While Norma spends time "getting ready," Joe starts slipping out at night to work on the script with Betty. Although the relationship is professional at first, the two begin to fall in love. One night, after he returns, Max warns him that Norma is suspicious. He also reveals that he will do anything to protect Norma, as he discovered her and made her a star. Joe learns that Max was the famed director Max Von Mayerling, who was also Norma's first husband.

Norma is despondent over the fact that Joe has been going out every night. While he sleeps, she sees a copy of the script he and Betty are writing. Getting her name, she begins investigating on her own.

The following night, Betty professes to Joe that she has fallen in love with him. It's obvious that he loves her too, but he has yet to confide the nature of his relationship with Norma to her.

When Joe arrives home, he finds Norma on the phone. She has called Betty, and begins to tell her about Joe's being a kept man. Joe grabs the phone, and asks Betty to come over.

When Betty arrives, Joe tells her his dark secret. She asks him to leave with her right then and there, but he declines. Betty is heart-broken as she leaves. Joe, too, has realized he's had enough.

He begins to pack his bags. Norma is in shock. She threatens to shoot herself if he leaves her. He confronts her with reality, telling her the truth about the Paramount affair and the author of her fan letters.

The shock is too much for Norma. As Joe leaves, she shoots him, and he falls into the pool.

The folowing morning, with the reporters and investigators around, Norma is silent, facing a mirror. She has lost her mind, and thinks she's at the Paramount set of her new movie. As Max pretends to be a director again, she slowly descends the long staircase of her house, facing the cameras. Newsreel cameras.

As she gets to the bottom of the staircase, she stops, and says she can't go on with her scene, because she's too happy. She promises never to desert her public again, then directly stares into the camera, uttering the immortal line: "And now, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my close-up."

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