30 big (huge!) secrets about the beauty revealed

“She saves him right away.”

On March 23, 1990, Disney released a small romantic comic starring an up-and-coming actress about a businessman and a prostitute who fall in love after he pays her thousands of dollars to spend a week with him. Not the stuff of fairy tales…but Pretty Woman this was no ordinary romantic comedy.

Director Harry Marshallthe Hollywood legend, who died in 2016, and stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gerewho turns 73 on August 31, no one expected Pretty Woman to become a hit, not to mention one of the most successful films of the 1990s and one of the most arbitrary love stories in film history.

Made for just $17 million, the story of Edward Lewis (Gere) and Vivian Ward (Roberts) grossed more than $460 million worldwide, earned four Golden Globe nominations and made Roberts one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

But did you know that Roberts had almost no iconic roles, and several other A-list actresses almost stepped into Vivian’s shoes? How about the original script was much darker and would have made Walt Disney blush?