plagiarism?
The basic story seems to have been lifted, at least in part, from actress June Havoc’s autobiography, Early Havoc, published by Simon and Schuster in 1959, ten years before the movie was released.
June Havoc (b. 1913) began her career as a two-year old vaudeville star, Baby June. At thirteen, she eloped with one of the boys in her show, but the marriage soon fell apart and June, broke, uneducated and rejected by her mother, entered a popular craze called a dance marathon. Her autobiography is centered on the marathon, in which the dancers called their strongest opponents the "horses." June came in second and won about $50.
June, who eventually achieved Broadway stardom in "Pal Joey” and her younger sister, “Gypsy Rose Lee,” were perhaps the most famous sisters of their time. Their mother Rose was immortalized in the Broadway musical and movie, "Gypsy," based on Gypsy's much fonder memories of their mother.