The urban legend about the ghost of a boy appearing in Three Men And A Baby has long been debunked, but it still refuses to go away. Tom Selleck famously found himself at a career crossroads in 1980, where he was up for the role of Indiana Jones in Raiders Of The Lost Ark but was forced to pass due to his commitment to a new series called Magnum P.I. As it turned out a production delay on the show would have given him the time to film Raiders anyway, but considering Magnum P.I. was one of the 1980s biggest series, things worked out fine.
Tom Selleck tried to launch a movie career alongside the series, though the likes of Michael Crichton's Runaway or High Road To China mostly underwhelmed financially. One Selleck movie that definitely didn't underperform was Three Men And A Baby, which became one of 1987's biggest hits. This Leonard Nimoy directed movie paired Selleck with Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson as three swinging bachelors who are forced to become responsible parents to a baby girl, who is the daughter of Danson's vain actor.
Three Men And A Baby was a surprise box-office smash and later led to 1990 sequel Three Men And A Little Lady. Selleck spoke back in 2010 about plans for a possible third movie called Three Men And A Bride, though the threequel has yet to appear. The original film is still warmly regarded but shortly after its release, an urban legend spread about a ghost appearing in the background of a scene where Danson's character and his mother walk around the apartment with the baby.
The story goes that a young boy died in the same apartment where Three Men And A Baby was filmed, and he can be briefly seen behind the curtains in one shot. While the rumor no doubt helped the rental figures for the VHS release, it has been long debunked. Tom Selleck himself thoroughly cleared this up during an interview on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. The "ghost" is actually a cardboard cutout of Danson's Jack from another acting gig and the movie was shot on a soundstage, not a real apartment.
The Three Men And A Baby ghost urban legend refuses to completely vanish, however, and it reappears from time to time. Of course, the appeal of movie myths is undeniable, which is why some tend to endure even when they're debunked, such as the rumor a body can be seen hanging deep in the background of a scene in The Wizard Of Oz - which is actually a pelican wandering around. Some of the most bizarre can turn out to be true, such as Walt Disney's final two words - which he wrote down on his death bed before passing away in 1966 - being "Kurt Russell."