Trivia for
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) More at IMDbPro »

• Katharine Hepburn's character's daughter is played by Hepburn's actual niece Katharine Houghton
  
  
• Spencer Tracy died 17 days after filming was completed.
  
  
• When the movie was conceived and launched by producer-director Stanley Kramer, one of Hollywood's greatest liberal movie-makers, intermarriage between African Americans and Caucasians was still illegal in 14 states. Towards the end of production, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Loving v. Virginia. The Loving decision was made on June 12, 1967, two days after the death of star Spencer Tracy, who had played a "phony" white liberal who grudgingly accepts his daughter's marriage to a black man. In Loving, the High Court unanimously ruled that anti-miscegenation marriage laws were unconstitutional. In his opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, "Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State." Interestingly, Kramer kept in the line of the African American father played by Roy Glenn, who tells his son played by Sidney Poitier, "In 16 or 17 states you'll be breaking the law. You'll be criminals." This was probably because Kramer realized that, despite the change in the law, the couple would still be facing a great deal of prejudice requiring a stalwart love for their marriage to survive, which was the message Tracy's character gives in an eight-minute scene that is the climax of the movie. The scene summing up the theme of the movie was the last one the dying Tracy filmed for the movie, and it was the last time he would ever appear on film. It took a week to shoot the scene and at the end, he was given a standing ovation by the crew. He died a little over a fortnight after walking off of a sound-stage for the last time.
  
  
• The three-inch bronze sculpture of Spencer Tracy featured in the film was created by Katharine Hepburn herself and was one of the items that were included in her estate auction in 2004. The bust was the most sought-after item and fetched the most money - it sold for $316,000, whereas pre-auction estimates were in the neighborhood of $3,000-$5,000.
  
  
• Katharine Hepburn never saw the completed movie. She said the memories of Tracy were too painful.
  
  
• Katharine Hepburn had to use her salary as backing in order to make this movie because Spencer Tracy was so ill that the studio didn't think that he would make to the end of the picture
  
  
• Mr Prentice (Roy Glenn) says to his son John (Sidney Poitier) "In 16 or 17 states you'll be breaking the law. You'll be criminals." By the time people saw the movie this was no longer true. On June 12th, 1967, the US Supreme Court in the case Loving v Virginia declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.
  
  
• In some shots you can clearly see Katharine Hepburn's head and hands trembling because of her hereditary shake, e.g., when she is pouring a drink for the Reverend right after his second arrival.
  
  
• Due to Spencer Tracy's health, the cast was always working from two shooting scripts, one with Tracy, one without. Typically, Katharine Hepburn brought Tracy in the morning, they worked until she decided he was too tired, then Tracy and Hepburn left. Sidney Poitier, who already had received a Best Actor Oscar for Lilies of the Field (1963), was intimidated by working with two legends, and preferred to perform to empty high backed chairs.
  
  
• Spencer Tracy's glasses have no lenses throughout the film.
  
  
• The film debut of Isabel Sanford, who later gained fame as Louise on "The Jeffersons" (1975). In 1981, she became the first African American woman to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
  
  
• A theatrical play version of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is being developed, directed by Kenny Leon and adapted for the stage by Todd Kreidler. The producers anticipate the Broadway production will open in the fall of 2008.
  
  
• This movie was still showing in theaters at the time Martin Luther King was assassinated. Originally, there was a line in the movie where Joey (Katharine Houghton) tells the maid another person is coming to dinner, to which Tillie (Isabel Sanford), the maid guesses, "The Reverend Martin Luther King?" When King was murdered, the studio immediately called the theaters showing the film and gave instructions to cut that scene from the movie.
  
  
• Like Katharine Hepburn, the film's producer and director Stanley Kramer also put his salary in escrow as backing in order to placate the studio who was nervous about having Spencer Tracy star due to his poor health.
  
  
• Katharine Hepburn is the only movie star to win four Academy Awards (2009) for her leading roles in Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981).
  
  
• Spencer Tracy received a posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). His widow Louise attended the ceremony in the event that he would win. However, the award went instead to Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night (1967).
  
  
• This film was instrumental in largely ending the marketing consideration of how films featuring African-American characters and themes were assumed to be likely rejected by mainstream audiences in the Southern States of the USA. In that regard, the film was such a major widespread success throughout the entire USA, including the South, that the marketing factor would never again be considered a major problem for any major film release.
  
  
• Katharine Houghton's feature film debut.
  
  
• According to the time the movie was made (in the 60s) and the place where the couple have met (Hawaii), 'Sydney Poitier''s line: "you daughter is optimistic, she thinks our child will be President of the United States" (as well as Spencer Tracy's answer) has gained a greater importance since Obama's election.
  
  

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