 Margaret Elliot (Bette Davis) is a bankrupted washed-up Hollywood Oscar winning star living in the past and not accepting the reality. After another great deception trying to get her career back, she gets drunken and is jailed. She is bailed out by Jim Johannson (Sterling Hayden), a young actor promoted by her that gave up the career to buy a repair shipyard. Jim loved her and tries with Margaret s daughter Gretchen (Natalie Wood) to make Margaret see that her glorious days of Hollywood star are over, and she shall live in the real world like a common human being.