Soapdish

Soapdish is a 1991 comedy film which tells a backstage story of the cast and crew of a popular fictional television soap opera. It stars Sally Field as a mature soap star, joined by Kevin Kline, Robert Downey, Jr., Elisabeth Shue, Whoopi Goldberg, Teri Hatcher, Cathy Moriarty, Garry Marshall, Kathy Najimy, and Carrie Fisher, as well as cameo appearances by TV personalities like Leeza Gibbons, John Tesh both playing themselves as Entertainment Tonight hostsreporters, reallife soap opera actors Stephen Nichols and Finola Hughes, and Ben Stein. Kline was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for the film.

Celeste Talbert Sally Field, the longtime star of the daytime drama The Sun Also Sets, is targeted by her ambitious costar Montana Moorehead Cathy Moriarty Montana connives to supplant Celeste as the shows star by promising sexual favors to its producer, David Seton Barnes Robert Downey, Jr.. To make the audience hate Celestes character, Montana and David come up with a lastminute plot change in which she will accidentally kill a young, destitute deafmute, played by the newlycast Lori Craven Elisabeth Shue. Despite the strong objections of Head Writer Rose Schwartz Whoopie Goldberg and Celeste herself, the scene plays out, but is interrupted by Celestes recognition of Lori as her reallife niece. Network honcho Edmund Edwards Garry Marshall sees potential in the relationship and makes Lori a regular cast member.Montana and David seek to further unnerve Celeste by bringing back Jeffrey Anderson Kevin Kline, an actor who Celeste arranged to be fired from The Sun Also Sets decades before, after his romantic relationship with Celeste went sour. Bitter at being reduced to performing dinner theater for uninterested seniors in Florida, Jeffrey relishes the chance to needle Celeste. Outwardly despising Jeffrey but perhaps still harboring some feelings for him, Celeste becomes unhinged when Jeffrey and Lori seem to be about to begin a romantic relationship, seemingly from jealousy. However, when Lori and Jeffrey are about it enact a scripted onscreen kiss, Celeste stops them by revealing that Lori is actually her daughter by Jeffrey. On camera, Celeste explains that she was responsible for getting Jeffrey fired because she was distraught about the pregnancy. Then she went home, passed Lori off as her niece, and had her parents raise Lori, all due to pressure from the network. This incites disgust and scorn from nearly everyone on the show towards Celeste, but the scandal ignites renewed interest in the show, causing the ratings to skyrocket. A board meeting between the shows

Source: Wikipedia