This semi-film within a film opens in the office of producer George Jessel, who never saw a camera he couldn't get in front of, who is holding a story conference to determine the screen treatment for the life of Eva Tanguay, and Jessel is unhappy with what the writers present him.He tells them to look up Eddie McCoy, Eva's one-time partner, for the real inside story on the lusty and vital Eva. Eddie's version is that he discovered her working as a waitress in an Indianapolis restaurant in 1912, wherein singer Larry Woods and his partner Charles Bennett get into a fight over her and both land in the hospital, and McCoy convinces the manager to put Eva on as a single to fill their spot. She flopped, but McCoy arranges for Bennett to be her accompanist, and she went out of his life. The writers look up Bennett, now head of a music publishing company, who says McCoy's story is phony, and it was Flo Zigfeld who discovered Eva for his Follies.
Mitzi Gaynor
as Eva Tanguay
David Wayne
as Ed McCoy
Oscar Levant
as Charles Bennett
Warren Stevens
as Keene
Craig Hill
as Lawrence
Hazel Brooks
as Stella Forrest
Bob Graham
as Larry Woods
Gwen Verdon
as Specialty Dancer
Lovyss Bradley
as Nurse
Marjorie Holliday
as Secretary
George Conrad
as Dresser
Marietta Canty
as Dolly
