Conceived in terror, born in fear. Pray for Rosemary’s baby. By the late 1960s, horror fiction was a legitimate literary genre. Rosemary’s Baby sold millions of copies, opening the doors to the likes of William Peter Blatty, Thomas Tyron, and Stephen King. Spooky tales found a comfortable spot on the corner store paperback rack, then into the homes of millions of brave readers, but it wasn’t until Ira Levin’s second novel was picked up by a legendary B-movie producer that the devil would hit it big in Hollywood.
Published by Random House on March 12, 1967, Rosemary’s Baby was a literary sensation, a blockbuster horror novel that haunted the New York Times Bestseller List for months. Considered “a darkly brilliant tale of modern deviltry” by Truman Capote, the chilling story about a young woman, living with her husband in modern-day Manhattan, who becomes pregnant with the devil’s seed, ended up in front of journeyman schlock producer William Castle after Alfred Hitchcock passed on the rights. Not author Ira Levin’s first choice, Castle scooped up the yet-to-be-published novel when no one else would and began looking for financing with himself as director.
At this time, Paramount’s new head of production, a brash thirty-six-year-old former actor named Robert Evans, was tasked by the newly formed board of directors with finding projects for a company struggling with its identity during a tumultuous time for the big Hollywood studios. The old Hollywood guard tried desperately to hold onto the ancient star-driven, big-budgeted system while new Hollywood looked to disrupt it. With his discovery of the galley for Rosemary’s Baby under a pile of rejected scripts, and some inspired, retrospectively brilliant hiring decisions, Robert Evans would become a leader of the New Hollywood.
Evans informed William Castle that Paramount would finance the film, but he had a director in mind, and it wasn’t William “The Tingler” Castle. Eventually, for the good of the final product, Castle relinquished his best chance of finally directing a prestige Hollywood picture after years of toiling in the B-movie trenches and accepted Evans’s terms. Four months later, cameras were rolling on the adaptation with a three-million-dollar budget. By 1967, Roman Polanski was a thirty-four-year-old wunderkind director making successful art house thrillers in England. Already a master of his craft and on his way to becoming one of the hottest directors in the world, Polanski caught the eye of Robert Evans with his 1966 masterpiece of suspense, Repulsion, a film thematically similar to Rosemary’s Baby about a woman spiralling into paranoia. Much to the uncertainty of the Paramount brass, concerned with Polanski’s inexperience in Hollywood, Evans hired the young, energetic Polish director, convincing the board that new blood was precisely what the project, studio, and stale old Hollywood needed. After a rocky start during which the studio tried to fire Polanski when the reckless director perpetually failed to make his days and came in over budget, Evans had his back, and the dailies spoke for themselves. Next up, cast Rosemary.
In addition to directing the film, Polanski was hired to adapt it. While working on the script, which was highly faithful to the source with a touch of the director’s trademark spooky ambivalence, he envisioned Tuesday Weld as Rosemary because of her all-American and naively innocent disposition. Robert Evans had another young talented actress in mind. Mia Farrow stood out as part of an ensemble on television’s Peyton Place. Evans insisted that Polanski hire her, believing that Farrow was the perfect Rosemary Woodhouse. Robert Redford was the first choice to play Rosemary’s husband, Guy, but legal issues took him out of the running. Polanski then went with his first, somewhat unconventional choice, writer, director, actor and auteur John Cassavetes. Due to their polar-opposite directing style (Polanski preferred to dictate an actor’s every movement, while Cassavetes thrived on improvisation), hiring Cassavetes would become Polanski’s biggest headache. The legendary and talented Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer were cast as the young couple’s peculiar neighbours, garnering Gordon an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
With its legendary and chilling lullaby-like score, the film opened on June 12, 1968, making bona fide stars of Roman Polanski and Mia Farrow. The Catholic Church condemned it, while the LA Times called it sick and obscene, but the negative reviews, mixed with the positive word of mouth, hyped the film to must-see status, creating feverish crowds spanning city blocks. The film grossed $33 million ($288 million today). Nearly sixty years later, Rosemary`s Baby remains a masterpiece of suspense and paranoia and a pillar of the New Hollywood system.