Plot

Director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells his own life story as he details the sordid career of Joe Gideon, a womanizing, drug-using dancer.

Joe Gideon is a Broadway director, choreographer and filmmaker, he in the process of casting the chorus and staging the dance numbers for his latest Broadway show, starring his ex-wife Audrey Paris in what is largely a vanity project for her in playing a role several years younger than her real age, and editing a film he directed on the life of stand-up comic Davis Newman. Joe's professional and personal lives are intertwined, he a chronic philanderer, having slept with and had relationships with a series of dancers in his shows, Victoria Porter, who he hired for the current show despite she not being the best dancer, in the former category, and Kate Jagger, his current girlfriend, in the latter category. That philandering has led to relationship problems, with Audrey during their marriage, and potentially now with Kate who wants a committed relationship with Joe largely in not wanting the alternative of entering the dating world again. Joe also lives a hard and fast life, chain-smoking, drinking heavily, listening to hard driving classical music and popping uppers to keep going. In addition to pressures from investors and meeting film deadlines above and beyond his own self-induced hard life, he is teetering on the brink physically and emotionally. With Kate, Audrey, and his and Audrey's teenage daughter Michelle looking over him as best they can, Joe flirts with "Angelique" in the process, him potentially succumbing to her if he doesn't listen to them or what his body is telling him.—Huggo

Juggling an exhausting work schedule and a broken home life while mounting an ambitious production for his ex-wife and editing his newest film, Joe Gideon--an unapologetic pill-popping, chain-smoking philanderer, movie director, and Broadway choreographer--is flirting with cardiac arrest. And, more and more, pestered by desirous wannabes, desperate starlets, panic-struck producers, lovelorn lovers, and a neglected daughter, Gideon wrestles with the concept of death and mortality. His ex-wife, his girlfriend, and his daughter attempt to bring him back from the brink, but it's too late for his exhausted body and stress-ravaged heart. Now the drugs don't work, and as an eventful life filled with amphetamines, alcohol, and sex flashes before his eyes, Gideon converses with eerie Angelique. Scenes from his past life start to encroach on the present as he becomes increasingly aware of his own mortality. After all, Joe deserves to meet his doom. Isn't death the final curtain everyone must face?—Nick Riganas

Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) is a theater director and choreographer trying to balance staging his latest Broadway musical, "NY/LA", with editing a Hollywood film he has directed, "The Stand-Up". He is an alcoholic, a driven workaholic who chain-smokes cigarettes, and a womanizer who constantly flirts and has sex with a stream of women. Each morning, he starts his day by playing a tape of Vivaldi while taking doses of Visine, Alka-Seltzer and Dexedrine, always finishing by looking at himself in the mirror and telling himself "It's showtime, folks!". Joe's ex-wife, Audrey Paris (Leland Palmer), is involved with the production of the show, but disapproves of his womanizing ways. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Katie Jagger (Ann Reinking) and teenage daughter Michelle (Erzsebet Foldi) keep him company. In his imagination, he flirts with an angel of death called Angelique (Jessica Lange) in a nightclub setting, chatting with her about his life.

As Joe continues to be dissatisfied with his editing job, repeatedly making minor changes to a single monologue, he takes his anger out on the dancers in his choreography, putting on a highly sexualized number with topless women during one rehearsal and frustrating both Audrey and the show's penny-pinching backers. The only moment of joy in his life occurs when Katie and Michelle perform a Fosse-style number for Joe as an homage to the upcoming release of "The Stand-Up", moving him into tears. During a particularly stressful table-read of "NY/LA", Joe experiences severe chest pains and is admitted to the hospital with severe angina. Joe disregards his symptoms, and attempts to leave to go back to rehearsal, but he collapses in the doctor's office and is ordered to remain in the hospital for several weeks to rest his heart and recover from his exhaustion. "NY/LA" is postponed, but Gideon continues his antics from the hospital bed, continuing to smoke and drink while having endless strings of women come through his room; as he does, his condition continues to deteriorate, despite Audrey and Katie both remaining by his side for support. A negative review for "The Stand-Up" (which has been released during Joe's time in the hospital) comes in despite the film's monetary success, and Gideon has a massive coronary event.

As Joe undergoes coronary artery bypass surgery, the producers of "NY/LA" realize that the best way to recoup their money and make a profit is to wager on Gideon dying: the insurance proceeds which would bring in a profit of over a half a million dollars. As Gideon goes on life support, he directs extravagant dream sequences in his own head starring his ex-wife, girlfriend and daughter, who berate him for his behavior; he realizes he cannot avoid his own death and has another heart attack. As the doctors attempt to save him, Joe runs away from his hospital bed behind their backs and explorers the hospital's basement and the autopsy ward before he allows himself to be taken back. He goes through the five stages of death (anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance) featured in the stand-up routine he has been editing, and as he gets closer to death, his dream sequences become more and more hallucinatory. As the doctors attempt one more time to save him, Joe imagines a monumental variety show featuring everyone from his past where he takes center stage in an extensive musical number ("Bye Bye Life"). In his dying dream, Joe is able to thank his family and acquaintances as he cannot from his hospital bed, and his performance receives a massive standing ovation. Joe finally dreams of himself traveling down a hallway to meet Angelique eventually, as the film abruptly cuts to his corpse being zipped up in a body bag.