- Orson Welles suspected that author Booth Tarkington based the lead character George on Welles himself for a variety of reasons: Tarkington was a friend of the Welles family, Welles had a reputation for being a spoiled, difficult child and Welles's full name was George Orson Welles, so he was called George or Georgie while growing up.
- After a disastrous preview, it was clear to the suits at RKO that the film was too long, too dense and too sombre. Welles, however, had decamped to Brazil where he was in the midst of working on a film called "It's All True" (which was never completed). Welles had been shipped out there under the auspices of Nelson Rockefeller, one of the chief shareholders in RKO, to make a film boosting US-South American wartime relations. With him out of the way, however, the onus of re-cutting and trimming the film fell on editor Robert Wise.
- Welles demanded that the inside of the Ambersons mansion be built as if it was a real house, with continuous rooms of four walls and ceilings. This enabled his camera to roam around the house freely and shoot from any angle.
- After attending the first preview, RKO president George Schaefer (II) wrote to Welles: "Never in all my experience in the industry have I taken so much punishment or suffered as I did at the Promona preview".
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