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Allegations about Clyde Barrow's homosexuality may have stemmed from the fact that, as an inmate at Texas' Eastham Prison Farm (1930 to 1932), Barrow was repeatedly raped by another male convict. According to Jeff Guinn, author of an authoritative biography of Bonnie and Clyde, Barrow finally killed his assailant by luring him into an isolated area of the prison and then beating him to death with a lead pipe. It was Barrow's first murder. Another inmate, already serving a life sentence, took the rap for Barrow, who was released from the prison farm in February 1932, a bitter and hardened killer at the age of 22.
Warner Bros. had so little faith in the film that they offered first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross instead of a minimal fee. The movie went on to gross over $70 million.
When Warren Beatty was on-board as producer only, his sister Shirley MacLaine was a strong possibility to play Bonnie. But when Beatty decided to play Clyde himself, for obvious reasons he decided not to use MacLaine.
The Gene Wilder-Evans Evans sequence is based on the kidnappings of undertaker H.D. Darby and his acquaintance, Sophia Stone, near Ruston, Louisiana, on the late afternoon of April 27, 1933, by the Barrow gang, who had stolen their car. They were both released unharmed several hours later. According to Darby, one of the Barrow gang members asked what he did for a living and when he replied that he was an undertaker, Bonnie Parker allegedly said to him in a sarcastic tone that "You may have to work on me someday." The following year, H.D. Darby was indeed one of the coroners who worked on Bonnie and Clyde after they had been killed by the police.
In real life, Clyde Barrow was a highly dangerous marksman who had mastered most firearms, including the Browning automatic rifle and the Thompson submachine gun. The lawmen chasing him were well aware of his ability with a gun, which partly explains the ruthlessness behind the way he was gunned down.
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