In the summer of 1960, Carolyn Pfeiffer leaves her hometown of Madison, North Carolina, for New York City, to begin a career as a model and receptionist for L'Oreal cosmetics. New York is a bustling city filled with opportunity for young women looking to exercise their newly found independence and leave behind the traditional expectation of settling down to become wives and mothers. Carolyn is quickly swept up in the glamour of the city, where she befriends the wealthy and well-established, including socialite Penny Knowles and a young Burt Reynolds.

From New York, Carolyn follows Penny Knowles to London, then Paris and Rome, where the world opens up to her in a way she never imagined. In Rome, Carolyn learns the craft of film, falls in and out of love, and is beset by various tragedies and triumphs that eventually lead her back to London and then Los Angeles, where she becomes one of the first female executives and producers in the film industry. Along the way, Carolyn introduces the world to such illustrious stars as Omar Sharif, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, and Robert Altman, among others.

Told with cinematic quality, vibrance, and detail, Carolyn’s memoir reads like a true-to-life novel of a young woman discovering her voice, establishing her place in the world, losing everything, and finding herself again.