Marie Prevost is a beautiful Canadian who becomes famous for her silent film work with Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties. Lured away by an offer from Universal Pictures, she continues to make profitable movies, and when her contract ends, she moves to Warner Brothers, where her star continues to rise.

Her marriage to actor Kenneth Harlan and her triumph in Ernst Lubitsch's The Marriage Circle mark her as one of Hollywood's biggest stars of the 1920s. But in 1926, a series of tragedies combine to torpedo her career. By the 1930s, with her star fallen, Marie desperately claws her way back, fighting weight gain and alcohol in her struggle to get back on top.

In Bathing Beauty, Marie tells the story of her rise to fame and her struggle to regain it, despite all the odds.