After fleeting marriages to Henry Fonda and William Wyler, Margaret Sullavan found contentment as the wife of producer Leland Hayward (Jason Robards) and as the mother of three. Or so it seemed, until the marriage crumbled, the children rebelled and she was found dead of an overdose at the age of 50. Best Actress Emmy® nominee Lee Remick portrays Sullavan, the luminous beauty who turned her talent and intelligence into stardom on stage and screen (including the beloved Three Comrades and The Shop Around the Corner). Based on the bestseller by Sullavan's daughter Brooke and produced by her son Bill, Haywire powerfully shows how a burnished image of privilege and fame can hide - at least for a time - the reality of heartbreak and self-destruction.

HAYWIRE was adapted for television by Ivan Davis and Frank Pierson from the best-selling autobiography of Brooke Hayward. Played herein by Deborah Raffin, Brooke is the daughter of legendary Broadway producer Leland Hayward (Jason Robards) and the brilliant stage and film actress Margaret Sullavan (Lee Remick). The much-married Leland is overindulgent but aloof and casually cruel; the lovely Margaret is an emotionally unstable perfectionist. The residue of this dysfunctional family relationship includes the suicides of Ms. Sullivan and Brooke's sister Bridget (Dianne Hull), and the confinement to a mental institution of Brooke's brother Bill (Hart Bochner). How Brooke herself survives this "haywire" situation provides the meat of this 2-hour film. Brooke's brother William Hayward was the producer of HAYWIRE, which originally aired May 14, 1980.