ID this early 80s TV mini-series

Cafe Society
#1

I remember watching episodes of a mini-series that ran on network TV in the early to mid 1980s. It’s bugging me what it was called.

The first episode begins with three young men, fresh out of college & looking forward to the great lives they expect to lead, spending one last weekend together at a hunting lodge. During the dark & stormy night, a hysterical woman shows up at their door begging for help. I think her car crashed, or she had been abducted and just escaped her captors. One of the three men rapes her. The two others are horrified, but don’t raise a hand to stop their friend. Afterwards, the woman is either dead from heart failure, or has lapsed into a catatonic state. Panicking, the three men dump her body off in some remote spot and join hands and vow to Never Speak Of This Again! (Note: this was a fairly early example of this trope, and wasn’t yet such a ridiculous cliche.)

The rest of the mini-series speeds up time, showing the three men’s lives. They of course gradually drift apart and have dramatic crises. The only one I remember is the rapist - he marries a girl from a wealthy family, but then realizes she is mentally ill. Not wanting to be saddled with her, he murders her and tries to pass it off as an accident. No luck - he gets sent up the river (but only on manslaughter charges.) During his stint, he gets in a riot and is blinded when acid gets thrown in his face. Later, his vision returns and the first thing he sees is a picture of the Lord Jesus. Because of this “miracle”, he repents his ways and becomes a faith healer / preacher.

The other two guys had their own entanglements, but I don’t remember them. And because I missed the last episode, I never got to find out what all happened in the end. Somehow I got to thinking about it, and wondered what did become of the three?

Does this ring any bells with anybody? Could anybody “spoil” it for me?

#2

It might be Celebrity. Unfortunately, I can’t remember any details of how it ends.

#3

It was a thoroughly awful book too.
I’d tell you how it ended, but I couldn’t make it that far.

#4

Definitely Celebrity.

I haven’t seen it since it aired, but I remember the ending. Spoiled:

Turns out that girl never died. She survives and eventually turns up as part of faith healer / preacher’s “flock.” He doesn’t recognize her, but she has clearly had some kind of psychotic break of some type. At first she idolizes him but she ends up shooting and killing him in (I believe) the big courtroom finale, where All Is Revealed. I think the other two guys survive.

#5

Wow. I hadn’t thought of this show in years. I still remember a line from it. The faith healer always wore sunglasses because of the scarring from having the acid (actually, I believe it was lye from the prison laundry) thrown in his face. One of his friends goads him into taking them off saying that he must have something to hide.
He takes the glasses off, showing the scars and says, “If thine eye offends thee, cut it out. If it offends thy brother, cover it up.”

#6

Now that that question has been answered, which one of you bitches is my mother?

#7

Oh! Was that with Phoebe Cates?

#8

Yes! I don’t remember much except that scene and it involved three women, one of whom was a snooty French chick(?)

#9

Lace

#10

Correct! Thank you!

#11

Which, if I can recall correctly, was followed up by “Which one of you bastards is my father?”(aka Lace II).

#12

Heh. There was a mini-series called “Fresno” that lampooned 80s prime time soaps (and mini-series, which were essentially soaps.) Carol Burnett & Dabney Coleman starred as rivalsvying for control of Fresno’s raisin-growing business. One of the stories had a Burnett’s adopted daughter searching for her real parents. At a costume party, she got a hint that her father was dressed as a clown. So she rounded up all the clowns and asked “Which one of you bozos is my father?”

Funny stuff.

#13

I adored the book when it first came out. Re-read it a few months back. For a potboiler, it’s not terrible.

I didn’t know it had been made into a miniseries.