17 Things You Don’t Know About ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’

7. There are Big Differences Between Truman’s Novella and Blake Edward’s Film

The page and screen versions of this story don’t always match up. In the film, Holly goes back to claim the stray cat in the rain, realizes she loves Paul and is ready to commit as they passionately kiss. The book doesn’t have such a happy ending. The cat is forever lost and the troubled woman is left to ponder if she’s doomed to never know what she’s got until it’s gone. There is no passionate kiss or romantic resolution because the nameless narrator is, like the writer, gay. It was unfathomable to make a film with a gay lead character back in the 1960s, so adaptations had to be made. They were also much more subtle about Holly’s “profession” in the movie too, making it seem like she was just being wooed by all those men. There was supposedly a real Holly, who Truman described as an “American geisha girl.” She smoked marijuana, was bisexual, and seemed to be a professional escort. The real Holly supposedly lived below Truman in the 1940s, much like Paul and Holly in the film.