Nomi Malone

Nomi Malone is the main protagonist in the 1995 cult classic Showgirls. She is portrayed by Elizabeth Berkley.

From The Cheetah To The Stardust
In the beginning of the film Nomi catches a ride with a stranger to Las Vegas but once they arrive, the stranger drives off with her suitcase with all her belongings including her money. She meets Molly Abrams, a seamstress and a costume designer. Nomi moves in with her and begins working at Cheetah, a low-end strip club.

One night, Molly takes Nomi to Stardust where she works, to watch a strip show called Goddess where Nomi meets the star of the show Cristal Connors but the meeting doesn't go well with Nomi once Cristal insults her. To cheer her up, Molly takes her to a night club where she meets James, one of the club's bouncers, but meeting him didn't go well either with Nomi, while dancing with him, she kicks him in his groin, causing James to get into a fight with a club goer, two of the bouncers escort her out of the club, and she is arrested for disturbing the peace, but even though she kicked him and cost him his job, James pays for her bail.

One night The Cheetah, Cristal and her boyfriend Zack, the executive producer of the show where she's the lead dancer pay Nomi a visit. She asks Nomi for a lap dance with both of them. But Nomi makes it clear that she and the other strippers aren't allowed to perform lap dances on women, but once the club's manager hears Cristal offer Nomi $500 he accepted the deal for Nomi even if she doesn't like Cristal so she gives Zack an lap dance while Cristal watches, it's clear that even if she is dating Zack, she's attracted to Nomi and is turned on by her performance, she is so impressed that she arranges an audition for her to be one of the dancers in Goddess without Nomi's knowledge.

A man named Phil visits Nomi at her place of employment to inform her about the audition and the next day she and other dancers audition in front of the show's director Tony Moss for the spot in the chorus line, only to have Tony humiliate her in front of Cristal by asking her to put ice on her nipples to make them hard. Humiliated and upset by the audition, Nomi leaves Stardust only to find James on his second job, but because he speaks angrily to his boss about him interrupting the conversation he's having with Nomie, he gets fired again. They then go to his home where they dance, and James tries to seduce Nomi. She tells him that if he loves her, he can make love to her before leaving his place. Tony calls Nomi to tell her that she got the job, and she quits her job at The Cheetah.

Nomi's Rise And Fall.
Cristal recommends Nomi to appear on a boat trade show with another dancer, which she agrees to, but she is angered to find out that in order to get paid, she and the other dancer has to dine and sleep with Phil and a friend of his, Nomi tells Zack what happened, and he threatens to fire Phil if he does it again. During a performance at Stardust, Nomi witnesses one of the dancers cause an accident.

Where Cristal's understudy breaks her knee, but she does not tell anyone about it because she witnessed the understudy's cruelty towards the woman and her 2 children earlier in the film and the dancer couldn't take her cruelty any longer and after witnessing the incident plus the performance? Nomi goes home with Zack where the 2 make love in his pool and that morning?

Zack tells her about an audition for Cristal's new understudy the next morning, and he hires Nomi as her new understudy, which causes Cristal to find out about their affair and further angers her. The other dancers also distance themselves from Nomi. The next day she finds out that Cristal threatened to quit the show and sue Stardust, she can no longer be her understudy

.Upset by this, after a performance, Nomi pushes Cristal down the stairs, breaking her hip and rendering her unable to perform in Goddess and thanks to Zack, Nomi is now the lead dancer of Goddess, and the main attraction of Stardust. After a press conference, a party is thrown in her honor at a posh hotel, where Zack introduces her and Molly to Molly's favorite singer Andrew Carver.

But the meeting goes terribly wrong for Molly once Carver convinces her to go up to his hotel room, where he and his security guards brutally rape her Nomi and Zack rush to help Molly, and she is hospitalized. After the assault, Nomi confronts Zack about why he didn't call the police on Carver, but he blackmails Nomi by threatening to expose her past and true identity.

Her real name is Polly Ann Costello, a teenage runaway who lost her parents in a murder-suicide, and was arrested several times on drug possession, prostitution, assault with a deadly weapon and soliciting sex. He tells her about Carver's plans to settle out of court with Molly if her case were to go to trial. Nomi spits in his face before leaving the hospital, unable to avenge Molly legally.

She takes matters into her own hands. She visits Carver in his hotel room, making him think she only wants to sleep with him, but Nomi brutally beats him before leaving. Nomi tells Molly about it the next day, and decides to see Cristal one last time at the hospital, where she apologizes to her, and they forgive each other.

Nomi gives Cristal a kiss on the lips before leaving both the hospital and Las Vegas behind. She hitches a ride with the same man who stole her belongings, but she manages to trick him into giving her a ride before pulling a knife on him, demanding that he gives her back her suitcase in the end.