Roxanne: The Prize Pulitzer (1989) (TV)

Director:

Richard A. Colla

Writers (WGA):

Roxanne Pulitzer (autobiography) and
Cathy Maxa (autobiography) ...

Release Date:

16 October 1989 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

The 1970s Palm Beach, Fla., marriage of Roxanne and Herbert Pulitzer ends in a scandalous 1980s divorce.

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel | Character Name In Title

Cast

Perry King	...	Herbert 'Peter' Pulitzer
Courteney Cox	...	Jacquie Kimberly
Betsy Russell	...	Liza Pulitzer
Sondra Blake	...	Roxanne's Mother
Julie Caitlin Brown	...	Lorraine Odasso (as Caitlin Brown)
Amy Adams	...	Susie
Michael Champlin	...	Randy
Richardson Morse	...	Scott
Jay Glick	...	Farish
Mary Fanaro
Thom Scoggins
Chynna Phillips	...	Roxanne Pulitzer
Christian Cousins	...	Mac
Joseph Cousins	...	Zac
Janice Benson	...	Mrs. Griffen

Also Known As:

The Prize Pulitzer (Canada: English title)

Runtime:

Australia:92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Unhappiness in paradise...but what's the moral of the story?

If your knowledge of the Pulitzer family dynasty is fuzzy at best, this TV-made dramatization of factual events won't give you any additional clues. Perry King plays a wealthy bachelor down in Palm Beach, Florida; he's got a boat, a plane, a luscious spread near the ocean, a flirtatious daughter who looks like a fashion model, and a year-round tan. We don't learn much about his background or his friends (or his ex-wife, whom we meet on the fly--and who seems like just another society snob). For these reasons, it is doubly perplexing that a twenty-year-old girl from humble means, working at an insurance office, would even turn this seasoned millionaire's head. Alas, he falls madly in love with her (we presume) and they marry despite his reluctance to have any more kids. Naïve as Roxanne is, she's just as apt to have an adventurous sexual side...yet also fits of jealousy, moodiness, and a childish impetuousness about her character which one can easily see would make her a handful. Surprisingly, the early years--focusing on the couple's courtship and marriage--is far more interesting than their cause célèbre divorce, yet neither provides us with a moral. Youthful Roxy is seduced by the cocaine and the club life, but is rendered fairly helpless once Herbert Pulitzer starts pulling legal strings, making her out to be an unfit mother to their twin boys. We can see neither character was ready for a serious marriage, and that the tug-of-war for child custody is just a game to this master manipulator of a husband, but what if anything substantial can be gleaned from this doomed love story? It's a sleek exercise in would-be voyeurism, though dogged by wooden acting and a facetious script littered with holes and unexplained incidents. King, with a gray-streaked hairstyle (or wig) that never changes, is the veteran actor here, but he's just filling in a sketch left behind by writer Elizabeth Gill and it's a tepid performance.