Adams was given a role.
- #012
On July 20, 1969, while everyone was waiting for Apollo's Moon landing, Spanish television broadcast this film. Suddenly the film stopped and Spaniards were able to watch the landing live. The film was not shown again on Spanish television until 1999, when Spanish viewers were finally able to see the ending.
- #013
This was Rock Hudson's first comedy film after his 1950s dramas, including All That Heaven Allows (1955) and A Farewell to Arms (1957). It was Ross Hunter who saw Hudson's potential for comedy. The advice he received from director Michael Gordon was: "Comedy is the most serious tragedy in the world. If you play it that way, you can't go wrong. If you see yourself as a funny person, you don't stand a chance."
- #014
This was director Michael Gordon's return to filmmaking after he had been blacklisted for several years.
- #015
The Production Code Administration (PCA) initially objected to the film's title, but producer Ross Hunter refused to change it.
- #016
One of the reasons this film seemed so risky at the time was that censorship standards prohibited men and women from lying in the same bed, and the accompanying image appeared to show this. The standards applied even to married characters; the only exception was that if a married couple were in the same bed, one of them had to be sitting up with one foot on the floor. This can be seen in many TV shows of the period; it is the explanation for the many fictional married couples with twin beds in their bedrooms.
- #017
It was among the American Film Institute's 2000 list of 500 films nominated for the 100 Funniest American Films.
- #018
The odd-looking bass guitar in the "Roly Poly" scene is a Danelectro Longhorn model. They were made of masonite and poplar, were exotic, cheap and unloved; many of them were sold as Sears' store brand Silvertone. Despite their lack of popularity, original 1950s models can occasionally be found on auction sites selling for over $4,000 depending on condition.
- #019
Among the many ways producer Ross Hunter got Doris Day and Rock Hudson to promote this film was arranging for them to present the Best Cinematography Oscar together at the 1959 Academy Awards.
- #020
Tony Randall's character, jealous of Doris Day's budding relationship with Rock Hudson, implies that Hudson's character is gay — even though the character was in fact the actor himself. The irony is that many people thought Randall was gay because of his manner of speaking, but he was not.
- #021
Tiffany Blue appears abundantly in the background furniture and accessories. A good example is the window behind Doris Day and Tony Randall as they discuss the car they want to give her; the screen has that color. It was extremely popular at the time.
- #022
Doris Day's kitchen has all the most modern appliances, including a refrigerator with a top freezer and the latest shiny chrome electric toaster.
- #023
Julia Meade (Marie) did a live commercial every Sunday night in New York on Ed Sullivan's program The Ed Sullivan Show (1948). So she flew to New York every Saturday.
- #024
It was included on the American Film Institute's 1998 list of 400 films nominated for the 100 Best American Films.
- #025
The bathtub conversation scene gets an updated, interesting twist in the Hollywood A.D. (2000) episode of The X-Files (1993).
- #026
Down with Love (2003) is a tribute to the sex comedies popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly the three collaborations of Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Tony Randall (this film, Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964)). Randall had a cameo in the film.
- #027
The party line was the norm for Americans in the years before World War II, especially in rural areas. At the time it was not unusual for a line to have as many as half a dozen 'parties.' But as the postwar construction boom began and more Americans moved into urban housing, telephone companies had to lay more cable so they could serve more customers with private lines.
- #028
Doris Day and Thelma Ritter would appear together again in Move Over, Darling (1963).
- #029
Though tame by today's standards, Universal Pictures considered the bathtub scene too sexually explicit and nearly cut it from the film.
- #030
Michael Gordon said he had "problems" with producer Martin Melcher, Doris Day's husband and manager, "because he couldn't understand why I said Doris wouldn't have a song to sing. She sang in the film, but unofficially. So I said: 'She's an interior decorator in this film, not a singer.' Doris herself was willing to go along with that."
- #031
When Tony Randall calls Doris Day from Rock Hudson's apartment, he keeps getting a busy signal. This is not because *the woman* is on the phone, but because he himself is on the phone and therefore the party line is busy. (The same thing happens today when someone calls the number of the phone they are calling from.) He had earlier been given a private number to call Brad because he could not use his regular number for this reason.
- #032
The Mercedes Tony Randall drives is a 300 SL.
- #033
Doris Day's character Jan Morrow was clearly ahead of her time; the makeup she does in Brad's apartment, though absolutely hideous by 1959 standards, would become a highly sought-after decorating style less than a decade later, when hippies arrived on the scene, thanks to its bright colors and bohemian themes.
- #034
The car Nick Adams drives is a 1955 MG TF 1500 roadster.
- #035
It was included on the American Film Institute's 2002 list of the 100 Greatest American Love Stories.
