A plane crash took the life of producer Mike Todd, ending the then-latest marriage of Elizabeth Taylor, at that time a contender for the film Raintree County.

Lana Turner, in the running for Peyton Place, would soon be embroiled in a major scandal when Johnny Stompanato, her boyfriend, was killed in her Beverly Hills home.

The Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium was awarded to Pierre Boulle for The Bridge on the River Kwai, despite the fact that he did not speak English, because the actual writers, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were blacklisted at the time and had not received screen credit.

Foreman and Wilson have since been acknowledged by the academy as the true recipients of the award, though Boulle remains listed as an official winner.

As of the 96th Academy Awards, Designing Woman is the last film to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay when nominated solely in that category.