Film is based so exactly on the courtship of Ruby Keeler and Al Jolson that Jolson, having read the script, knocked out Walter Winchell when they met accidentally at the Hollywood American Legion stadium on the night of July 21, 1933. Keeler, who was a dancer at Texas Guinan's nightclub, was dating gangster Larry Fay when she met Jolson. Fay visited Jolson after hearing of this just to tell him that he could marry her.