 Its director Val Guest suggested to Harvey that it might be a good idea to model his film role of Johnny Jackson on Mankowitz's own character, and so Harvey arranged a couple of lunches with the unsuspecting writer to study him at close hand, resulting in the character on film sounding something like Mankowitz.Mankowitz himself appears in the film's opening credit sequence, wearing a sandwich-board bearing his writer credit.Mankowitz's script for Anthony Asquith's film "The Millionairess" (1960), based on the 1936 play by George Bernard Shaw and starring Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers, was nominated for a BAFTA Award for best screenplay.