Fledgling comic Benjy Stone can't believe his luck when his childhood hero, the swashbuckling matinee idol Alan Swann, gets booked to appear on the variety show he writes for. But when Swann arrives, he fails to live up to his silver screen image. Instead, he's a drunken womanizer who suffers from stage fright. Benjy is assigned to look after him before the show, and it's all he can do to keep his former idol from going completely off the rails.
Acting
O'Toole's Oscar-nominated, barely-fictionalized self-portrait
Writing
Dennis Palumbo's autobiographical 1950s TV chaos
Costume
Swann's ridiculous capes and Benjy's sad suits
Director
Richard Benjamin
Peter O'Toole
Alan Swann
Mark Linn-Baker
Benjy Stone
Jessica Harper
K.C. Downing
Joseph Bologna
King Kaiser
Bill Macy
Sy Benson
Lainie Kazan
Belle Carroca
Anne DeSalvo
Alice Miller
Basil Hoffman
Herb Lee
Lou Jacobi
Uncle Morty
Adolph Green
Leo Silver
Tony DiBenedetto
Alfie Bumbacelli
George Wyner
Myron Fein
Selma Diamond
Lil
Cameron Mitchell
Karl Rojeck
Jenny Neumann
Connie
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Peter O'Toole based Swann on his own drinking buddy Errol Flynn, and reportedly said playing drunk was easy—he just remembered.
The King Kaiser show is based on Your Show of Shows, where writer Mel Brooks actually did babysit a drunken Errol Flynn for a week in 1954.
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