Backstage Nurse — Jane Rossiter

Her role was behind the scenes --- until the curtain went up on her triangle romance.

Nurse Shirley accompanies an elderly actor, a brave and likable man, who has been battling cancer on a tour for the play in which he has the starring role. Along the way, Shirley is courted by one of the other actors in the play, Hugh, a former doctor and by the star's handsome grandson, Roger.


Red-haired Shirley Grant, a nurse at Boston's Eastern Memorial Hospital, would never have been engaged as Oliver Craft's nurse had it not been for her two years' experience as an actress. Craft, one of the “greats” of the American theater, now dying of cancer, was determined to complete his tour in the starring role of The Cardinal, and the grand old man needed a nurse to tour with him.

It was Oliver Craft who introduced Shirley to doctor-turned-actor Hugh Deering, who had left the medical profession under a cloud. Hugh, good company, a fine actor, and, presumably, an even finer doctor, represented a challenge to Shirley. From her own experience, she could not understand a doctor leaving his profession, for whatever cause, for the stage.

Then wealthy young Philadelphian Roger Craft, Oliver's grandson, met Shirley and fell in love with her.

And Shirley, trying to keep the flame of life burning in her aging patient, found the answer to her own heart in another's need.

An exciting nurse story, set in the glamorous world of the theater.