Trivia / Dick

• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally the film was to be called Beast of Burden and was to center on a single mother raising a bushel of kids amid the 1970's implosion. Screen writers Andrew Flemming and Sheryl Longin kept coming back to one of the daughters and her best friend. Eventually the two came up with the idea that it would be funny if these two were "Deep Throat"
  • Flemming asked former Nixon advisor John Dean to look at the script and add some input. Dean insisted on writing his own version. Fleming didn't like the idea and the chairman of the studio backing the film was absolutely furious and advised Flemming to say no to the idea. Dean still insisted, but Flemming never read the draft Dean gave him saying it's still sitting unread on his hard drive somewhere with only J Dean knowing what it contains.
  • Flemming offered Dean and Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee cameos as themselves. Dean's offer, unsurprisingly, was abandoned during the script disputes. Bradlee politely declined, though he was said to have enjoyed the film.
• Write What You Know: Sheryl Longin was inspired to write the story by a childhood incident where her family stayed at a hotel in Key Biscayne where Richard Nixon was set to give a speech, and she and a friend threw ice cubes at the President (earning her family a visit from the Secret Service).

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