With Scruples a success, Billy then marries Vito Orsini, a film director. Valentine and Spider have a history of rocky relationships of their own, though, with Valentine first getting herself involved with her closeted gay boss and later with Billy's married attorney Josh Hillman, and Spider's involvement with troubled model-turned-actress, Melanie Adams. She hires a young French designer, Valentine O'Neil, to design couture clothing for the customers, and also hires Valentine's close friend, Spider Elliot, a former fashion photographer, who becomes the creative director of the store.

Heeding Ellis's advice, Billy decides to open a luxury boutique on Rodeo Drive called 'Scruples'. Jake, motivated by debt, then tries to blackmail Billy, but fails. Sometime later, Ellis dies and leaves Billy an enormous fortune. Ellis advises her to find something to do at which she is good, perhaps in fashion. However, Ellis later suffers a stroke, and Billy moves them from Manhattan to the exclusive Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles for the better climate.īilly hires a male nurse, Jake Cassidy, to look after Ellis, but Billy lives as a recluse in their enormous house and looks aimlessly for some purpose in her life, eventually developing a compulsion to shop in Beverly Hills. The couple then marry and the next several years are happy ones, as Billy and Ellis live a glamorous life. During a business meeting in California, she becomes romantically involved with the wealthy CEO, Ellis Ikehorn, who is far older than she. It is her first intimate love affair, but when the aristocratic but impecunious Edouard discovers that Billy is just a poor relative of the Winthrop family, he shows his true colors and ends the relationship.īilly returns to America and moves to New York City, where she is hired by Ikehorn Enterprises as a secretary. She is also introduced to Edouard, Liliane's nephew, who gives her the nickname 'Billy'. There, she undergoes a transformation of both body and soul, first losing weight, then gaining Parisian style under the guidance of Liliane, the elegant French woman who is her hostess. After she graduates from high school, she is given a sum of money by an aunt and goes to live in Paris with family friends. Wilhelmina Hunnewell Winthrop is a plain young woman, and a 'poor relative' of the Winthrops, a wealthy Boston family.

Scruples included the final screen appearance of Gene Tierney.

Scruples is a 1980 American television miniseries based on the 1978 novel by Judith Krantz.

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