The rags-to-riches life of P.T. Barnum (Burt Lancaster), the iconic carnival showman and co-creator of The Greatest Show on Earth, is told in this TV movie. The elderly and still puckish Barnum recounts via flashbacks his adventures as a floundering teenage salesman and an exhibitor of human oddities, and his eventual role as the entertainer who brought attractions such as Tom Thumb (Sandor Raski) and the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind (Hanna Schygulla), to the American masses.