Reportedly suggested by the life and career of Bing Crosby and songstress wife Dixie Lee; when his popularity as an entertainer eclipsed that of Lee, she drifted into extreme alcoholism, just as Susan Hayward's character does in film.
Loretta Young, who clinched the Oscar for Best Actress that year in a surprise win for La moglie celebre (1947), in later years admitted that she voted for Susan Hayward to win the award.
According to Marsha Hunt in a November 1989 article for Films in Review, "I had a big fight onscreen with Susan Hayward in a powder room, and we went right at it... no retakes. The bruises were showing. It was a hard movie to make. Miss Susan Hayward never talked to her co-workers when waiting for a take. She took no interest in the rest of us. It was extremely strange -- as if we did not exist."
In 1947, alcoholism was still a relatively unexplored topic in Hollywood films. Billy Wilder had created quite a stir with Giorni perduti (1945) two years previously, obviously paving the way for this depiction of the disease from a female perspective.
This earned Susan Hayward the first of her five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She would only win the Oscar on her fifth attempt with "I Want to Live!" (1958)