Joe Harris is a popular, established local radio news reporter covering Broadway entertainment with a wise-guy attitude.

Aided by his secretary Ginny, Harris discovers Fuller was an alcoholic and an unethical womanizing egomaniac who became a star in spite of it.

Amassing the research into a script, Harris has to choose between praising the beloved, amusing and warm-hearted Fuller the public saw or unmasking the phony beneath the image.

Harris makes up his mind as the broadcast starts, throwing away his prepared script to tell the truth about Herb Fuller.

While the movie was based on the controversy surrounding Arthur Godfrey, whose real-life persona contrasted with his warm-hearted public demeanor, the fictional Fuller's failings differed greatly.

That situation, originally private, became public with the October 19, 1953, on-air firing of singer and popular Godfrey show discovery Julius La Rosa.

Accusations in 1955 of anti-semitism that grew out of Godfrey's part-ownership of a Miami Beach hotel notorious for refusing to accommodate Jews also dogged him, though few believed the charges.