The film's premiere, at New York's Astor Theater, also served as the first in a long line of benefit events organized to help pay for the purchase and renovation of the newly acquired home of The Actors Studio, which had itself provided arguably the film's three most powerful performances, courtesy of James Dean, Julie Harris and Jo Van Fleet, as well as strong supporting turns from Lois Smith, Barbara Baxley and Lonny Chapman (and to whom Warner Brothers studio chief Jack L. Warner had generously offered the entire proceeds of the New York premiere). The celebrity ushers on hand included Margaret Truman, Arlene Francis, Jayne Meadows, Marjorie Steele (aka Mrs. Huntington Hartford), Roberta Peters, Carol Channing, Eva Marie Saint and Marilyn Monroe. Moreover, the event's organizer, Morton Gottlieb, worried that patrons would balk at the hefty fee charged for just a movie, organized a lavish post-screening party featuring free entertainment, including Channing, accompanied by Jule Styne, singing the song he wrote for her in Broadway's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" (Gottlieb having failed in his attempt to persuade Monroe to reprise her hit from 1953's Gli uomini preferiscono le bionde (1953)), composer Harold Arlen performing a piano medley, a song composed for the occasion, performed by its authors, Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz and, last but hardly least, a young and still little known Sammy Davis Jr. (less than four months after the near-fatal auto accident which had cost him his left eye, and more than one year before he'd make his official Broadway debut in "Mr. Wonderful"), here making his Big Apple downtown debut and bringing down the house in the process.

Film

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