When "Scarface" was released, public response was so strong that Raft was given the lead in a film based on a story by Louis Bromfeld, originally called "Number 55" then changed to "Night After Night" (1932). When the studio adamantly refused to hire Texas Guinan—upon whom one of the movie's characters was based—because of her age, Raft advocated another friend, Mae West, to be cast in a supporting role in his first film as leading man. Almost half a century later, Raft and West would die within two days of each other and their bodies would be momentarily placed together on stretchers in a hallway of the same morgue.