Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (film) later inspired a television soap opera in 1967, though without the hyphen in the show's title. A widowed Eurasian doctor Han Suyin (Jones) falls in love with a married-but-separated American correspondent Mark Elliott (Holden) in Hong Kong, during the period of China's Civil War in the late 1940s. Although they briefly find happiness together, she is ostracized by the greater Chinese community. After losing her position at the hospital, Suyin and her adopted daughter go to live with a friend while Mark is on an assignment during the Korean War. They write to each other constantly. She receives word Mark
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (film) garlic before her love scenes, which she may have done to discourage him. Once, Holden tried to make peace, offering Jones a bouquet of white roses, which she tossed back in his face. The film was completed on time, within the planned three months schedule. Upon its initial release it made US$4 million in the United States of America. "Variety" characterized it as "beautiful, absorbing." The music was initially commissioned from Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster as background music. It was extensively developed and woven into the film's orchestral score by Alfred Newman and his choral director Ken Darby.