Patti Page

 Patti Page related in a book that she was among those who tested for the role of Nellie Forbush in "South Pacific" (1958) before Mitzi Gaynor was cast. According to "Hollywood's First Choices," director Joshua Logan's first choice for the role was Elizabeth Taylor, who was a 'hot commodity' in the late 1950s. Taylor wasn't particularly interested in the part, and her lack of singing ability quickly had the producers looking elsewhere. Others considered included Judy Garland, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn, and Ginger Rogers.

Gaynor was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago to Pauline Fisher, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director. Her family first moved to Elgin, Illinois, then to Detroit, and later when she was eleven, on to Hollywood. She trained as a ballerina as a child and began her career as a chorus dancer. At 13, she was singing and dancing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera company. She lied about her address so she could attend Hollywood High School, and signed a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox at age 17. She sang, acted, and danced in a number of film musicals, often paired with some of the biggest male musical stars of the day. A Fox Studio executive thought that Mitzi Gerber sounded like the name of a delicatessen, and they came up with a name that used the same initials.

One of the differences between the film version and the Broadway version of the musical is that the first and second scenes of the play are switched around, together with all the songs contained in those two scenes. The stage version begins with Nellie and Emile's first scene together on the plantation, then proceeds to show Bloody Mary, Lieutenant Joe Cable, and the Seabees on the beach, while in the film version Lieutenant Cable is shown at the very beginning being flown by plane to the island, where the Seabees and Bloody Mary have their first musical numbers. (The first musical number in the film is "Bloody Mary," sung by the Seabees, while in the stage version it is "Dites-moi," sung by Emile's children). Emile is not shown in the film until about thirty minutes into it; in the film, Nellie first appears during the scene with the Seabees. Because of the switch, the show's most famous song, "Some Enchanted Evening," is not heard until nearly forty-five minutes into the film, while in the show it is heard about fifteen minutes after Act I starts.