Trivia / The Rose

• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • At the start, a photographer takes a picture of a little girl. The resulting photo is of Midler as a little girl, growing up in Hawaii.
  • When Mary Rose Foster (Bette Midler) asks Huston Dyer (Frederic Forrest) where he came from, he says "Waxahachie, Texas", which is Forrest's home town.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: Bette Midler performed the soundtrack album, the title song track "The Rose" was one of the biggest selling vinyl singles of 1980.
• The Cameo: Pioneering openly-gay musician Sylvester ("You Make Me Feel Mighty Real") as the African-American female impersonator in the gay bar.
• Hostility on the Set: Bette Midler admitted in an interview featured in the Criterion release for this film that she was genuinely intimidated by Harry Dean Stanton.
• Star-Making Role: Gave Bette Midler her first taste at movie stardom.
• Throw It In!: Private First Class Mal (David Keith) is seen applauding Mary Rose Foster (Bette Midler) from the wings during her singing of "Stay With Me Baby", though it wasn't in the script. Keith simply spontaneously applauded Midler's heart-wrenching performance. Director Mark Rydell felt it was a good touch, and decided to include it.
• Wag the Director: Mark Rydell would only agree to direct if he could cast Bette Midler in the lead. Before that, Midler had only appeared in bit parts, and was known primarily as a nightclub singer.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Before the film was picked up by Mark Rydell, Ken Russell was offered to direct this film, but chose to direct a biopic about Rudolph Valentino, which tanked at the box office. Russell stated that it was the biggest mistake in his career.
  • Michael Cimino was also slated to direct the film, but instead went on to direct Heaven's Gate.
  • The movie was originally titled "Pearl", which was a biographical movie based on Janis Joplin's life. When approached with the script for "Pearl", Bette Midler believed it was too soon after Joplin's death to portray her life in a movie. Re-writes were then made, with Midler's guidance, that deleted some portions of the original script, and embellished other parts of the story. Then the re-written script was named "The Rose", and Midler agreed to the lead role.
  • According to the book "The Academy Awards: The Complete Unofficial History", Bette Midler "nixed" parts in Rocky (1976), Nashville (1975), and Foul Play (1978) in order to play the lead character in this movie, which would make her "an instant screen icon".