The Goodbye Girl is a 1977 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross, written by Neil Simon and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings and Paul Benedict. The film, produced by Ray Stark, centers on an odd trio of characters: a struggling actor who has sublet a Manhattan apartment from a friend, the current occupant (his friend's ex-girlfriend, who has just been abandoned), and her precocious young daughter.

Plot

Former chorus girl and divorcee Paula McFadden and her ten-year-old daughter Lucy live in a Manhattan apartment with Paula's married boyfriend, Tony DeForrest. Coming home from shopping, Paula finds a letter from Tony explaining that he has deserted her to travel to Italy for a film role, leaving her devastated. Paula soon learns that prior to his departure, Tony sublet the apartment to his friend Elliot Garfield, a quirky but sweet aspiring actor from Chicago, who arrives in the middle of the night expecting to move in. Although Elliot has already paid three months' rent, Paula turns him away, but after he calls her from a payphone across the street in the pouring rain and begs her to let him stay, she reluctantly agrees to share the apartment with him.

Awards