Did You Know?

The inside of the ice palace was mostly made up specifically formed wax.

The film was torn apart by critics when first released. Newsweek, in particular, made comments about "hack-job sets" and "pallid photography." David Lean was so deeply affected by these criticisms (despite the popularity of the film with the general public) that he swore he would never make another film.

Producer Carlo Ponti originally bought the rights to the novel so that he could cast his wife, Sophia Loren, in the role of Lara. David Lean, however, did not want to use Loren, claiming that she was 'too tall' for the role.

Rod Steiger was on set filming for 12 months.

The actor who plays the young Yuri Zhivago at his mother's funeral is Omar Sharif's son Tarek Sharif.

Rita Tushingham filmed her part in two weeks.

In an interview years after making the film, Rod Steiger said he was almost the only American among so many great British actors. "All I wanted to do was not embarrass myself."

This film grossed more than every other film David Lean had directed put together.

When David Lean told the studio that he wanted Maurice Jarre to provide the score, he was told, "Maurice is very good on sand, but I'm sure we have someone better on snow." Jarre, of course, won the Oscar for best original score for this film.

Ranked #7 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions: America's Greatest Love Stories, #39 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies: America's Greatest Movies and received a nomination for AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores.

David Lean wanted Audrey Hepburn to play Tonya, but was so impressed by Geraldine Chaplin's audition that he cast her on the spot.

Several producers and studios bid for the rights to the novel, which Carlo Ponti won in 1963. He wanted the film to be as grand as Lawrence of Arabia, so he recruited the crew of that film, including director David Lean, screenwriter Robert Bolt, cinematographer Freddie Young, production designer John Box and composer Maurice Jarre.

Thousands of extras were used, including Spanish soldiers and villagers, and Finnish Laplanders (for the scenes in Siberia when Zhivago deserts the Red Army).

A ten-acre replica of Moscow was built in Canillas, a suburb of Madrid. It included a cobbled 800-yard street with trolley cars, a train viaduct, a replica of the Kremlin and 60 shops and houses circling a giant plaza.

The soundtrack sold more than 600,000 copies during the film's initial release.

The limousine seen at the hydro-electric power plant at the beginning and end of the film is a Czech built Tatra. These cars were favorites of Soviet bureaucrats in the late 1940s and 1950s.

According to Freddie Young, before he reluctantly agreed to take the director of photography job following an exhausting collaboration on Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean had a major falling-out with the previous director of photography, Nicolas Roeg, over creative differences. After Young took over, an additional two weeks of photography was required to re-shoot the scenes that Roeg had shot.

Hungarian actress, Lili Muráti, was seriously injured in the scene where she runs along side of the train and grabs Zhivago's (Omar Sharif) hand to be hauled aboard. But a miscalculation was made. Sharif had been instructed to grab and hold on to Murati's hand. "She started panicking", said Ernest Day, who was watching it all through the camera, "but he didn't understand her. She was trying to make him let go, and when she did finally wrench her hand away she stumbled and disappeared out of the viewfinder". Murati had bunched up as she had fallen so the train wheels had not severed her limbs. She was also wearing thick clothes, which protected her further. Her stumble can be clearly seen in the finished film.

When asked if he thought Sarah Miles would make a good choice for the part of Lara, screenwriter Robert Bolt said "No, she's just a north country slut". Bolt would later marry Miles.

Varykino is actually a city to the West of Moscow, not East as the movie portrays in Siberia.

As of 2010, adjusted for inflation, Doctor Zhivago is the 8th biggest grossing film of all time.

Max von Sydow and Paul Newman were considered for the part of Zhivago.

The scene where Zhivago and Lara meet amidst all the army deserters is a deliberate homage to King Vidor's The Big Parade, one of David Lean's favorite films.

Geraldine Chaplin's English language film debut.

The budget ballooned from $5 million to $15 million.

Initially the film failed to make much impact at the box office, probably due to the critics' lukewarm reception to it. Indeed the first three weeks returns were considered to be a disaster, despite a million dollars being spent on publicity. David Lean remarked at the time that "you could hurl boulders in the theater and not hurt anyone". Gradually, audiences started to pick up, probably due to the incredible popularity of Maurice Jarre's "Lara's Theme".

David Lean had heard a piece of Russian music that he felt was perfect for the film but was unable to secure the copyright. So he tasked Maurice Jarre with coming up with a suitable theme for the film. Jarre submitted suggestion after suggestion, all of which were rejected by Lean. Eventually Lean told him to take off for the weekend with his girlfriend and to hole himself up in a cabin up in the mountains and make love for the entire weekend. This proved to do the trick as Jarre returned from his romantic break with "Lara's Theme".

Julie Christie hated having to wear the infamous red dress. Initially, she refused to even put it on until production designer John Box assured her that she looked absolutely beautiful in it. (David Lean would never have been able to be so complimentary about one of his actors, and indeed had instructed Box to try and win her round.)

Geraldine Chaplin's first filmed scene was when her character reads out a letter to Ralph Richardson. Although she pulled off the scene, Chaplin was very fortunate that the camera didn't pick up on the fact that she was shaking throughout.

Geraldine Chaplin modeled her performance of Tonya on her own mother, Oona Chaplin.

We never learn the fates either of Lara's mother or of her first daughter, Katya Pavlovna.