A Movie Star Has To Star in Black and White

About the show

The show begins with an image of the Columbia Pictures Lady drenched in a bright light. This first scene takes place in the Now, Voyager set as well as the hospital lobby. It is summer in New York, 1955. The Columbia Pictures Lady sets the scene and talks about suicidal thoughts, loneliness, and marital troubles (all recurring throughout). The scene fades to Clara, an African-American woman in a maternity dress. She longs to be a successful writer as well as find someone she can "...co-exist in a true union" with. The Scene switches to Bette Davis and Paul Henreid on the deck of a liner from Now, Voyager. Bette takes on the thoughts of Clara and expresses her concerns about dying from blood loss in childbirth, as her mother had. She was supposed to be an angel to the family, but she did not bring her family peace. Clara's Mother comes into the picture and explains the difference of living between the blacks and whites in their town. Whites had sidewalks with paved roads, nice bathrooms and water fountains. Blacks had dirt roads, they weren't allowed to sit in restaurants and they had to sit on a separate train. Bette dreams of talking to Jesus; she writes about God often. Clara's father left the family to be with a girl who talks to willow trees. She talks about her forced relationship with her ex-husband, Eddie. The pregnant Clara enters and talks to Eddie about jealousy. She wants to do something with her life like he does. She reads her own story about dragging the dead body of her father through the grass, her is her "blood father". She talks about how her father had attempted suicide. She yearns to fly free like the Owl to be in the Kingdom of God. Dead. In scene two, the lights come up on Clara's entrance into her brother's hospital room and Viva Zapata!. Wally, Clara's brother is in a coma. Jean Peters takes on the story of Clara. Clara's mother enters upset about how her children are unhappy. Clara expresses that she is very happy because she is going to have one of her plays produced. Clara's mother doesn't understand how Clara could be happy without a family of her own. She asks Clara to get back together with Eddie now that she is pregnant. Jean Peters has extreme depression about her divorce from Eddie. She has to borrow money from Eddie because she doesn't make enough money independently, which drives her crazy. Wally is most likely not going to survive. Clara recites a poem about calling to God, but The Owl Answers. Clara's Mother and Father fight about their divorce. Jean Peters recites more from her play, wishing that she could fly away like the Owl to God. In the final scene, it is a flashback where Shelley Winters and Montgomery Clift are rowing in a small boat from the set of A Place in the Sun. Clara is in bed. She is bleeding and writing poems. Kennedy then notes that Clift continues to grow; she says that all three male movie stars are to be mute. Clara is sharing her aspirations of being an African American writer from a very young age. People told her it was unrealistic. Eddie calls her passion for writing an "obsession to write". Eddie says that she has become shy and secretive. Eddie feels like Clara is a spectator of her own life and that her diaries consume her. Eddie doesn't seem the same since he came back from the war in Korea. Jean Peters reads a segment of writing that talks about a bad fight between her mother and father. She again speaks of being an Owl in a fig tree and reaching the Kingdom of God. Jean Peters tells the story of Wally who dropped out of school to be in the army. He committed a crime and was let go from the army and is working in a hospital. He tried to go back to school but dropped out again. He married a girl right before he went to Germany. She graduated cum laude while he was a prisoner in stockade. It is back to current times and Clara cries about her brother being close to death. Her brother will live brain dead and paralyzed. The show closes with a "Brief dazzling image of the Columbia Pictures Lady."