Pomegranate Seed — Amanda Cockrell

Elizabeth Sydney, Oscar-winning grande dame of Hollywood, known to friends as Liza Jane, is 80. She “isn't ready to go. She doubts she ever will be, but she feels the tug as if someone is trying to hand her a rail ticket and the crowd is pushing her down the platform. So she's making her will again, because this time she knows what she wants to say.”
 
An assortment of family and friends assemble for the funeral, leading to the spontaneous combustion that only the forced gathering of movie actors, directors, old and new flames, a rock star, and post-divorce combatants can produce.
 
Libby Novak, Liza Jane's niece, returns to the turbulent and ephemeral world that encompassed her youth. Alex Murray, a Pittsburgh cop, has his life upended when he is named one of Liza Jane's heirs. Producer Ben Zenovich and screenwriter Mike Rosen arrive, dragging a reluctant Frank Hill (box office gold, in the middle of a nasty divorce, and one of Liza Jane's former lovers) behind them. Liza Jane herself is revealed through reminiscences and a series of flashbacks from the days of silent film through the blacklisting of the McCarthy era, and beyond.