- Partnered with Mike Nichols for a number of years until their less-than-amicable split. They made up years later and wrote the movie The Birdcage (1996).
- She and Mike Nichols were referred to as "the world's fastest humans".
- Long-time life partner of Stanley Donen, she gave him a medallion inscribed, STANLEY DONEN. IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO ELAINE MAY.
- Did major uncredited rewrites at Dustin Hoffman's request during production on Tootsie (1982).
- Did major uncredited rewrites during production on Reds (1981) and also was a major creative voice in post-production for Warren Beatty.
- Is said to have worked as an uncredited script doctor for Warren Beatty on Dick Tracy (1990).
- Was married to her psychoanalyst, Dr. David L. Rubinfine for 18 years until his death in 1982.
- Directed two Oscar-nominated performances: Eddie Albert and Jeannie Berlin in The Heartbreak Kid (1972).
- Was awarded a National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama on 7/10/13, along with Tony Kushner, George Lucas and seven others.
- Married as a teenager and had a daughter (Jeannie Berlin, born in 1949) before she turned 18 years old.
- Was an uncredited script doctor on Labyrinth (1986).
- Has not directed a movie since the colossal box-office failure of Ishtar (1987).
- After working together on Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Reds (1981), Warren Beatty commissioned her to help him develop and write a biopic of Howard Hughes. Her script was one of several that Beatty developed over the years, along with Howard Hughes scripts by Bo Goldman and Robert Towne, among others. It is uncertain if any of her original work has made its way into the upcoming Beatty Hughes project Rules Don't Apply (2016).
- Mother of Jeannie Berlin.
- Was an uncredited script doctor on Dangerous Minds (1995).
- Was originally hired by Warner Bros. to write the script for the remake of the 1985 German film Men... (1985) from Doris Dörrie. WB owned the remake writes for 30 years and has commissioned numerous drafts from different writers, but Elaine May's draft was stalled in development and eventually tossed out. In 2006, WB hired Allan Loeb to write a new draft with Todd Phillips attached to direct. Around 2008, Tom Cruise was rumored to be loosely attached to star, but that project eventually stalled in development as well.
- Is of Russian Jewish descent.
- Was an uncredited script doctor on Wolf (1994).
- Wrote an unused treatment for the Paramount story idea Runaway Bride (1999), during the early 1990s. The idea for the movie was originally conceived in the late 1980s by Paramount executives, who hired screenwriters Josann McGibbon and Sara Parriott to flesh out the story and write the script. Their script was completed in 1989 and was in development for nine years. During that time, Paramount hired May to write a new treatment for the story, but her treatment was tossed out, along with another by screenwriter Leslie Dixon. However, by 1998 Paramount went back to the original draft by McGibbon and Parriott and landed Julia Roberts, Richard Gere and Garry Marshall.
- She has appeared in three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Graduate (1967), King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1969) and A New Leaf (1971). She has also directed one film that is in the registry: A New Leaf (1971).
- One of only three women to have won the Razzie Award for Worst Director. The other two ere Jennifer Lynch for Boxing Helena (1993) and Elizabeth Banks, who was one of several directors of Movie 43 (2013). May, who won for Ishtar (1987), actually tied the award with Norman Mailer for Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987).
- Mentioned in My Whole Life Is Thunder (2012).
- Won the Tony for best actress for her performance in The Waverley Gallery.
- In 1968, she wrote an unproduced script "One Hundred Million Dollar Misunderstanding", based on Robert Gover's novel "One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding".
- She wrote the original version of the screenplay for The Loved One (1965). It remains unclear whether the credited writers of the filmed version, Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood, built their script on hers or started from scratch.
- She was originally cast as one of the psychiatric patient in Journey to the Day (1960), but had to be recast due to her disagreements with director John Frankenheimer.
- In addition to her numerous uncredited screenwriting jobs, there are also several instances of uncredited directing. These include several documentaries by her lifelong collaborator, producer Julian Schlossberg, as he admitted in his autobiography "Try Not to Hold It Against Me", published in 2023.
- She turned down the part of Joanna Wallace in Two for the Road (1967), eventually played by Audrey Hepburn.
- She turned down the offer to rewrite Woody Allen's screenplay for What's New Pussycat (1965), given by Warren Beatty, who was supposed to star in it at the time. May would later repeatedly collaborate with both Allen and Beatty on different projects.
- She turned down offer to rewrite the script for Swing Shift (1984).
- She turned down the part of Louise in Take the Money and Run (1969), eventually played by Janet Margolin.
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