Mistress

This was a surprisingly enjoyable TV movie with a good performance from the lead, Victoria Principal.

After her married lover of nine years dies, she is left with nothing, having no one to take care of her and no work prospects in her chosen field of acting.

During the next five months she struggles to find work, or another true love, meeting various new men and old flames along the way.

All this leads up to the bleaker-than-usual ending for a fictional TV movie. Enjoyable

CBS television film starring Victoria Principal and Don Murray

After her exit as Pamela Barnes Ewing (the good one drove her sports car head-on into a gasoline truck) from the hit series "Dallas" in the spring of 1987, Victoria Principal was given the opportunity to develop television films for the CBS network as part of her own production company. At that time, the major channels in America still broadcast regular "movies of the week". Using the same model, Donna Mills was able to become self-employed two years later after leaving "Knots Landing".

Victoria Principal, born in 1950, plays Rae Colton, who once came to Hollywood from the provinces to start a big film career. Nothing came of it. Instead, the village belle has been the secret lover of a rich man (Don Murray) for almost a decade. When he suddenly dies, he leaves Rae penniless. Weaned from work, the 37-year-old woman, no longer so young, starts to stumble. Even a return to the homeland he left years ago does not bring the hoped-for turnaround in Rae's life. Back in Los Angeles, the loser, shaken by life, makes a momentous decision...

Melodramatic and slightly kittenish, Principal paints the picture of an insecure woman who had relied too much on her beauty in her life. But this is their greatest asset...

Due to the enormous popularity of the DALLAS beauty, this film also made it onto German television (I think on one of the private channels) in the 1980s. Just not completely forgotten because of La Principal and the always outstanding ACADEMY AWARD nominee Don Murray!