On March 22, 1980, Stratten flew to New York City to begin work on what became her last film project, "They All Laughed", a romantic comedy being directed by Bogdanovich. "Laughed" would be Stratten's fifth movie in a career that had only begun the year before and represented her first substantial role in a big-budget picture, playing the unhappily-married love interest of John Ritter, one of the film's stars. Bogdanovich, who also wrote the screenplay, said in an interview that he had based the backstory of Stratten's character on what he'd learned about her marriage to Snider.