A young aspiring screenwriter allows others to exploit her in the hopes of achieving success in Hollywood. She goes through affair after sordid affair in her attempt to write her own screenplay and have it produced.
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Title: The Lonely Lady (1983)
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6 wins & 8 nominations.
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Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Pia Zadora | ... | Jerilee Randall | |
| Lloyd Bochner | ... | Walter Thornton | |
| Bibi Besch | ... | Veronica Randall | |
| Joseph Cali | ... | Vincent Dacosta | |
| Anthony Holland | ... | Guy Jackson | |
| Jared Martin | ... | George Ballantine | |
| Ray Liotta | ... | Joe Heron | |
 |
Carla Romanelli | ... | Carla Maria Peroni |
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Olivier Pierre | ... | George Fox |
|
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Kendal Kaldwell | ... | Joanne Castel |
|
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Lou Hirsch | ... | Bernie |
| Kerry Shale | ... | Walter Thornton Jr. | |
|
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Sandra Dickinson | ... | Nancy Day |
| Shane Rimmer | ... | Adolph Fannon | |
|
|
Nancy Wood | ... | Janie |
Edit
Plot Summary
|
Plot Synopsis
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Storyline
Jerilee Randall, a simple schoolgirl living in the San Fernando Valley, dreams of becoming a famous screenwriter. While at a party, she meets the son of a famous screenwriter. The son invites her over to his house; she accepts. They drive away with some other people, and that night, she is assaulted by one of the son's friends with a garden hose. The friend is interrupted in his assault by screenwriter Walter Thornton, who arrives in time to save her from an even more disgusting fate. Walter's rescue of Jerilee begins a friendship between the two, and before you know it, the two fall in love. They marry. Their marriage falls apart when Jerilee's script rewrites actually improve one of Walter's screenplays and he feels one-upped. Jerilee then goes through affair after sordid affair in her attempt to write her own screenplay and have it produced. Written by Chris Holland <cholland@atlantic.net>
Plot Keywords:
female frontal nudity | female nudity | casting couch | screenwriter | garden hose |Taglines:
Pia Zadora is the Lonely Lady, she's determined to take nothing less than everything Hollywood has to offer. See more »Genres:
DramaParents Guide:
View content advisory »
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See more on IMDbPro »
See full technical specs »
Details
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
30 September 1983 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
Harold Robbins' The Lonely Lady See more »Edit
Box Office
Budget:
$5,000,000 (estimated)Opening Weekend USA:
$1,223,220, 2 October 1983, Wide ReleaseGross USA:
$1,223,220, 2 October 1983Company Credits
Show more on
IMDbPro »
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
MonoColor:
Color (Technicolor)Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1
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Walter Thornton: It means your stories vividly demonstrate the inadequacy of liberal values in the face of evil!
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Written by Charles Calello and Roger Voudouris
Performed by Roger Voudouris
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Did You Know?
Trivia
In the novel on which this movie is based, the scene where Pia Zadora's character accepts Best Screenplay was set at the Academy Awards and featured Jerilee Randall dropping her dress to appear totally nude with an Oscar statuette tattooed across her torso, the head of which was buried in her crotch. See more »Goofs
In one of the sex scenes, there is a cut-away in which Pia Zadora's feet appear to be attached to her legs backwards. See more »Quotes
Jerilee Randall: [reading a review] "Sensitive and perceptive stories which vividly demonstrate the inadequacy of liberal values in the face of evil." What does that mean, Walter?Walter Thornton: It means your stories vividly demonstrate the inadequacy of liberal values in the face of evil!
See more »
Alternate Versions
UK video versions are cut by 3 seconds for an "18" rating. The cinema release, with the same certificate, was uncut. See more »Soundtracks
It's Gonna Be a Long NightWritten by Charles Calello and Roger Voudouris
Performed by Roger Voudouris
See more »
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Immediately after renting and watching this movie several years ago, a friend and I decided that it defined the absolute zero on the movie scale. There was nothing about the movie that could have been done worse than it was. To this day we still rate movies, even very bad ones, by how much better than "The Lonely Lady" they are.
A long time ago I saw an interview with Eleanor Perry, who wrote the screenplays for, among other things, "Last Summer" and "Diary of a Mad Housewife," and she related that she had been asked to write a screenplay for the Harold Robbins' book "The Lonely Lady." She said that she sent in a treatment and it was rejected because they didn't think she understood the difficulties of a female screenwriter in Hollywood. She then said "I think they got someone else to write it." The interview was filmed before the movie was released. She died in 1981, and I bet the first thing she did on arrival in heaven was personally thank God for saving her from involvement in the result.