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Ziegfeld and Burke join forces to make Burkeley Crest into their own fantasy world, which includes a menagerie of animals. Commentary from Patricia and local residents of Hastings-on-Hudson (the town in upstate New York where the Ziegfelds live) is included. The remaking of Burkeley Crest into a family home brings Burke and Ziegfeld closer together. The theater further bonds the couple, although the shows Ziegfeld produces to reintroduce Burke to Broadway prove to be flops. The chapter includes an in-depth discussion of the continual changes taking place on Broadway and the fresh musicians and writers who influence these changes, including P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, Jerome Kern, and George Gershwin. The Ziegfeld Follies of 1917 includes songs that increasingly suggest the archetypal independent and hedonistic woman of the Jazz Age. Burke alerts Ziegfeld to Marilyn Miller, a bright young dancer she spots in a Shubert show. Marilyn is the embodiment of the youth-centered 1920s.

This chapter covers Ziegfeld’s courtship of Burke and her initially ambivalent feelings about him. Their relationship brings out the showman in Ziegfeld, as he tries to prove his devotion through grand gestures. Burke and Ziegfeld share an inclination to overspend, and Burke buys her own estate, Burkeley Crest. Correspondence between Burke and Ziegfeld reveals a vulnerable and desperate side that Ziegfeld rarely showed to women. Ziegfeld and Burke ultimately elope, and the chapter details their first months together. Burke, who is more domestic than Ziegfeld, hopes to make Burkeley Crest their primary residence rather than Ziegfeld’s New York hotel suite. Most of their early days as a married couple are spent apart, due to their respective careers. Burke accepts roles in films, while Ziegfeld remains entrenched in the Follies. Ziegfeld is not done with his philandering ways, however, despite his love for Burke.

This chapter reveals the fate of Ziegfeld’s greatest stars, including Lillian Lorraine, Fanny Brice, and Eddie Cantor. The chapter then returns to Burke and describes her humble lifestyle in her later years. Among other things, she helps create the Ziegfeld Club, which aids ex–Ziegfeld girls who, like Lillian Lorraine, have fallen on hard times. After Burke’s passing, the Ziegfeld legacy almost disappears with the demolition of the Ziegfeld Theatre and Burkeley Crest. Burke’s and Ziegfeld’s remains were finally reunited at Kenisco Cemetery in Westchester County, New York.