Valley of the Dolls
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| Valley of the Dolls | |
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 Paperback book cover |
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| Author(s) | Jacqueline Susann |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Romantic novel |
| Publisher | Bernard Geis Associates |
| Publication date | 1966 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 442 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Every Night, Josephine! |
| Followed by | The Love Machine |
Valley of the Dolls is a novel by American writer Jacqueline Susann, published in 1966. The "dolls" within the title is a slang term for downers, barbiturates used as sleep aids.
Valley of the Dolls was an instant success when it was first published. Since then it has sold more than 30 million copies. As the first roman à clef by a female author to achieve this level of sales in America, it led the way for other authors such as Jackie Collins to depict the private lives of the real-life rich and famous under a veneer of fiction.
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[edit] Plot summary
In 1945, Anne Welles moves to New York City from Lawrenceville, Massachusetts, and finds employment with a talent agency representing the Broadway musical Hit the Sky. She meets Neely O'Hara (who changed her name from Ethel Agnes O'Neill), a vaudeville star living in her building, and recommends her for a role in the show’s chorus. Jennifer North, a showgirl with limited talent regarded for her beauty, appears in the play as well. The three women become fast friends. Over the next twenty years, the women embark on careers that bring them to the heights of fame and eventual self-destruction.
[edit] Jennifer
Jennifer begins a relationship with nightclub singer Tony Polar; believing his childish behavior is caused by his overprotective half-sister and manager Miriam, she persuades him to elope. She travels with him to Hollywood to pursue his career, and becomes pregnant. Upon discovering Tony’s infidelity, Jennifer ends the relationship but chooses to keep this child. Miriam explains that Tony has a congenital brain condition that causes seizures and dementia, and will culminate in total insanity. Upon learning that the child is likely to inherit the sickness, Jennifer has an abortion, without telling anyone why. This puzzles her friends, because they know her dearest wish is to have many children on whom she can lavish the affection and approval she never had.
As Jennifer is only regarded for her body and is desperate for money, she decides to perform in French art films. Stress and smoking make her an insomniac, and she begins to use the titular "dolls" (barbiturates) as sleep aids, as she had during the time she was in Hit the Sky.
Jennifer returns to the United States after years in Europe, where she's gained moderate success as an actress. She meets and falls in love with a middle-aged Republican senator who has hopes of becoming President. While preparing for her wedding she is diagnosed with breast cancer. She is told she must have a mastectomy, and that she will never be able to have children. When Jennifer speaks with the Senator, she tells him about not having children, but before she can say anything about the mastectomy he responds that he is uninterested in children. He enthuses that his love for her body, breasts especially, will sustain the relationship, and that he can't stand to think of anything happening to the "perfection" of her bosom. Unable to have children and faced with another man who only loves her for her body, Jennifer commits suicide.
[edit] Anne
In her administrative job, Anne’s beauty and class gain her attention. Millionaire Allen Cooper falls for her after only six weeks of dating, and demands her hand in marriage. Not ready to settle, Anne refuses.
During an out of town trip for the debut of Hit the Sky, Anne realizes that she is in love with Lyon Burke, a lawyer at the agency. When she tells Allen, he angrily breaks off the relationship. Though Lyon is not ready for a serious relationship with her, Anne remains in love with him for years.
Anne becomes the face of Gillian Cosmetics, and becomes romantically involved with Kevin Gillmore, the owner of the company. She remains in love with Lyon, and arranges with Harry Bellamy to create a job for Lyon to keep him in the U.S. The two eventually wed. Lyon discovers the ruse when tax time approaches. Angry about the way she "emasculated" him, Lyon continues to have affairs. Though Anne stays with Lyon, she plans to raise her daughter to be independent-minded and avoid the mistakes she made in her life. To cope with Lyon’s infidelity, Anne begins to take pills to sleep.
[edit] Neely
Neely becomes famous on the Broadway scene, moves to Hollywood to work in movies, and becomes a superstar in Hollywood musicals. Her handlers demand that she lose weight. Jennifer introduces her to dolls, and she quickly becomes addicted to "uppers" (dexedrine) to lose weight and stay awake during the day and barbiturates (seconal, nembutal) to sleep. The grueling, unglamorous work of being a Hollywood actress is described in detail and Neely's dependence on the pills is shown as understandable. She combines the pills and often uses alcohol to enhance their effect. Partly due to the effects of the pills, she earns a reputation as demanding, spoiled, and difficult to handle. Her movies earn high returns at the box office, but it isn't enough -- the studio consistently loses money on her pictures due to her erratic behavior.
After numerous suicide attempts, a year long black list from the entertainment world and two failed marriages, Neely is committed to a psychiatric hospital. Upon release she works (and begins an affair) with Lyon Burke to revitalize her career. She quickly returns to her vicious, arrogant behavior. However, her attraction to the dolls is too strong, and she seems to spiral into a final decline.
[edit] Background
Much of the narrative is drawn from the author's experiences and observations as a struggling actress in the Hollywood of the early forties. Helen Lawson, the aging stage actress who befriends and uses Anne, is based closely on Ethel Merman, whom Susann had known personally and reportedly had been sexually involved with.
The character of Neely O'Hara with her excess of talent coupled with her self-destructive alcoholism and dependency on prescription drugs, is said to be based upon Judy Garland. Her powerfully energetic stage and screen image are closer to those of Betty Hutton. Like Neely, Hutton had an ingenue role in a musical (Panama Hattie) opposite Merman — and had her one song cut from production by Merman, exactly as Lawson does to ingenue Terry King in the novel, because it drew attention away from the star. Garland was originally cast in the movie as Lawson, until her constant tardiness on the set and disapproval of the script led to her dismissal and Susan Hayward replaced her.
O'Hara's treatment in the sanitariums is a milder version of the fate that befell actress Frances Farmer. Susann was well acquainted with institutions and mental hospitals because of her struggle to find an acceptable milieu for her autistic son. The tragic character of Jennifer North is said to be based upon actress/pin-up girl Carole Landis, who had been romantically involved with Susann in their Hollywood days. Like Jennifer, Landis was seen as an ambitious blonde with little real talent, and after a series of failed relationships and a career that had quickly stagnated, she committed suicide with an overdose of barbiturates. Certain aspects of her personality resemble those of Marilyn Monroe, particularly her actual yet often overlooked intelligence. Her involvement with Senator Adams is comparable to Monroe's rumored affair with John F. Kennedy. The character of Tony Polar, the mentally impaired singer, was rumored to be based on Frank Sinatra, but Susann herself was quoted in her biography Lovely Me saying that she got the idea for Polar when she tried to interview Dean Martin after one of his shows; he was too engrossed in a comic book to pay attention to her.
[edit] Adaptions
[edit] 1967 film
In 1967 it was adapted into a dramatic film of the same name which was directed by Mark Robson, and stars Susan Hayward, Barbara Parkins, Sharon Tate, Patty Duke, and Paul Burke.
[edit] 1981 TV miniseries
The novel was adapted again for television in 1981 as Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, a TV miniseries adapted from the novel.
[edit] 1994 TV series
In 1994 a late-night, syndicated television soap opera, Valley of the Dolls, starring Sally Kirkland ran for one season using a loose adaptation of the premise.
[edit] Upcoming TV series
American television network NBC has announced plans to bring another series to the air that will air weekdays on NBC as a daytime drama. Director Lee Daniels is attached to develop the series.[1]
[edit] See also
- Isn't She Great, a 2000 biopic of Jacqueline Susann
