Rosemary's Baby

Top 10 Fun Facts

1. This was the first time writer/director Roman Polanski had ever adapted a screenplay from a previous work, and he didn't realize that he was allowed to veer from the source material. That's why the film is so faithful to Ira Levin's novel.
2. Polanski convinced Mia Farrow to walk into oncoming traffic on the streets of Manhattan for a crucial scene by telling her "no one's going to hit a pregnant woman." You hear that, jaywalkers? Pregnancy padding is your free pass!
3. Gettin' literal: since Rosemary tells Guy in the script that she had "been to Vidal Sassoon" to get her striking pixie cut, the production indeed flew the real Vidal Sassoon to the set to style Mia Farrow's now iconic tresses.
4. Early on, production chief Robert Evans suggested Jack Nicholson for the role of Guy. Nicholson met with Roman Polanski, who later explained, "for all his talent, his slightly sinister appearance ruled him out." Ouch.
5. Do the math: Rosemary's baby is born in June, 1966 - or 6/66. Although to be fair, we're sure plenty of perfectly lovely babies were born that month that in no way turned out to be the spawn of Satan.
6. Despite the fact that she was a vegetarian, Mia Farrow took one for the team and ate raw liver - take after take - during Rosemary's bizarre binge scene. At least she got plenty of iron in her diet that day.
7. When Rosemary calls the actor who had gone mysteriously blind, she seems a little confused - that might be because Roman Polanski opted not to tell Mia Farrow that actor Tony Curtis was on the other end of the line. She recognized the voice, but couldn't place it.
8. Rosemary tries to find the anagram in the title of the book "All of Them Witches," before she realizes that she should actually be rearranging the letters of a name within the book. But if she'd kept at it, she would have discovered the title is an anagram for "Hell a Cometh Swift."
9. Nice timing, Ol' Blue Eyes: Mia Farrow received divorce papers from her then-husband Frank Sinatra while on the set of Rosemary's Baby.
10. Curious about what happened to Rosemary's baby? You can check out Ira Levin's follow-up novel "Son of Rosemary" - it hit the shelves in 1997, more than thirty years after the original.

Cast

Crew