What is the first name of the person who swallows a handful of pills with vodka?
Former model Maria Wyeth, who comes from a Nevada town with a population of 28, is now a successful actress. But she is unhappily married to, and separated from, temperamental producer Carter Lang and also chronically depressed and institutionalized.
Reflecting back on what brought her here, Maria recalls driving around Los Angeles in her yellow Chevrolet Corvette and spending time with her closest friend, B.Z. Mendenhall, an unhappy man who is gay. Maria has a brain-damaged daughter, Kate, who is being kept in a sanitarium at the insistence of Carter, who resents Maria visiting the girl so frequently. Maria's secret desire is to live somewhere with Kate and find some kind of joy in life together.
Maria has been having an affair with Les Goodwin, a screenwriter. When she tells Carter she is pregnant, he demands she get an abortion. Maria goes to Las Vegas and has a fling with a mob-connected lawyer, Larry Kulik, and later returns to L.A. and has a one-night stand with Johnny Waters, a television star who needs to watch his own show on TV to get in the mood.
Bored and depressed, Maria steals Johnny's car and speeds off. When she is stopped by police, drugs are found in the car and she is placed under arrest. Her spirits at an all-time low, Maria returns to Las Vegas and finds that B.Z. is equally unhappy. When he swallows a handful of pills and washes them down with vodka, rather than call for help, Maria cradles him and watches him die.
Back at her institution, a psychiatrist asks why she keeps on playing, when knowing what 'nothing' (nihilism) means. Maria replies, "Why not?"
B.Z