Summaries

Synopsis

Toby Temple (Perry King) is an unsuccessful stand-up comic. He decides to try his luck in Hollywood. He almost meets Josie Czinski (Lori Laughlin) at the diner where she works in Missoula, Montana, but someone else waits on him.

Josie comes from a working class family, but she had been involved with wealthy David Kenyon (Geordie Johnson) until he went away to college. Now he's back, and they start dating again. David wants to marry her, but his disapproving mother fakes an illness to stop him. She conspires with Cissy, an "appropriate" match. Cissy tells David they can marry in name only until his mother dies, then he can be with Josie. Josie finds out about the engagement, and doesn't give him a chance to explain, but leaves for Hollywood to make it as an actress. David marries Cissy.

Toby finds out that the best agent in town is Clifton Lawrence (Christopher Plummer), then stalks and seduces his assistant Alice Tanner (Juliet Mills) to get to him. She suspects that she's being used, but she enjoys the affair, and introduces Toby to Clifton. Clifton falls in love with him (though this is never stated plainly), and turns him into a big TV star. Alice leaves, and Toby becomes a rich, womanizing jerk. He insists that Clifton represent him exclusively.

Meanwhile, Josie works in bit parts, then she trusts the wrong man and ends up drugged and raped, the whole thing turned into a porn film. She has changed her name to Jill Castle, but the porn film is released under her real name.

Jill uses sex to work her way to Toby, then refuses to have sex with him until he proposes marriage. Clifton investigates her and tries to scare her off, but she calls his bluff. Once she marries Toby, she gets him to fire Clifton, and takes over as his manager.

Toby has a stroke, and Jill nurses him back to health. Clifton find Jill's old porn film, and takes it to show Toby, but the couple has left for London for Toby's big comeback performance. At the airport, Jill runs into David, who is now divorced and still in love with her. Before they can board the flight, Toby has another stroke, and David says he'll stay in LA for her.

Toby can't speak, but Jill believes she can hear his thoughts, saying that he knows she wants him out of the way so she can be with David. Jill plans to push his electric wheelchair into their pool and kill him, but their butler interrupts her. While she's on the phone with David in another room, Toby drives the wheelchair into the pool, committing suicide.

After the funeral, Jill and David are going to sail to Europe and get married. Jill is already on the ship, as is Clifton. When David arrives, Clifton intercepts him and takes him to the ship's theater to show him Jill's porn film. David beats Clifton up, but then leaves the ship. Clifton goes to Jill and tells her how he's gotten his revenge.

That night, Jill believes she sees Toby's ghost. It tells her to jump overboard so they can be together in death, which she does.