Gorman Hendricks started off as a well respected and award-winning reporter for the Washington "Times," married, the father of five and the owner of a home and property in neighboring Arlington, Va.; he wound up as a homeless, drunken derelict living in New York City on the Bowery, cadging nickels and dimes from the sympathetic and the clueless for a drink. While working on the film, Hendricks held off drinking until filming ended; the resulting bender killed him. He is buried in the Rosedale and Rosehill Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey, section 70, grave 807.