FILM · 1982 · USA
The World According to Garp
21 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (21)
- #001
The World According to Garp was Glenn Close's first feature film.
- #002
Glenn Close plays Robin Williams's mother in The World According to Garp, though she is only four years older than him. Similarly, Close and actress Mary Beth Hurt play women of successive generations, yet in real life there is only one year between them.
- #003
John Irving recalls how funny and irreverent Robin Williams was while he was being groomed for the role of the young Garp in Irving's novel My Movie Business.
- #004
Christopher Reeve turned down the lead role in The World According to Garp. It went to his close friend Robin Williams.
- #005
The house struck by the plane in The World According to Garp had been built at one end of the only runway at Lincoln Park Airport, a very small airfield in Lincoln Park, New Jersey. The destroyed house was left standing for several weeks. No plane had ever hit any of the neighboring houses, though a few years earlier one had bounced off the roof of a passing car.
- #006
The World According to Garp was one of three films that together produced four Oscar-nominated drag performances at the 1983 Academy Awards, an all-time record for any single year. The films and performers were Dustin Hoffman for Tootsie (1982); Julie Andrews and Robert Preston for Victor/Victoria (1982); and John Lithgow for The World According to Garp (1982). Although John Lithgow's character is the only genuine trans character, the other two were simply using drag for career purposes.
- #007
Glenn Close took the role of Jenny after director George Roy Hill and casting director Marion Dougherty saw her in the Broadway production of Barnum (1980) alongside Jim Dale. Close earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the film, landing the nomination for her first performance in a feature film.
- #008
Jeff Daniels was considered for the lead role in The World According to Garp but lost it to Robin Williams.
- #009
According to Variety, Pat Benatar was offered the role of Jenny Fields but turned it down to continue her music career.
- #010
The film differed considerably from the novel. For instance, Garp and Jenny moved to Europe rather than Manhattan. Garp and Helen also cheat on each other more than once. The character Ellen James had a much larger role, eventually forming a deep friendship with Garp. In the novel Garp dies after being shot by Pooh, while the film leaves the event open to interpretation.
- #011
The cast of The World According to Garp includes four Oscar winners: Robin Williams, Jessica Tandy, John Irving and George Roy Hill; and three Oscar nominees: John Lithgow, Glenn Close and Hume Cronyn.
- #012
Amanda Plummer, who plays the adult Ellen James, later appeared with Robin Williams in The Fisher King. She also played Miss Low in the next adaptation of a John Irving novel, The Hotel New Hampshire.
- #013
The following year, Glenn Close worked with William Hurt, Mary Beth Hurt's husband at the time, on The Big Chill (1983).
- #014
Glenn Close and John Lithgow later appeared together on Broadway in A Delicate Balance in 2014.
- #015
Glenn Close and Swoosie Kurtz were reunited six years later in Dangerous Liaisons (1988).
- #016
The helicopter that carries Garp away at the end of the film (N49505) crashed on 26 April 1985 at 14:23. The Aérospatiale SA 360C Dauphin went down shortly after taking off from the 34th Street Heliport in Manhattan, New York. There were eight people on board and the crash resulted in one death.
- #017
Robert Wuhl auditioned for the role of Garp.
- #018
George Roy Hill's next feature film, The Funny Farm, shares three situations with The World According to Garp. First, a writer anxiously watches his wife or girlfriend read his work; second, the writer is confronted by a lesser writer in the presence of a female relative who has decided to become a writer herself; and third, a man drives recklessly through a suburban neighborhood and the writer protagonist tries to stop him.
- #019
The two stars of the later film Mesmerized (1985), Jodie Foster and John Lithgow, had both appeared in adaptations of John Irving novels, namely The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) and The World According to Garp (1982) respectively. For the latter, Lithgow was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar but lost to Louis Gossett Jr. for An Officer and a Gentleman (1982).
- #020
Robin Williams and John Lithgow played cousins and former Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt in Night at the Museum (2006) and The Second World War: When Lions Roared (1994) respectively. A year later, Glenn Close appeared in The Big Chill (1983) with Tom Berenger, who played Theodore Roosevelt in Rough Riders (1997).
- #021
Despite receiving the highest fee, Robin Williams does not appear until the 24th minute of the film.
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