Twenty-five years ago, Steel Magnolias captivated audiences with its heartbreaking yet laugh-out-loud story based on playwright Robert Harling’s loss of his sister Susan Harling Robinson in 1985 and how a group of small-town women the South coped. with their tragic loss. Harling wrote the play and eventually the screenplay, both as a catharsis and as something Harling could pass on to his relatives.
Harling wrote the play, and eventual screenplay, as both catharsis and as something that Harling could pass along to his nephew. “Susan was my best friend,” Harling told TODAY’s Erica Hill. “When we lost her, it was really devastating to me, and I was having a lot of trouble dealing with it.”
Many people can quote the movie line for line but don’t realize how the fictionalized group of women is grounded in reality. Besides being based on the true story of his sister, Susan, Harling shared 13 other things fans might not know about the movie.
1. The title was inspired by real life
Harling said the title, “Steel Magnolias,” is the perfect description for the women it profiles: They’re both delicate like a flower, but also hard as steel.
2. Harling wrote the play in 10 days
Many writers take months or years to write a play. But Harling wrote “Steel Magnolias” in only 10 days. “Ten days later, that’s all it took because I had lived the story.”
3. It was originally going to be a short story
Harling said when he began putting his sister’s story down in writing, it began as a short story. “But I was missing the sound of the wonderful vernacular,” he said. “It became a play because I wanted to hear the dialogue. And that was it.”
4. Harling at first thought his story was a drama
When the play was first in rehearsal, Harling says they thought it was strictly a drama, since they were performing a dark, emotional story. That all changed when an audience was brought in. “When the first preview audience came in, there was all this laughter, and we had no idea,” Harling said. “We were completely thrown back because we thought we were doing a drama.”
5. Meg Ryan was approximately originally to play Shelby
Only a few days after Ryan was approached for the role of Shelby, she declined to star in “When Harry Met Sally.”
6. But Julia Roberts was perfect as soon as she walked in for her audition
Before “Steel Magnolias,” the Oscar winner was only really known for her role in “Mystic Pizza,” but Harling said that he knew she was perfect for the role of Shelby as soon as she walked into the room. “When she walked in, somebody just turned the lights on in the room,” he said. “She flashed that smile and … that was my sister.”
7. It pays to have your mother played by Julia Roberts
Harling told Erica Hill about one time when his nephew, Susan’s son, had trouble with school. Harling asked his nephew if everything was OK, to which the then-teenager replied, “Oh no. Don’t worry about me. Everyone likes me. They think I’m really cool.”
The reason everyone at school thinks he’s cool: His mother is played by Julia Roberts. “That hit me like a ton of bricks,” Harling said. “He doesn’t remember his mother, but he knew as a teenager that his mother was so amazing it would take the biggest star in the world to play her.”
8. The play attracts talent
Here’s a fun one for those who like trivia: One of Nicole Kidman’s first roles on stage was playing Shelby in a play in Sydney, Australia.
9. The movie inspired others to give back
Harling said he was especially moved by an email from a fan of the movie who was inspired to donate his kidney to a neighbor in need. The recipient of that kidney will celebrate his 35th wedding anniversary this fall, and the donor wrote Harling to say he would toast the writer. “I wrote him back and said, ‘Please give me a toast,’” Harling said. Let’s raise a glass to my sister, Susan,’” Harling said.
10. Susan helped Harling write the “hit me” scene
In one famous scene, as Sally Field’s M’Lynn mourns the death of her daughter, Clairee – played by Olympia Dukakis – asks another friend in the group to let M’Lynn beat her. “Here, hit this!” Claire said.
Harling said he wrote the scene by relaying the words to his sister after a period of writer’s block. “I said, ‘What would Susan do?’ and what Susan would do would be outrageous,” he said. “She would do something completely inappropriate and completely out of character.”
11. The Natchitoches Christmas Festival is real and Susan loves it
“She loved the Christmas festival that took place the first weekend of December every year,” Harling said. “She never missed it.”
12. And it’s the movie’s Christmas in August
The Christmas carnival scene was filmed in the summer, with everyone wearing sweaters, fur coats and ski jackets in 100-degree heat. “I remember Shirley [MacLaine] turned to me in one of those scenes and said ‘you know, I think this might be important,’” Harling said. “And you know, Shirley is never wrong.”
13. Even though everyone in the movie is gone, they’re not really gone
Harling will attend the upcoming production of the play in Atlanta, which will be the first time the writer has seen the work since he lost all of the women who inspired the play and film. But Harling said one of the film’s stars, MacLaine, helped him realize that no one is really gone. “She said, ‘They’re still with you and they’re on stage somewhere in the world every night,’” Harling said.
