Sidney Sheldon's If Tomorrow Comes is a 1986 American television miniseries based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Sidney Sheldon, starring Madolyn Smith, Tom Berenger and David Keith. It was directed by Jerry London and the screenplay was written by Carmen Culver.
Contents
Plot summary
Trying to get justice for her wronged mother, financial expert Tracy Whitney is instead framed by a gangster for bank fraud and sent to prison for fifteen years by a corrupt judge and a crooked attorney. At first a victim, Tracy makes alliances, learns valuable skills from her fellow inmates, and plots her escape. She abandons her plan in order to save the warden's young daughter from drowning, earning herself a pardon.
After exacting revenge on the men responsible for her sentence, Whitney accepts an offer from the brutal Gunther Hartog to become his apprentice; under his tutelage, she becomes a master con artist and disguise expert. While plotting her biggest score, she crosses paths with another veteran con artist, Jeff Stevens, to whom she is attracted but is not sure she can trust. Trailing behind them is the unstable insurance investigator Daniel Cooper.
Cast
Madolyn Smith as Tracy Whitney
Tom Berenger as Jeff Stevens
David Keith as Daniel Cooper
Jack Weston as Uncle Willie
Richard Kiley as Gunther Hartog
Liam Neeson as Inspector André Trignant
Barry Jenner as Zeller
Lane Smith as Warden Brannigan
CCH Pounder as Ernestine Littlechap
Maryam d'Abo as Solange
Production and broadcast
To play Tracy Whitney, Smith used sixteen different costumes, including a scene where she dons a latex mask, black hood, and wig to pose as an elderly woman. She called the miniseries "a very classy soap opera" that is "fun and adventuresome". The seven-hour miniseries was broadcast on CBS in three parts on March 16, 17 and 18, 1986. It drew a respectable audience and placed as the top 15th show in the Nielsen ratings.
Home media
If Tomorrow Comes was released on VHS by Starmaker Entertainment in 1995, and in a two-disc DVD set from Image Entertainment on March 1, 2011.