She papered her room with images of stage divas June Knight and Margalo Gillmore, and auditioned repeatedly for The Children’s Hour, a Philadelphia radio program.

Valley of the Dolls (novel) - Wikipedia

Now, added to Jackie’s innate drive to succeed,” Mansfield wrote, “was this new sense of desperate need to earn money, big, big money, for Guy’s sake and security.In 1967, the book was adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Mark Robson ( Peyton Place), and starring Barbara Parkins as Anne, Patty Duke as Neely, Paul Burke (Lyon), Sharon Tate (Jennifer), and Susan Hayward (Helen).

14 Deep Facts About Valley of the Dolls | Mental Floss 14 Deep Facts About Valley of the Dolls | Mental Floss

Partly because she lived in the same building where the radio men gathered, but mostly because she was “an odd girl, a different girl,” Susann, Deutsch says, “hung around our working sessions, went to dinner with us. But the similarity that really jumped out at me was how both novels exploit our obsession with wealth (and fame) by luxuriating in its excesses, and then reassure us about our lack of these things by depicting its wealthy (and famous) main characters as incredibly miserable and/or terrible people. Without doubt Susann had an authentic, almost evangelical empathy for female emotional experience, at the exact moment when women’s place in the world was about to undergo a seismic upheaval. At the dinner three months before she expired during which she confessed her condition to Esther Margolis and Oscar Dystel, the author had spoken of her plans for a sequel to Every Night, Josephine!Gossip columnist Cindy Adams, whom Sosenko once tried to pair with Susann for a radio show, says, “Jackie was the quintessential, the ultimate yenta—by which I mean ‘storyteller. A few years later, when Susann was diagnosed with cancer for the second time, she joked her death would’ve been quicker if she had gone to Tate’s that night. Not surprisingly, the reviews of Once Is Not Enough were cruel, and as always she toured incessantly, nationally and internationally, from April to October 1973, when she collapsed. But she would extract the most delicious, wonderful parts, and with her incredible memory for detail she’d weave stories about the love lives, the chicaneries, the Machiavellian ways, the lies and limitations of the people she knew. No wonder she dared to proclaim to a Boston newspaper critic, who imagined he was hoisting her on her own petard, “Yeah, I think I’ll be remembered .

The ‘camp trash’ that became a classic - BBC Culture The ‘camp trash’ that became a classic - BBC Culture

More complicated for Susann than her idolization of Hildegarde was her ill-fated friendship with Ethel Merman, which resembled an exceptionally hard case of puppy love. Lyon Burke’s name was derived from Kenny Lyons, a man whom Penny Bigelow loved when they worked together on Mansfield’s Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.

Sherry Arden, whom Susann knew from the WABC Valley of the Dolls documentary, suggested Morrow, where Arden had become publicity director. Halfway through it, Geis says, his wife “turned to me and said, ‘I feel like I picked up the phone and I was listening in on a conversation of women talking about how their husbands are in bed.

Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann | Waterstones

Anne reconnects with Neely; Kevin suggests resurrecting Neely's career by having her sing on a televised spectacular for his brand. Because of the legal issues with Susann, the characters of Anne and Lyon were renamed and recast without Parkins and Burke.Eventually, the play headed to New York in an Off-Broadway version, with Illeana Douglas playing the Jackie Susann reporter role.