I read the book by Jacqueline Susann what feels like a hundred years ago now. But I remember the impact. I was an impressionable young reader. I now consider the books by Jacqueline Susann as top influences leading to the female writer I am today. I read Once Is Not Enough and The Love Machine, but it was Valley of The Dolls that was truly sensational.
Panned by the critics, but apparently a guilty pleasure for just about every housewife across North America in the late sixties, it was a page-turner for me as a teenager in the eighties. It’s a story about three beautiful young girls who go to New York City to fulfill their dreams, only to find emptiness, loneliness, and a whole lotta substance abuse.
A “doll” is the slang term used for mood-altering drugs; downers, barbiturates, sleeping pills, etc., which really took Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) on a never-ending roller-coaster ride of self-destruction. She took the red dolls. Susann, like O’Hara, tried to make it as an actress herself, but couldn’t (although she makes a cameo appearance in the film as a reporter). Instead, Susann discovered she had a real knack for writing, and storytelling.
Many people were shocked at the time by the explicit content of the book (radio interviewer Long John Nebel for one), but Susann wrote what she knew, and said: “No one’s gonna tell me how to write. I’m gonna write the way I want to write.” The book had everyone in Hollywood gossiping about who Susann based her characters on. It was assumed she based the character of Anne Welles on herself; the secretary for a theatrical agency (Barbara Parkins). She took the green dolls.
"I'm often asked if success might not affect me and bring the loneliness that it brought to the girls in the book. I don't think that could ever happen because I learned very early on that success means nothing unless it's shared with a person you love. And success is not a solo performance. An opera singer needs the music and the conductor. An actress needs the playwright and the director. And a writer, well, if she's a woman and she's Jacqueline Susann, she knows that none of it would have happened if she hadn't been Mrs. Irving Mansfield." (Mansfield was Susann’s husband, and press agent). “The top of Mount Everest could be anywhere... on a rainy Manhattan street or on a beach in Malibu - as long as you're with the person you care about - that's why Valley of the Dolls will be a book I've written, and not a part of my life." ~ bonus features, Valley of The Dolls dvd
Some of the acting may be a little over-the-top, but the film, critically panned as well, was one of the top-grossing films of its time. It’s a great watch for its sophisticated fashion, its make-up, its locations, and its cinematography. And to remember how gorgeous Sharon Tate was before she was murdered by Susan Atkins, as directed by megalomaniac Charles Manson. She played Jennifer North, who took the blue dolls.
The trailer for Valley of the Dolls...
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