Aspiring actress Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) meets Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) a homeless black woman at Coney Island and soon they share a tiny apartment. Each woman has an intolerable daughter, though Annie's little girl Sarah Jane (Karen Dicker and, later, Susan Kohner), is by far the worse. Neurotic and obnoxious, Sarah Jane doesn't like being black; since she's light-skinned (her father was practically white), she spends the rest of the film passing as white, much to her mother's heartache and shame. Lora, meanwhile, virtually ignores her own daughter (Terry Burnham and then Sandra Dee) in a single-minded quest for stardom. Legendary movie director Douglas Sirk's last American film.


Lana Turner ... Lora Meredith
John Gavin ... Steve Archer
Sandra Dee ... Susie, age 16
Robert Alda ... Allen Loomis
Susan Kohner ... Sarah Jane, age 18
Dan O'Herlihy ... David Edwards
Juanita Moore ... Annie Johnson
Karin Dicker ... Sarah Jane, age 8
Terry Burnham
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Aspiring actress Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) meets Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) a homeless black woman at Coney Island and soon they share a tiny apartment. Each woman has an intolerable daughter, though Annie's little girl Sarah Jane (Karen Dicker and, later, Susan Kohner), is by far the worse. Neurotic and obnoxious, Sarah Jane doesn't like being black; since she's light-skinned (her father was practically white), she spends the rest of the film passing as white, much to her mother's heartache and shame. Lora, meanwhile, virtually ignores her own daughter (Terry Burnham and then Sandra Dee) in a single-minded quest for stardom. Legendary movie director Douglas Sirk's last American film.


Lana Turner ... Lora Meredith
John Gavin ... Steve Archer
Sandra Dee ... Susie, age 16
Robert Alda ... Allen Loomis
Susan Kohner ... Sarah Jane, age 18
Dan O'Herlihy ... David Edwards
Juanita Moore ... Annie Johnson
Karin Dicker ... Sarah Jane, age 8
Terry Burnham ... Susie, age 6
John Vivyan ... Young man
Lee Goodman ... Photographer
Ann Robinson ... Showgirl

Troy Donahue ... Frankie
Sandra Gould ... Annette
David Tomack ... Mr. McKenney