Tours including It Should Happen to You
Explore New York City's famous TV & movie locations!
Tours with It Should Happen to You
Classics TV & Movie Tour
What People are Saying
Customer Reviews“I would highly recommend it to fans of hit movies & TV shows... I was interested in seeing sites from movies filmed in the 60's through the 80's. ”
- Male, Age 40-49, Domestic Tourist
“My solution to the strike was to hop aboard an On Location Tours bus to see some of NYC’s most famed movie and TV locations live and in 3-D.”
-Entertainment Weekly, Jan. 2008
In this classic 1954 film, a naïve young woman named Gladys Glover has lived in New York for two years yearning for fame. She has been fired from her job as a model and her career is going nowhere. Strolling through Central Park, she meets a young man named Pete Sheppard (Jack Lemmon) who makes documentaries. He is taking brief shots of people in the park. He films Gladys feeding pigeons, and then introduces himself.
It is clear that Pete is smitten with Gladys. He gets her address by offering to send her a postcard when the documentary is finished so she can see herself in it and they go their separate ways. Soon, Gladys' attention is caught by a large billboard in Columbus Circle with the words "This space for rent." She fantasizes that her name is on the billboard. She heads to the office and ends up paying $630 in cash to have her name on the billboard for 3 months.
Within a few days the sign is up and she is thrilled. However, it turns out that the Adams Soap company has booked that particular sign in the past and had intended to book it again. They are upset that another client has obtained it. Gladys is called into a meeting with Evan Adams III (Peter Lawford) who attempts to get her to give up the sign by offering her more money. When Gladys is not interested, they offer to give her six signs in exchange for that one. She accepts, and now has six huge signs in New York City that simply say her name.
Meanwhile, Pete Sheppard has taken an apartment next to hers. She still does not seem to realize his interest in her, and they become platonic friends. Sheppard is, however, exasperated by her fascination with her signs. People in the City are intrigued by the mysterious signs. Soon, she is being asked to appear on television shows. However, the publicity is not all good. She is not aware that people are making fun of her. Watching this, Evan Adams III decides she would be easy to exploit as "the average American girl," in a series of advertisements for Adams Soap. Relations between her and Peter Sheppard become strained as she pursues her career.
Adams, showing more and more interest in Gladys invites her to a "business conference", which turns out to simply be an attempt at seducing her. However, when he reaches to embrace her, Gladys has had had enough and leaves. Pete Sheppard and Gladys reunite and begin planning their future together.
Oscar winner Judy Holliday was born and raised in New York City. She starred in movies throughout the 40’s and 50’s like Adam’s Rib, Born Yesterday, The Marrying Kind, Full of Life, and Bells Are Ringing.
Peter Lawford, who plays Evan Adams, is known for his roles in movies like Someone to Remember, West Side Kid, The Adventures of Mark Twain, Son of Lassie, It Happened in Brooklyn, Little Women, Ocean’s Eleven, Dead Ringer, Salt and Pepper, The Deadly Hunt, and many others.
Finally, Jack Lemmon, who had his movie debut with It Should Happen To You, has had a long and impressive career spanning the late 40’s through the 90’s. He became a household name thanks to his roles in films like Some Like it Hot, The Odd Couple, The Out of Towners, That’s Life!, JFK, Grumpy Old Men, Getting Away With Murder, 12 Angry Men, and Tuesdays With Morrie.
Book On Location Tours’ Private Classics Tour to visit the exact place in Central Park where Gladys and Pete Meet. Also see Columbus Circle, where the billboard with Gladys’ name (spelled incorrectly) is located.
* In an effort to stay current, we are constantly updating our tours with new locations and cannot guarantee the presence of locations mentioned on our site. If you have a particular interest in locations from a specific TV show or movie, please let your tour guide know and we will do our best to accomodate your request.