A Rage to Live

This soapy melodrama based on the novel by John O'Hara earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design. Suzanne Pleshette stars as Grace Caldwell, a newspaper heiress and nymphomaniac whose numerous dalliances threaten to destroy her wealthy Pennsylvania family's image. Taken on a vacation to the Bahamas by her widowed mother Emily (Carmen Mathews), Grace can't resist a tryst with a waiter, which causes Emily a fatal heart attack. Back home, Grace meets a new beau, Sidney Tate (Bradford Dillman) at a Christmas party. The gentlemanly Sidney wins Grace's heart and she marries him, promising to end her sexually wild ways. A few years later, however, Grace sleeps with a construction worker and the resulting scandal when her lover dies in a drunken car wreck leads Sidney to believe that Grace is also having an affair with an old friend, Jack Hollister (Peter Graves).