- #036
After its release, Pillow Talk (1959) earned a surprising $18,750,000 in domestic box office and gave Rock Hudson a career comeback after the failure of A Farewell to Arms (1957) two years earlier.
- #037
It is Uma Thurman's favorite film.
- #038
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster that Jonathan gives Jan in 1959 originally cost $10,950. In 1959 the average worker's salary was around $2,600 per person; men earned an average of $5,200 for a full year of full-time work, while women earned an average of $3,200. About 65 years later, the car is worth a fortune, starting at around $400,000 for a driver and exceeding $1 million for one in perfect condition.
- #039
The mention of Allen Jenkins as the bus driver in The Mutiny on the Bus in Rainbow Bridge (1974) is a nod to his role as an elevator operator in Pillow Talk.
- #040
Rock Hudson had played a real Texas farmer alongside Elizabeth Taylor in Giant (1956), and that character had an unusual name at the time: Bick. The surname here is probably a nod to the title preferred by Western folk: Stetson.
- #041
"Rex" refers to Dave Garroway, who was the long-running host of Today (1952) from 1952 to 1961. The Today Show and Garroway became a regular part of the mornings of most Americans from coast to coast as they got ready for work each day. Interestingly, Garroway took on the role of a TV reporter in It Happened to Jane (1959), another Doris Day film from the same year that was released five months before Pillow Talk, which may have been a friendly nod to him.
- #042
Hope Emerson was hired by Ross Hunter to play an Indian princess named "Dessert Flower" in the film, but she does not appear in the final cut. Doris Day's friend and actress Miriam Nelson has a small role in the scene where Brad ducks into Dr. Maxwell's (the obstetrician's) office to avoid meeting Jan. Nelson was given the part of a patient walking in the waiting room so that she could have lunch with Day at the commissary.
- #043
The film's screenplay was rejected and bought back by RKO several times in the late 1940s and early 1950s, until Martin Melcher (then Doris Day's husband) and his company Arwin Productions purchased the script and took it to Universal.
- #044
In the world of old telephone technology, a two-subscriber party line operated with each party having its own central office equipment, but both were "tied" to a single subscriber cable pair. In an apartment building, the subscriber line would run to each subscriber's apartment. What allowed both parties to receive calls was the 105-volt ringing signal sent from the telephone exchange. A normal single-line ringing signal was sent over the "ring" or red wire. On a party line, a ringing signal was sent to one party over the "ring side" and to the other party over the "tip" or green wire. The party receiving the signal on the tip had a specially modified telephone that rang when the bell came over the tip or green wire.
- #045
One of the sites where "Rex" takes Jan to a automat is that in That Touch of Mink (1962), the character of Doris Day's roommate works at an automat.
- #046
Pillow Talk (1959) won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Doris Day), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Thelma Ritter), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (Richard H. Riedel, Russell A. Gausman, Ruby R. Levitt) and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.
- #047
Julia Meade's debut. She took on the role of "Maria."
- #048
Doris Day and Hayden Rorke also appeared in Midnight Lace and The Thrill of It All.
- #049
Although the film is known for the sexual innuendo in which Rock Hudson's character says 'I'll score this weekend,' this would not have meant its modern usage (i.e., sexual conquest), as that did not develop until the '70s.
- #050
In Pillow Talk (1959), Jan demands that Brad give her complete authority over the decoration of her apartment. In Lover Come Back (1961), Carol assures Linus that his agency has given her complete authority over expenses concerning her.
- #051
When Tony Walters (Nick Adams) comes home from Harvard, his mother immediately volunteers to take Jan (Doris Day) "into town," that is, Manhattan, and tells Jan she should cancel the taxi. The Walters family lives in Scarsdale, about 30 miles north of Manhattan. That would mean a rather hefty taxi fare for Jan. Fortunately, Tony agrees to take her.
- #052
In 1980, producer Ross Hunter offered Rock Hudson the script for "Pillow Talk 2" and intended to reunite him with Doris Day and Tony Randall. The project, which greatly disappointed Hudson, was cancelled because potential producers believed it would remind audiences too much of 1950s romantic comedies.
- #053
Pillow Talk (1959) is an American romantic comedy in CinemaScope directed by Michael Gordon and starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The supporting cast includes Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter, Nick Adams, Allen Jenkins, Marcel Dalio and Lee Patrick. The screenplay was written by Russell Rouse, Maurice Richlin, Stanley Shapiro and Clarence Greene. It tells the story of Jan Morrow (Day), an interior decorator, and Brad Allen (Hudson), a womanizing composer and bachelor who share the same telephone line. When she unsuccessfully complains to him because Brad constantly uses the line to win his conquests, Brad learns that she is quite beautiful and decides to deceive her by posing as a Texas farmer. The plan seems to work until their mutual friend Jonathan Forbes (Randall) finds out and exposes Brad.
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