The Ladies’ Man was announced in the 18 Apr 1960 DV as Jerry Lewis’s next independent production for Paramount Pictures, slated to shoot in fall 1960. On 8 Aug 1960, DV reported that Mel Brooks was currently at work on the screenplay.
       Although production on the $3.1 million film was rescheduled to begin on 15 Nov 1960, as stated in that day’s DV, the forty-two-day shoot commenced two weeks later on 30 Nov 1960, according to the 29 Nov 1960 and 2 Dec 1960 issues of DV. The bulk of filming took place on a $500,000 set, built on Stage 15 at Paramount Pictures studio in Hollywood, CA. Representing the boarding hotel where “Herbert H. Heebert” takes a job as a houseboy, the set was described in the 2 Dec 1960 NYT as a “free-form reproduction of Hollywood’s Studio Club,” a boarding house run by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), which catered to aspiring actresses. The forty-room structure took thirty-nine days to build, and was thirty-six-feet high, 177-feet long, and 154-feet wide. Like a dollhouse, it was walled on only three sides. Lights and microphones were “recessed into the construction” to facilitate filming, and Lewis reportedly boasted that there were fifty-six hidden microphones and “three miles of wire” within the building.
       After roughly two weeks of shooting, Lewis fired cinematographer Haskell Boggs, with whom he had collaborated on The Delicate Delinquent (1957, see entry), Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958, see entry), The Geisha Boy (1958, see entry), and The Bellboy (1960, see entry). Boggs and Lewis were said to have disagreed on Boggs’s technical approach. He was replaced by W. Wallace Kelley.
       The 4 Feb 1961 LAT noted that Lewis filmed the real-life wedding of actress Daria Massey, who married David Lee Joesting following “a set romance,” for inclusion in the film. Reverend Morris R. Bigbee, of Burbank, CA, was said to have performed the ceremony, for which he received a $150 acting fee, while Laura and Linda Girard were paid $35 each for their real-life roles as flower girls. An unnamed “veteran movie writer” speculated that the scene might represent a first in fictional feature films.
       According to the 23 Dec 1960 DV, eighty-three cast members had been hired, to that time. Various items in DV and LAT, published between 5 Mar 1960 and 9 Jan 1961, noted that the following actors and performers would appear in the picture: singer Tony Bennett; Joan Blackman; Diana Dors; jazz singer Jackie Cain; Bobby Van (who was also set to choreograph); William Wellman, Jr.; Joey Faye; Art Baker; Paul Lees; Peggy Cass; Peter Potter; Dick Haynes; Ira Cook; Sue Roberts; Fritz Feld; and Don Brodie.
       A 3 Jul 1961 release date was initially scheduled, according to a 4 May 1961 DV item, which noted that the “Markley Plan” would be implemented to promote the picture. The strategy was described as a collaboration between the studio and theater circuits, in which the studio’s national campaign would be coordinated with individually “tailored” advertising campaigns devised by local exhibitors.
       In New York City, The Ladies’ Man opened in multiple theaters on 12 Jul 1961, on a double-bill with Love in a Goldfish Bowl (1961, see entry). Following mixed reviews, an advertisement in the 21 Jul 1961DV boasted a first-week gross of $271,635.