читать дальшеWalter Matthau, who played Oscar in both the original Broadway play and the movie, asked the play's author, Neil Simon, if he could play Felix instead.
This was because Matthau thought Oscar's personality was too similar to his own and the role would be too easy; whereas playing the persnickety Felix would be a real acting challenge.
Simon replied, "Walter, go and be an actor in somebody else's play. Please be Oscar in mine." Matthau finally agreed to it.

The play starred Walter Matthau as Oscar, and Art Carney as Felix.
When they were making it into a movie, they felt Carney didn't have enough box office punch, so they cast Jack Lemmon instead.

The two great friends, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, are paired in a movie for the second of ten times.

According to former Paramount production chief Robert Evans in his memoir "The Kid Stays in the Picture", producer Howard Koch originally wanted to use the Broadway cast,
Walter Matthau (Oscar) and Art Carney (Felix) in the movie. Evans wanted Jack Lemmon for Felix.
Evans also wanted Billy Wilder, who directed Lemmon and Matthau in The Fortune Cookie, as writer-director.
The cost for the Lemmon-Matthau-Wilder package was $3 million plus 50% of the profits. Paramount owner Charlie Bluhdorn balked at the demands and personally took over negotiations.
Wilder eventually dropped out. Lemmon was signed for $1 million against 10% of the gross and Matthau got a straight salary of $300,000.

While the names of the sisters - Cecily and Gwendolyn - are the same as the female leads in Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest,"
Neil Simon claimed in interviews that it was unconscious and the coincidence didn't occur to him until years later.

Billy Wilder was going to direct and write the screenplay at one point.

Neil Simon based the character of Felix on his older brother, Danny Simon.

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