Being There - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Being There or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Being There

[jeffrey]

Despite Peter Sellers' repeated requests, the producers would not remove the outtakes from the version they submitted to Cannes.

[ken]

Although it has been widely reported that director Hal Ashby refused to remove the montage of out-takes from the film over which were superimposed the film's end-credits, the version of the film widely shown in Great Britain (where it opened in the week of Peter Sellers's death) had the credits superimposed against a black screen with music in the background.

[mathew]

Henry B. Dawkins, who plays Billings the X-Ray Technician, really was an X-Ray technician. In the 1990s he became head of the Radiology Department at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in Asheville, North Carolina, one of this film's shooting locations.

[eli]

Final film of Richard Basehart.

[tamara]

A gay partygoer who thinks Chance has suggested an interest in watching gay sex says, "You wait here, I'll go get Warren." This may be a dig at Warren Beatty. whose heterosexual activity was legendary. The professional and personal relationship between Beatty and Hal Ashby was at times virulent, with Ashby refusing to see Beatty during the waning months of his life.

[sophie]

Like the anonymity of Chance himself, Peter Sellers, who was British, incorporated an accent that was neither wholly British nor American, creating a distinct alien feel to his character. The same has been said over the years about the so-called "French" accent of his Inspector Clouseau.

[stephanie]

The mansion used in the movie was The Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, North Carolina.

[phyllis]

After the novel's release and the subsequent purchase of rights to the book, Peter Sellers successfully lobbied for the lead role by sending a telegram to author Jerzy Kosinski with the message, "Gardener available for work". It was during casting and after the success of the later Pink Panther movies that Sellers became the only choice for the lead role.

[bryan]

Buffy Sainte-Marie can be seen in one of the TV shows Chance watches. She appears with Big Bird.

[ruby]

In the scene where Chance decides to try kissing Eve, he is watching The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) from 1968 on television as his example. Hal Ashby, the director of this film, was the editor of that film.

[darrell]

The source novel for this film is in fact a work of plagiarism, based on a popular Romanian novel about a farmer who ingratiates himself with the then royal family.

[jesus]

In different versions, the end credits are either shown over several outtakes of Sellers trying to say a line (the message for Raphael) ultimately not used in the movie version (restored to the home video version), or they are shown over TV white noise. Peter Sellers was at the film's screening at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. He was furious with director Hal Ashby and the producers for including the outtakes version of the end credits for this performance and at the audience's reaction to them. This incident may have finally persuaded the producers to change their minds. When the film opened soon after in Australia in late May 1980, the entire end credits were removed from all prints (leading to a deafening thud on the soundtrack after the film's final line). Eventually these prints were all replaced with versions including the "white noise" end credits and the film's main theme by composer Johnny Mandel.

[leo]

Laurence Olivier was offered the role of Benjamin Rand, but he passed when he read the completed script. He said he didn't want to be in a movie where Shirley MacLaine has to masturbate.

[bessie]

Final film of Ruth Attaway.

[fred]

Peter Sellers was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor. Some said the reason Sellers lost was because of the outtakes at the very end of the movie as the credits are rolling. Sellers himself later said the outtakes "broke the spell" of the movie.

[chris]

The South African Publications Control Board ordered that the final minutes of this film be cut from the South African release print because the scene showing Chance walking on the water surface "might offend many South African Christians".

[charlie]

Every contract that Peter Sellers signed included a clause which stipulated that his accommodations must have the bed facing East-West. Chance says: "I like to sleep with my head facing North". The attorney he's with says "But this bed is facing West!"

[clayton]

While lobbying for the part of Chance, Peter Sellers told Jerzy Kosinski, "You don't understand, I am Chance Gardiner!"

[jamie]

The tomb is in the shape of a pyramid with a Masonic Eye carved into it.