require her to leave the group. Jack is quietly heartbroken that Susie would even consider leaving but refuses to admit how he truly feels, instead acting as though her departure is of no concern to him. Susie accepts the job after a final performance with The Fabulous Baker Boys, and the two part ways following a heated argument in which Susie accuses Jack of being a coward in his pursuits of both her and his career. Jack and Frank quarrel about the increasingly humiliating gigs Frank has been booking them due to Susie's departure, which Frank blames Jack for. After nearly breaking Frank's hand during a physical altercation, Jack quits the band. He takes his frustrations out on Nina upon returning home but apologizes soon afterward, learning she will rely on him less once her mother marries her newest boyfriend. Now prepared to venture out on his own, Jack visits Frank to make amends. Having opted to offer piano lessons from his home, Frank accepts Jack's decision to pursue a solo career and explains he thought he was helping his younger brother live a carefree life, of which he was sometimes jealous. They reminisce about the early days of their act with a final duet. Jack visits Susie, who is not particularly enjoying her new job, and expresses regret about his behavior towards her. Susie is not quite ready to resume their relationship but the two part as friends, with Jack telling her he has a feeling they will see each other again. Jack watches as Susie walks off to her new job until she is nearly out of sight. Cast Production Writing and development Screenwriter Steve Kloves was inspired to write The Fabulous Baker Boys based on Ferrante & Teicher, a piano duo he had grown up watching perform on The Ed Sullivan Show during the 1960s. He found himself fascinated by "blue-collar entertainment – people who work in the arts in a kind of working class way." Remembering that during his childhood parents typically enrolled their children in piano lessons simply to "give them culture", he decided to write a story about piano-playing brothers, citing familial dysfunction as a common theme among his work. Although he felt a story about a waning piano act would provide strong material for a feature-length film, some of Kloves's peers warned him "it was a completely bizarre, terrible idea for a movie",