Daisy Clover (Natalie Wood) goes from teenage girl to movie star practically overnight when her demented mother enters her voice in a talent-search contest. From a broken-down carnival on the Santa Monica Pier, in no time at all she is attending glamorous Hollywood parties. But Daisy soon learns that misery and pain go hand-in-hand with fame and fortune. Before Daisy completes her first film, the studio execs have her mother committed to an asylum without permission. Daisy tries to find happiness in a series of unfulfilling romances, her one-day marriage to Wade Lewis (Robert Redford) leaving her alone and divorced. After her mother dies, Daisy has a nervous breakdown and refuses to work, but the cold-hearted studio moguls threaten her with starvation if she does not report back to the soundstage. Christopher Plummer, Ruth Gordon (in an Oscar-nominated performance) and Roddy McDowell co-star in this story of a Hollywood dream that turns into a nightmare.
~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide