FAQ

What Holly says in the movie: > Poor slob. Poor slob without a name. The way I look at it, I don't have the right to give him one. We don't belong to each other. We just took up by the river one day.

What Holly says in the book: > "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. (...)"

"Golightly", albeit uncommon, is indeed a real surname and was around long before Truman Capote wrote the book "Breakfast At Tiffany's". The name's origin is Scottish and comes from a person who is a messenger. In the book, the first name "Holly" is said to be a nickname for "Holiday", which is also a real name, but it's very uncommon as a first name. In the film, the character is just called "Holly" and no longer version of the name is ever brought up, nor the origin of where her name came from.

While moving into an apartment on Manhattan's East Side, struggling writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard) meets party girl Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), whose aspirations are for glamor and wealth. Since Paul reminds her of her brother Fred, Holly befriends him, and Paul is immediately fascinated by her quirkiness... until he meets Holly's ex-husband Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen) and learns the truth about her.

Loosely based on a novella by American novelist Truman Capote that first appeared in the November 1958 issue of Esquire Magazine, the screenplay for Breakfast at Tiffany's was written by American screenwriter George Axelrod.

Tiffany's (or Tiffany & Company) is a luxury jewelry store in New York City. Holly sees it as the epitome of glamor and wealth, a place where nothing bad ever happens. In the opening scenes, Holly is shown eating her breakfast while standing outside Tiffany's and gazing into its windows. In a later scene, Holly and Paul go shopping at Tiffany's but find that the only thing they can afford is a sterling silver telephone dialer for $6.75, so they settle on engraving a ring from a CrackerJack box.

For one thing, Sally Tomato (Alan Reed), incarcerated in Sing Sing, paid Holly $100 every week for her visits. Unknown to Holly, she was Tomato's 'mule', carrying coded information in the weather reports from Tomato to his criminal enterprise.

Holly decides to absconce to Brazil and marry José until, while in the taxi cab on her way to hide out at the Clayton Hotel, Paul reads to her the letter from José explaining that he must end their relationship due to her arrest. When Holly maintains her intention to run to Brazil anyway and look for the 50 richest Brazilian men, Paul confesses his love for her. Nonplussed, Holly reminds him that she, like her no-name cat, belong to no one. To prove her words, she orders the driver to stop and pushes Cat out of the cab into the rain. Paul pays off the cabdriver and leaves, but not before confronting Holly and tossing the Cracker Jack ring back at her. Paul goes looking for Cat, and Holly follows. She locates the cat in an alley hiding between two crates and welcomes him back into her life. In the final scene, Holly wordlessly embraces Paul, realizing that she no longer needs to be a 'wild child', facing life alone.