Summary
Adrienne Landreth, velvet-clad prisoner of a Fifth-Avenue palace, trades her diamonded inertia for the sulphur glare of Broadway footlights, coaxing her mirror-image—Drina Lynn, the drab, dutiful twin—to don her matrimonial mask while she stalks the stage as an ersatz starlet; the charade pirouettes into cruel farce when the cuckolded Geoffrey, hungering for the sudden warmth radiating from the impostor at his breakfast table, books two stalls for a new revue and unknowingly applauds his fugitive wife; spotlight strikes retina, vertigo swallows posture, and a cascade of painted plywood steps converts ambition into a cracked skull; she expires amid greasepaint and roses, leaving the survivors to inherit a marriage cleansed by deception and baptized in blood.
Synopsis
Adrienne Landreth, the wife of Geoffrey Landreth, is dissatisfied with her life of luxury and is estranged from her husband. Because she longs for a footlight career as a musical star, when she is offered an opportunity to star on Broadway by theatrical producer Fred Corliss, she persuades her twin sister Drina Lynn to come to New York and pose as Geoffrey's wife while she herself pursues a career. Drina, less fortunate than her sister, reluctantly agrees and Geoffrey soon notices that his wife has become more compassionate and understanding. Hoping for a reconciliation, Geoffrey persuades his wife to attend the theater, and by chance, selects Adrienne's show. Upon seeing her husband in the audience, Adrienne becomes so disoriented that she stumbles and falls from the top of a flight of stairs, injuring herself fatally. She dies in her dressing room, leaving Drina and Geoffrey to face future happiness.
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