Midnight Cowboy opened up in only 2 theaters , one in Los Angeles and one in New York.
The Miami hotel in the end of the film is a really famous. It's called the Great Southern Hotel and has been up for a very long time. Currently there are talks about tearing it down.
To make his limp more realistic, Dustin Hoffman put pebbles in his shoe.
Midnight Cowboy was the first high profile movie ever to be rated X. It contained no guns, no gratuitous nudity and the F-word isn't spoken once in the film. Right after Midnight Cowboy won best picturethe MPAA changed it to an R.
Ratso's "I'm walkin' here" line was completly improvised by Dustin Hoffman.
Hoffman's salary cost half of the movie's $3 million budget.
Kiel Martin, Micheal Sarrazin, and Warren Beatty were all considered for the role of Joe Buck.
In the scene where Ratso and Joe are walking across the bridge, Dustin pushed himself so hard to get a realistic cough that on the third take he ended up throwing up on Jon Voight's boots.
On his bus ride out to Manhattan Joe Buck was to meet a young Veitnam veteran. This role was to be played by a struggling, young actor named Al Pacino.