- Creator's Favourite: Spencer Tracy considered his role as Frank Skeffington at the very least as his favorite of that year; he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for The Old Man and the Sea released earlier that same year, but he believed his performance in The Last Hurrah was superior.
- What Could Have Been:
- Orson Welles was John Ford's original choice to play Frank Skeffington, but accounts differ on why he ultimately wasn't cast. One account states that Welles either lost or refused the part after Ward Bond, a Ford friend and an ultra-conservative Republican, publicly questioned Welles' loyalty to the US, as Welles was well-known as a progressive Democrat; Ford was furious at Bond, since Welles and Ford were fans of each other's work. In Peter Bogdanovich's book This Is Orson Welles, however, Welles gave another account:Welles: When the contracts were to be settled, I was away on location, and some lawyer—if you can conceive of such a thing—turned it down. He told Ford that the money wasn't right or the billing wasn't good enough, something idiotic like that, and when I came back to town the part had gone to [Spencer] Tracy.
- Ford also considered James Cagney and John Wayne for the role of Skeffington.
- Jack Lemmon was announced at one point for the role of Adam Caufield (opposite Cagney as Skeffington).
- Orson Welles was John Ford's original choice to play Frank Skeffington, but accounts differ on why he ultimately wasn't cast. One account states that Welles either lost or refused the part after Ward Bond, a Ford friend and an ultra-conservative Republican, publicly questioned Welles' loyalty to the US, as Welles was well-known as a progressive Democrat; Ford was furious at Bond, since Welles and Ford were fans of each other's work. In Peter Bogdanovich's book This Is Orson Welles, however, Welles gave another account:
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