Trivia / Jane Eyre (1943)

• Creator-Chosen Casting: Orson Welles was David O Selznick's only choice for Rochester.
• Dawson Casting: Joan Fontaine was 26, eight years older than Jane's 18. Of course, given her rough upbringing and having to grow up very fast, it's understandable she'd be Younger Than They Look.
• Money, Dear Boy: Orson Welles took the role of Rochester because he wanted to finance the editing of his film It's All True.
• Produced by Cast Member: Orson Welles both played Rochester and was an associate producer on the film.
• Role Reprise: Ethel Griffies, the actress who played as Grace Poole in the 1934 version, reprised as the same character in this version.
• Talent Double: Orson Welles could not ride a horse, so they doubled him in any riding scenes.
• Typecasting: It was noted that Joan Fontaine's casting as the lead character, in an Age-Gap Romance with a much older man, for whom she becomes the second wife, in a mansion with several Gothic Horror elements, was practically her repeating her role as the second Mrs de Winter in Rebecca.
• Uncredited Role: Elizabeth Taylor went uncredited for her role as Helen Burns.
• Underage Casting: Orson Welles was 29, at least ten years younger than Rochester actually is.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The filmmakers intended to shoot in color, but it was later changed to black-and-white to fit the Gothic setting of the story.
  • Robert Stevenson's wife, Anna Lee, was an early choice for the role of Blanche Ingraham.
  • Suzanne Farrington was supposed to be the first choice to play as young Jane, but her father Leigh Holman objected to it, refusing her to follow her mother's footsteps in acting.
  • Vivien Leigh was offered to play the titular character, but she later rejected.