Trivia / A Patch of Blue

• Dark Horse Casting: Elizabeth Hartman was a complete unknown when she was cast as Selina, and they even made a documentary tie-in A Cinderella Named Elizabeth about her casting.
• Enforced Method Acting: To enhance her performance as a blind woman, Elizabeth Hartman wore opaque contact lenses that impaired her sight.
• Fake Brit: Wallace Ford was actually English playing Ole Pa.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Rose-Ann is a racist. Shelley Winters was a staunch supporter of the Civil Rights movement.
• Star-Making Role: A partial example. Elizabeth Hartman's Oscar nominated performance (and becoming the then-youngest Oscar nominee at 22) didn't necessarily make her an A-lister, as she retired from acting in the 80s due to severe mental health difficulties (tragically taking her own life at only 43). But it did lead to her appearing in several high profile films such as The Beguiled and Walking Tall, as well as Broadway productions of Our Town and The Glass Menagerie.
• Technology Marches On: Gordon teaches sheltered, disabled Selina about modern 1960s life. Part of this involves teaching her how to connect to the operator on a rotary payphone and having her ask the operator to dial the number for her, after which the phone gives her the money back due to there being no answer on the other end. He also takes her shopping and explains that the cashier uses a manual computer register to ring up the total cost of their purchases.
• What Could Have Been: Patty Duke was offered the role of Selina, but her managers urged her to turn it down; she had played Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker and they feared playing another blind character would typecast her. It would be the other way around two years later when Elizabeth Hartman was in the running for Neely O'Hara in Valley of the Dolls, and Patty would be cast in the role.

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