50+ years after Valley Of The Dolls was first published, gay guys are still obsessed with the feuding, boozing, pill popping ladies of the camp classic novel and film. Neely O’Hara, Anne Welles, Jennifer North and Helen Lawson are all top Gay Icons.
Jacqueline Susann was born on this day, August 20, in 1918. She remains camp and frivolous, but also alluring and profound. Her female characters are powerful and independent, and not afraid of going after what they want. The men in her novels are dumb slabs of beef, or fags, or both.
In the film version of her novel Valley Of The Dolls (1967), bodaciously fashioned, big haired, heavy mascara wearing females never choose a decent guy. The just couldn’t help themselves; their over-sized egos are equal to their over-sized hair and high histrionics.
Susann put herself out there as being a WASP, but she was Jewish; she appeared to be happy not having any children, but, in fact, she had a son who was institutionalized. She claimed to be born in a high-society family, but her they were actually working-class and from Philadelphia.
Her novels can’t really be labeled as “Literature”, but they do take on themes of societal taboos and people who feel marginalized.
442 pages long, Valley Of The Dolls was considered so candid in its portrayal of showbiz lifestyles, plastic surgery, abortion, gay sex, suicide, and Demerol, that my mother hid her copy, and so did the mothers of my friends. Some of the characters are based on popular celebrities like Ethel Merman and Judy Garland, making the book a must read for little gay 12-year-old me. I found my mother’s copy and for me it was a rather impressive fast moving Broadway-Hollywood soap opera. It’s a tale of the trials and tribulations, sex lives, and problems of 1945-1965 era females and their dependence on drink and drugs. The pills they take to pep themselves up, go to sleep, and stay slim are nicknamed “dolls” by Susann. The novel made sense to me at the time, and I liked it so much more than Lord Of The Rings, which was what good boys were supposed to be reading.
One of the ten most popular books ever in publishing history, is ranks just below The Bible and Dr. Spock’s Baby And Child Care. The novel initially sold more than 20 million copies, spending 22 weeks at Number One on The New York Times Bestseller List, making it the most successful work of fiction from the 1960s.
Susann had a not so successful career as an actor and television performer before she took up writing. She had in small roles in 21 plays on Broadway including the original production of Clare Boothe Luce‘s The Women in 1937.
Giving up on the acting, she became the first novelist to have three consecutive books: Valley Of The Dolls, The Love Machine (1969), and Once Is Not Enough (1973), make it to the Number One spot on The New York Times bestseller list. They all received scathing, dismissive reviews from critics, and were joked about by the literary elite. All three were made into very popular films, but only Valley Of The Dolls continues to play in theatres at festivals and film retrospectives, and to still be the subject of theme parties and campy celebrations.
Unlike her characters, Susann enjoyed a long happy marriage. Her husband was press agent Irving Mansfield. They lived on the 24th floor of a building on Central Park South, where Susann did three-finger typing in a pink study with Pucci print curtains. Once she had a theme, main characters and an ending, she would plaster her pink patent-leather walls with pink charts that plotted the characters and incidents. She wrote for eight hours a day on pink paper.
Susann worked hard promoting her books. She was a frequent, favorite guest on television talk shows. In one memorable exchange on The David Frost Show, John Simon, the especially acerbic critic for New York Magazine, asked her: “Do you think you are writing art or are you writing trash to make a lot of money?” Susann answered:
“Little man, I am telling a story. Now, does that make you happy?”
Writer Gore Vidal quipped:
“She doesn’t write, she types!”
Truman Capote, also a talk show regular, appeared on The Tonight Show and stated:
“Susann looks likes truck driver in drag.”
When Susann threatened to sue him, Capote said:
“I apologize to truck drivers everywhere.”
The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson gave Susann an opportunity to get back at Capote; Susann’s retort was:
“Truman, Truman. I think history will prove he’s one of the best Presidents we’ve had.”
The film of Valley Of The Dolls stars Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Sharon Tate and Susan Hayward (in a role intended for Garland), and it contains a Susann cameo appearance. She plays a reporter in the scene where Tate’s character commits suicide. Valley Of The Dolls was a huge hit and it remains a gay favorite. Susann hated the film, telling the director Mark Robson:
“This picture is a piece of shit.”
She swore never to give away creative control of the film versions of her books again, and she didn’t.
Valley Of The Dolls was re-released in summer 1969, after the murder of Sharon Tate, and it was a hit all over again. Parkins attending a 1997 screening of the film at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, and she told the sold-out crowd of cinema queens:
“I know why you like it… because it’s so bad!”
It was made into a television film in 1981 and a series in 1994. Our culture just can’t get enough. How about a more modern remake starring the lovely Melania Trump, Lindsay Lohan, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones?
In January 1973, Susann was diagnosed with lung cancer. She lived for 21 more months, finishing one more book before the cancer got her for good.
Susann’s own favorite of her books was her first, Every Night, Josephine (1963), the true story of her relationship with a poodle. It sold well enough to provide her the time and money to come up with Valley Of The Dolls. Susann was hungry for success and she achieved it by becoming her own brand; she was both a brand and a broad.
To keep the camp going after she was gone, someone (Paul Rudnick) came up with Isn’t She Great (2000), a highly fictionalized biopic with Susann played by Bette Midler, and Nathan Lane as Mansfield, Stockard Channing as Susann’s “gal pal” Florence Maybelle, and David Hyde Pierce as book editor Michael Hastings. Critics were unkind and audiences stayed away. It lost $44 million, and Midler was nominated for Worst Actress for the Golden Raspberry Awards.
