Laura is a fictionalized story of Laura Boult of St. Maurice, Louisiana. She left her small town and went to the big city in 1900 after having four boys with two different common-law husbands. In 1905, after being fired by the famous Schubert Brothers of Broadway fame, she left New York in disgrace with an all-black dance troupe headed to Paris, France. It was in Paris that she met the handsome Francoise Goldman who taught her how to drop her strap and step out of her tap pants to fame and fortune, the likes of which she had never imagined. In 1940, just days before the Germans invaded Paris, Laura, Francoise, and their daughter fled for their lives, arriving in New York with little more than the clothes they carried in their suitcases. While in New York, they worked at whatever jobs that were offered them. Laura returned to a liberated Paris in 1948 where, with the help of her former stage manger Jules Eitenne, she regained both her fame and her fortune."