Biography: A Comedy in Three Acts

The plot is set in motion when a young highly principled editor who hates everything about Marion's world but sees the commercial value of a tell-all for his gossip driven magazine persuades her to write a memoir. Given that she's in a fallow period, the $2000 advance offered (during this depression year of 1932 that was enough to feed a whole family for a year) plus the idea that revisiting her past would be fun and enlightening, she agrees. The girlhood lover who's recently reappeared in her life, is appalled by her memoir writing which he sees as a threat to his impending U.S. Senate campaign. A more recent lover, a self-absorbed hammy actor, sees it as an opportunity for publicizing himself. Not surprisingly, the young editor, like everyone who basks in the warmth of Marion's sunny personality, also succumbs to her charm. Others in the service of either adding to the memoir-induced complications or resolving them are a Viennese composer friend, the would-be Senator's fiancee and her rich and powerful father. Oh, and, of course, a devoted maid.