Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) is the junior writer on a top-rated variety/comedy live television show, in the mid 1950's. Young Benjy has a crush on a coworker, K.C. Downing (Jessica Harper), but rather than asking her for a date, he routinely tries to get her to sleep with him. Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole), aging movie idol, former star of swashbucklers, a womanizer and an alcoholic, is to be this week's guest star. When he arrives drunk, the show's headliner, King Kaiser (Joseph Bologna), wants to cancel Swann's appearance. Benjy makes a pitch to save his childhood hero, and is assigned to babysit Swann to ensure he stays out of trouble and shows up for the broadcast. In the meantime, a local union boss who is parodied on the show in a recurring sketch threatens Kaiser to make him stop. Kaiser refuses. Installed in a fancy hotel suite, Swann explains to Benjy that he is working to pay off his tax bills. That evening, they head out to a fancy restaurant. While Benjy provides a distraction, Swann charms a beautiful woman away from her boring husband. Pictures of the two (wearing only a blanket) after their arrest in the park are splashed on the front pages the next day, and Benjy is under fire for the incident. A cooperative Swann accompanies Benjy to his Jewish mother's (Lainie Kazan) Brooklyn home for a meal, where he charms the entire family. At the network, Swann gives Benjy advice on wooing K.C., and their subsequent date works out nicely. Swann exposes his insecure side when he has the chauffeur drive him a state away to the neighborhood where his only child, a daughter, lives, but does not get out of the car nor speak to her. At the dress rehearsal for the Three Musketeers sketch, the sober Swann is horrified to learn that the show will be broadcast live rather than filmed. He shouts, I am not an actor, I'm a movie star!, grabs a bottle, and starts drinking. A disgusted Benjy reads him the riot act. As the live broadcast begins, the union boss's thugs emerge from the backstage and attack King Kaiser in his gangster suit. Observing from the balcony, a drunken Swann realizes what is happening, grabs a dangling rope, and swoops onto the stage as he had done in so many movies. He helps King Kaiser defeat the bad guys in real life. As the two take their bows, Swann grandly waves his sword to the madly applauding audience. Benjy says that's the way he likes to remember Swann, and states that Swann went to see his daughter the next day and actually talked to her.