Evelyn Waugh's satire on American mores linked Hollywood with the funeral business; Tony Richardson added his own focus on sex-food obsession. Whereas in Tom Jones he delighted in just how good sex and food taste together, here the combination is the ultimate in bad taste. The Loved One thus became, as it was billed, "The motion picture with something to offend everyone," including Waugh. But even those critics who were most offended admitted it was a very funny film. Robert Morse plays a young English poet come to Hollywood, where he takes a job at a pet cemetery. He meets and falls in love with a funeral parlor cosmetician; she is torn between him and chief mortician Mr. Joyboy (Rod Steiger, at his most grotesque). The cast includes Jonathan Winters as Wilbur Glenworthy and his brother Harry; Milton Berle and Margaret Leighton as a couple deep in mourning for their pet; John Gielgud as a dead film director; and small guest spots by everyone from James Coburn to Liberace.