The event came very close to being cancelled due to a labor strike, which was settled three hours before the show began.
As this was his only year as an Oscar nominee, Steve McQueen and then-wife Neile Adams were in attendance in the audience. Several of McQueen's leading ladies from his films over the preceding three years were presenters, including his co-star Candice Bergen from The Sand Pebbles (1966) for which he was nominated (co-presenting the Best Costume Design award with Robert Mitchum), Lee Remick from Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) (co-presenting the Best Film Editing award with James Stewart with whom she had co-starred in Anatomy of a Murder (1959)), Ann-Margret who had worked with McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid (1965) (co-presenting the Best Cinematography award with Omar Sharif), and Mary Tyler Moore, who had just barely worked with McQueen in his TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958) in the episode titled The Twain Shall Meet (1960) (co-presenting the Best Music Score awards with her TV co-star from the several preceding years, Dick Van Dyke). One of the Best Song nominees in attendance, Burt Bacharach (who composed the music for the nominated title theme from Alfie (1966) working with lyricist Hal David), had also composed the opening theme music for McQueen's starring film debut, The Blob (1958).
Two of the nominated people that year were Steve McQueen for Best Actor for The Sand Pebbles (1966) and Burt Bacharach for Best Song for the title song of Alfie (1966). Bacharach's first composed title song had eight years before been for the movie that also was the first film for which McQueen had received top billing, the horror classic The Blob (1958). Neither won in their respective categories that night, although Bacharach would eventually accumulate three Oscars over his career so far (as of February 2022), McQueen never winning one, although the latter same-named British director Steve McQueen would win one as a producer of a later Best Picture winner, 12 Years a Slave (2013), not winning the Best Director award for which he was nominated.