Terms of Endearment

 On this date in 1983, "Terms of Endearment" was released.

Producer/writer/director James L. Brooks wrote the supporting role of Garrett Breedlove for Burt Reynolds, who turned down the role because of a verbal commitment he had made to appear in "Stroker Ace" (1983). "There are no awards in Hollywood for being an idiot," Reynolds later said of the decision.

Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger reportedly did not get along with each other during production. MacLaine confirmed in an interview that "it was a very tough shoot... Chaotic...(Jim) likes working with tension on the set."

In her autobiography "My Lucky Stars," MacLaine re-enacted some of the very combative and hostile moments between her and Debra on the set: "The result was a bracingly complex mother-daughter bond onscreen, if not a pleasant set. "We knew what we were doing a lot of the time, sparring back and forth," Winger said. "It was a very gritty way of working. People at Paramount thought we were crazy." MacLaine didn't appreciate Winger's method. In the autobiography, she wrote that her demanding costar yelled at her to "get over here," when it was time to hit her marks on set. "'I heard you,' I said. 'I know marks when I see them,'" MacLaine wrote in her book. "'Good,' [Winger] said. 'How's this for a mark?' She turned around, walked away from me, lifted her skirt slightly, looked over her shoulder, bent over, and farted in my face."

"I can't deny that we fought," Winger told the New York Times in 1986. "We're not having lunch together today. We challenged ourselves, and when we got tired of challenging ourselves, we challenged each other. But I think there was always a respect between the two of us."'

On working with Jack Nicholson, MacLaine said, "Working with Jack Nicholson was crazy," but that his spontaneity may have contributed to her performance. She also said, "We're like old smoothies working together. You know the old smoothies they used to show whenever you went to the Ice Follies. They would have this elderly man and woman – who at that time were 40 – and they had a little bit too much weight around the waist and were moving a little slower. But they danced so elegantly and so in synch with each other that the audience just laid back and sort of sighed. That's the way it is working with Jack. We both know what the other is going to do. And we don't socialize, or anything. It's an amazing chemistry – a wonderful, wonderful feeling." MacLaine also confirmed in an interview with USA Today that Nicholson improvised when he put his hand down her dress in the beach scene.