Trivia for
Showgirls (1995) More at IMDbPro »

• The cover image for this movie is a remake of a famous photograph by Slovak photographer Tono Stano.
  
  
• Set an all-time RAZZIE Award record with 13 nominations (one or more in all 11 categories of the 1996 Awards). Its seven "wins" tie it with Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000) as the second most dis-honored film in RAZZIE history (I Know Who Killed Me (2007) now holds the dubious distinction with eight "wins").
  
  
• When the film swept The 16th Annual RAZZIE Awards, Paul Verhoeven turned up in person to accept Worst Director and Worst Picture. He was the first director to ever turn up to collect the Award.
  
  
• After this film bombed at the box office and "swept" the 16th Annual RAZZIE Awards, MGM/UA attempted to re-market it as a "Midnight Cult Flick" à la The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). A new print ad, with a leopard-skin patterned background and prominently mentioning the film's seven RAZZIE "Wins" ran in several L.A. area newspapers, promoting midnight showings in West Hollywood in Spring, 1996. Clever though it was, this new marketing gimmick also failed.
  
  
• Elizabeth Berkley was paid only $100,000 for playing the lead in the film. When a special V.I.P. edition boxed set was released she requested $2,500 to be interviewed. They declined.
  
  
• Elizabeth Berkley spends approximately 20 minutes, or 1/6 of the entire film, completely nude.
  
  
• The only interior scenes that were actually filmed in Las Vegas are the first ones in which Nomi plays slot machines and at the Forum Shops/Spago in Caesar's Palace.
  
  
• The director was insistent that actors not ad-lib or change lines as they were scripted. Three changes were allowed: The line "smiling beaver" was changed to "smiling snatch", the line "She's ginchy" was changed to "She's no butterfly", and the line "I wanna see the pimples on your ass" to "I wanna see your ass."
  
  
• The only time actresses complained that they felt uncomfortable was during the scenes with the monkeys, who constantly stared at their bare breasts.
  
  
• Elizabeth Berkley regularly worked 16 hours a day in high heels, while filming the dance scenes.
  
  
• The name "Nomi Malone" came from Joe Eszterhas's wife's nickname, Nomi (her real name is Naomi). He chose "Malone" because he thought of Nomi as being "alone" in the world.
  
  
• Charlize Theron auditioned for the role of Nomi Malone.
  
  
• Sharon Stone auditioned for the role of Crystal Connors.
  
  
• Gina Gershon declined to recreate the Sharon Stone leg crossing scene from Basic Instinct (1992).
  
  
• Jenny McCarthy auditioned for the lead and was very much in the running until it was discovered that she couldn't dance.
  
  
• Finola Hughes auditioned for the role of Cristal Connors.
  
  
• Smithee: [Paul Verhoeven] Credited as "Jan Jansen" in the edited TV version.
  
  
• This film enjoyed huge success in home video market in the United States, generating more than $100 million from video rentals and became one of MGM's top 20 all-time bestsellers.
  
  
• This film is listed among the Top Ten Best Bad Films ever made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE MOVIE GUIDE.
  
  
• Joe Eszterhas came up with the idea for this script while on vacation at his home in Maui, Hawaii. Based on the idea he scribbled on a napkin, he was advanced $2 million to write the script and picked up an additional $1.7 million when the studio produced it into a film.
  
  
• The filmmakers wanted Madonna to play Cristal Conners and Drew Barrymore to play Nomi Malone. The name card Gaye takes off the mirror when she shows Nomi her table in the dressing room even says "Drew."
  
  
• As of 2009, Showgirls is the highest grossing NC-17 of all time (US $20,302,961) and the only NC-17 film to ever be given wide distribution (released in 1,388 theaters).
  
  
• Angelina Jolie auditioned for the role of Cristal Connors.
  
  
• Pamela Anderson was a front-runner for the role of Nomi Malone.
  
  
• When the film tanked on its opening weekend, writer Joe Eszterhas took the unprecedented step of taking out an ad in Variety, urging female movie-goers to go see the movie, not because it was semi-pornographic but because it highlighted the exploitations that lap dancers are subjected to. Needless to say, this tactic didn't help the film any.
  
  

• SPOILER: The "Los Angeles" freeway sign at the end of the movie, was a hint at a sequel that Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas were already planning for, but was abandoned when this movie debuted. The sequel was to have Nomi going to Hollywood and taking on the movie business.
  
  
• SPOILER: When Nomi is first seen on stage dancing at The Cheetah, the song playing is Prince's '319' (in reference to a room number). At the end of the movie when she goes to visit Cristal in her hospital room, Nomi is told by a nurse that Cristal is in room 319.
  
  

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