The original Broadway production of "Come Back, Little Sheba" by William Inge opened at the Booth Theater in New York on February 15, 1950 and ran for 190 performances. Shirley Booth won the 1950 Tony Award (New York City) for Actress in a Drama for portraying Lola on stage and then recreated the role in the film version for which she won the Best Actress Oscar award.
Burt Lancaster actively campaigned to play the alcoholic husband in this film, even though he was much younger than the character, Doc, who was in his mid-fifties. Sidney Blackmer, who had played the part on Broadway in the original production, was 18 years older than Lancaster, and Shirley Booth was 15 years his senior. The role of Doc was coveted by Humphrey Bogart, who was the right age, but Bogart lost out to Lancaster due to studio politics, despite the fact that he had just turned in his Oscar-winning performance in La Reine africaine (1951). With several stars vying for Doc, it occurred to no one that the perfect actor for the role was Academy Award winner Dean Jagger, whose gentle temperament and everyman physical appearance were exactly what the part called for.