Though Robertson bore little physical resemblance to Kennedy and was nearly 40 years old at the time the film was made, Alvin Cluster told Robertson, "The President picked you not only because you were a fine actor but because you're young looking, yet mature enough so that the world won't get the idea the President was being played by a parking lot attendant or something." In his autobiography "Kookie, No More", Edd Byrnes wrote that he was told, "President John F. Kennedy didn't want to be played by 'Kookie'."