As Joan Rivers told it, before she and Barbra Streisand were famous, they were in an off-Broadway play together. Failing as a club comic and returning to more artistic pursuits, Rivers demanded she be cast in the production without even reading the script. The result: the role she was given called for a love scene between herself and Streisand.
Inspired by his heroes, the writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, a young Les Dawson leaving his home in Manchester to live in Paris in order to pursue his dream of becoming a serious novelist. Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out as he planned, and he ended up becoming a pianist in a brothel.