Trivia / California Split

• The Cast Show Off: Elliott Gould played a lot of pickup basketball at that time in his life, as you can see when Charlie is hustling other players.
• Cast the Expert:
  • Professional poker legend Amarillo Slim is the poker player with the huge wad of cash in Reno.
  • Members of the controversial addiction recovery group Synanon played extras in the gambling scenes.
• Channel Hop: Joseph Walsh took his script to Universal after MGM's demands got out of hand as he had an understanding with producers 'Daryl F. Zanuck' and David Brown. At this stage, Walsh's co-writer Steven Spielberg had moved on
• Descended Creator: Writer Joseph Walsh as Sparkie the Loan Shark.
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to actress Barbara Ruick who appears in the movie as a barmaid and who died on location during the filming. The end title card memorializing this reads: "FOR BARBARA 1933-1973".
• Irony as She Is Cast: George Segal was reluctant to play Bill because he doesn't gamble in Real Life.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The original theatrical cut has never been released on home video because of music rights issues. The 2004 DVD trimmed three minutes from the film (including most of Phyllis Shotwell's songs) and changes some of the music, but went out-of-print. The full version stills shows up on TV and circulates online, and there are rumors that The Criterion Collection is considering a release.
• Real-Life Relative: Edward Walsh, the brother of Joseph Walsh, played Lew (the man that Charlie and Bill get in a fight with at the start of the film).
• Sleeper Hit: Made $5 million at the box office, on a budget of around $1 million, making it Robert Altman's first genuine hit since M*A*S*H, after a string of Acclaimed Flops.
• Throw It In!: Very much classic Altman in this regard, with ad-libbed dialogue and little flubs that made it into the final cut, like Bill botching throwing the purse back to the woman at the racetrack, and Phyllis Shotwell forgetting the words of "Georgia on My Mind" (which she responds to with a shrug and says "Well, you know, some nights you—").
• What Could Have Been:
  • This was going to be Steven Spielberg's feature film directorial debut. Spielberg worked closely with Joseph Walsh when Walsh was writing the screenplay, offering feedback and suggestions. After a deal with MGM fell through, Spielberg and Walsh took the script to Universal, only to have Universal decide that one of the other projects Spielberg had been working on, The Sugarland Express, was more commercial. Through various agent connections the script ended up with Altman.
  • The film was initially set up at MGM with Steve McQueen (actor) attached as the lead. This soon changed when MGM started making ridiculous demands, including insisting that the script be a specified number of pages and that it should be set at the Circus Circus casino complex in Las Vegas - which MGM owned. They also wanted the film to have a Mafia subplot and to have a role for Dean Martin.
  • Peter Falk and Robert De Niro auditioned to play Charlie.
  • Altman and Gould were both hesitant to film the "one-armed piccolo player" scene, fearing that the punchline was too off-color, but Joseph Walsh convinced them it was necessary for the story.
  • The original ending actually spilled outside the casino. Bill leaves Charlie and hails a cab when Charlie suddenly comes out and decides to go with him so as to prove that he can walk away from gambling. However, a couple of people climb out of the waiting cab and ask Charlie how the action is, and he is drawn right back in and thus Bill leaves alone.
• Working Title: Slide
• Write Who You Know: Ironically, Bill Denny was based on Elliott Gould, who'd been a longtime friend of Joseph Walsh, while Charlie Waters was Walsh's Author Avatar.

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