Fred Astaire launched his non-musical, dramatic acting career with this film.
Ava Gardner's first film as a freelance actress after completing her 20 year studio contract where she worked for a weekly salary and didn't benefit financially from being loaned to other studios. She was now free to choose her roles and negotiate her salary.
Anthony Perkins' elder son is named Osgood, possibly after Admiral Bridie's aide of the same name.Anthony Perkins named his oldest son, "Osgood"(James Ripley Oswald Robert Perkins II) after Anthony's father, Broadway and film actor, James Ripley Oswald Perkins.
According to Philip R. Davey, author of the book "When Hollywood Came to Melbourne: The Story of the Making of Stanley Kramer's 'On The Beach'", director Stanley Kramer experienced many problems with the thousands of bathers who stood in shoulder-deep water to watch the proceedings, and who applauded the cast after each take. Their enthusiasm was gratifying in this respect if not in others, such as when thousands of people began crowding forward to get a closer look at Ava Gardner, they repeatedly moved into camera range, thus necessitating many frustrating retakes.
It is rumored that guards at each end of the Golden Gate Bridge were paid $500 each to stop cars for a minute to get footage of an empty bridge.
The movie was shot in part in Berwick, a (then) small town in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Some streets which were being established during this time were named after people involved in the film. Some examples are: Gardner Street (Ava Gardner), Shute Avenue (Nevil Shute) and Kramer Drive (Stanley Kramer).
The only US Nuclear submarine with the hull number 623 was the SSBN Nathan Hale, a ballistic missile submarine.
The U.S. Department of Defense and the United States Navy declined to cooperate in the production of this film, including access to a nuclear-powered submarine, which forced the film production to use a non-nuclear, diesel-electric Royal Navy submarine, HMS Andrew.
When Moira goes to visit Towers at the dock, an Australian sailor calls out "Get a load of that Charlie Wheeler". This is rhyming slang: 'Charlie Wheeler' rhymes with 'sheila', an Australian term for a (young) woman.