Few films are as significant as The Outsiders .
While it’s true that the movie wasn’t a box office smash, the film singlehandedly helped launch the careers of Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, and Patrick Swayze.
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It’s been more than 35 years since the film first hit theaters. Get ready to head back home to Tulsa and check out these 10+ random facts about The Outsiders that fans didn’t know!
1. One member of the cast caught everyone’s eye.
“We always reminisce about how everyone tried to get Diane Lane’s attention , to very little success,” Rob Lowe told USA Today .
Who wouldn’t want attention from Rob Lowe? Especially 1980s Rob Lowe.
2. There was a lot of pranking that went on both on and off set.
As C. Thomas Howell recalled to Variety , he was usually the main target!
“I remember one early morning, probably having worked all night . I stumbled into my hotel room ready to go to sleep and literally everything in my hotel room, from a penny to my bed, had been turned upside down.”
Diane Lane was also targeted by many of the young boys.
Diane was absolutely shocked at how far some of her castmates would go.
They put honey on her toilet seat, vaseline on the door handles, and even cut the sheets on her bed!
3. Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise had to share a room during their audition process.
The way Rob Lowe explained it to NME was that it was the “first time I ever stayed at The Plaza Hotel, and we check-in and Tom finds out that we’re sharing a room and just goes ballistic .”
Rob went on to say how he found the whole situation to be pretty hilarious.
“I remember going, ‘Wow, this guy is the real deal.’ I mean it made me laugh , it was gnarly. But in the end of it, you can’t argue with the results. He’s had his eye on the ball since day one.”
4. The audition process was incredibly hectic and lengthy.
Each of the young actors was required to read multiple parts and roles. The auditions were said to last upwards of five hours at a time.
Ralph Maccio told USA Today : “I have yet to be involved in a casting situation like that before or since.”
5. The movie is based on a book!
The author’s name is S.E. Hinton. Like the protagonists in her book, she was also a teenager at the time the novel was published!
At that time, the young-adult genre was practically non-existent .
6. There’s a cameo appearance by the book’s author, S.E. Hinton!
She appears during the scene where Dallas (Matt Dillon) is in the hospital and is being tended to by one of the nurses.
Since Coppola couldn’t afford to pay the full down payment to Hinton for the rights, she was cast in the film.
7. The film took some heat for omitting key scenes from the book.
In order to combat this, for the film’s 35th anniversary Francis Ford Coppola re-released the film with 22 minutes of additional footage.
Coppola felt that this new director’s cut was a much more honest adaptation.
8. A group of schoolchildren petitioned Francis Ford Coppola to turn the novel into a movie!
Producer Fred Roos said to the New York Times :
”It was lucky for the kids that we were in New York when it was sent over. Francis doesn’t get much mail in New York, so he read the letter.”
9. Patrick Swayze had nothing but fond memories of his time working with Francis Ford Coppola
Patrick said during an interview with USA Today :
“You couldn’t have designed a more perfect training ground for young actors, with a sort of sensei like with Francis . He just knew how to play each of us like a violin.”
10. Francis Ford Coppola did a private screening for the students who wrote to him.
Not only that but he also arranged to have the actors of the film make a surprise appearance at the school!
They all watched the film together, along with the students and their teacher.
12. Francis Ford Coppola split the cast in two: Greasers and SOCs.
He was hoping to get a more authentic feeling from his young actors.
He had Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe stay in the basement of actual greasers so that they’d have a better understanding of what it meant to live the lifestyle.
13. *The Outsiders* was turned into a TV show!
Sadly, without the star power of the film, the TV show folded fast.
Although things started off on a high note, ratings quickly fizzled and the series was canceled after only 13 episodes.
14. Hip-hop artist Danny Boy O’Connor started a GoFundMe page to help save the home of the Curtis brothers.
You might remember Danny Boy from the group House of Pain .
He was looking to raise $75,000 and turn the house into a historic museum in honor of the film.
