Jacqueline Susann
Jacqueline Susann was an American novelist and actress. Her novel Valley of the Dolls is one of the best-selling books in publishing history. With her two subsequent works, The Love Machine and Once Is Not Enough, Susann became the first author to have three novels top The New York Times Best Seller list consecutively.
Early years
Jacqueline Susan was born on August 20, 1918, at Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, the only child of a Jewish couple: Robert Susan, a Wilno, Imperial Russia -born portrait painter, and his wife, Rose, a public school teacher. It was Rose who added the second "n" to her husband's surname in order to make pronunciation easier for her students; Robert Susan retained the original spelling. Because his surname was never legally changed, his daughter was born Jacqueline Susan, as confirmed in the 1920 and 1930 US census, and her father's record in the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–2007. Nevertheless, she used her mother's version of the family surname.As a child, her teachers reported that she was an inattentive but imaginative student. In the fifth grade, she scored 140 on an IQ test, the highest in her school. An only child and devoted to her father, Susann was determined to carry on the family name. She decided to be an actress, despite the advice of a teacher who said, "Jackie should be a writer. She breaks all the rules, but it works." In 1936, after graduating from West Philadelphia High School, she left for New York to pursue an acting career. Her father told her, "If you're going to be an actress, be a good actress. Be a people watcher."
Stage career
In New York, on June 2, 1937, aged 18, Susann landed a small role in the Broadway company of The Women, the "caustic" comedy of manners by Clare Boothe that had opened on December 26, 1936, and would run for 657 performances. She subsequently appeared in such Broadway shows as The Girl from Wyoming, My Fair Ladies, Blossom Time, Jackpot, and in A Lady Says Yes, which starred Hollywood siren Carole Landis. Only one of her shows following The Women was a hit: Banjo Eyes, starring Eddie Cantor, ran for 126 performances.Together with a friend, actress Beatrice Cole, Susann wrote a play called The Temporary Mrs. Smith, a comedy about a one-time movie actress whose former husbands interfere with her scheme to marry a man of wealth. Retitled Lovely Me, the play, directed by actress Jessie Royce Landis, and starring Luba Malina and Mischa Auer, opened on Broadway at the Adelphi Theatre on December 25, 1946. Said to be an "audience-pleaser," the play nonetheless closed after just 37 performances. Four years later, Susann and Cole wrote another play, Cock of the Walk, which was to open on Broadway with Oscar-winning actor James Dunn. For reasons that remain unclear, the play was not produced.
In 1970, Susann made a brief return to the stage when she appeared in Blanche Yurka's off-Broadway revival of Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot. Clive Barnes in The New York Times panned the production; of the cast, he praised only Yurka, but he did mention that "Jacqueline Susann looks a great deal prettier than the publicity stills on her book jackets might lead you to believe."
Television career
From 1948 to 1950, Susann appeared on The Morey Amsterdam Show, a comedy series, in which she played Lola the Cigarette Girl to Amsterdam's nightclub emcee. In 1951, she hosted Jacqueline Susann's Open Door, the premise of which was to help people—most of whom had experienced hardships—find jobs. She appeared in such series as Danger, Studio One, and Suspense, but found herself typecast: "I got cast as what I looked like—a glamorous divorcée who gets stabbed or strangled." In the summer of 1956, she appeared in NBC's revival of the panel show This Is Show Business, which was produced by her husband.In addition to her acting and hosting work, Susann did commercials. In 1955, she became spokesperson for the Schiffli Lace and Embroidery Institute. Over the next six years, she wrote, produced, and starred in commercials that aired during such shows as New York's local Night Beat, with Mike Wallace, and then nationally on such shows as The Mike Wallace Interview and The Ben Hecht Show. Sometimes she was joined on the air by her poodle, Josephine. Susann energetically promoted the product and made personal appearances on its behalf. One night in the early 1960s, as she was leaving a New York restaurant, Susann heard someone shout, "There's the Schiffli girl!" Susann, realizing that 25 years of hard work had culminated only in recognition as the "Schiffli girl," was discouraged. She later appeared in a 1971 episode of the crime drama Mannix.
Books
''Yargo''
During the mid-1950s, Susann wrote a science-fiction novel called The Stars Scream. In the early 1960s, she considered writing a book about show business and drug use, to be entitled The Pink Dolls.''Every Night, Josephine!''
In 1962, after encouragement from showman Billy Rose, husband of Susann's friend, Joyce Mathews, she began to adapt into book form letters she had written about her beloved poodle, Josephine.Published by Bernard Geis Associates on November 16, 1963, Every Night, Josephine! sold 35,000 copies in hardcover, and by 1973 sold 1.7 million paperbacks. This affectionate account of Josephine's hijinks earned positive reviews and appeared briefly on Time magazine's best seller list, peaking at #8. In support of Josephine!, Susann undertook her first book tour, on which she was accompanied by the subject herself; often she and Josephine wore matching outfits. Even after publishing her novels, Susann cited Josephine! as her favorite of her own books.
''Valley of the Dolls''
Valley of the Dolls spans twenty years in the lives of three young women: Anne Welles, the New England beauty who liberates herself from her staid small town by coming to New York, where she falls in love with the dashing Lyon Burke; Neely O'Hara, an ebullient vaudevillian who becomes a Hollywood star and self-destructs; and Jennifer North, a showgirl with little talent but a gorgeous face and figure, who becomes a friend to both. All three women fall prey to the "dolls," amphetamines and barbiturates, a euphemism Susann coined. The book was published by Bernard Geis on February 10, 1966, and "took off like a Cape Canaveral space shot." The story was said to be a roman à clef, with characters in the novel reportedly based on real-life celebrities such as Judy Garland, Dean Martin, and Ethel Merman.Although Publishers Weekly, in an advance review, called the novel "powerful and sometimes fascinating," the book received largely negative reviews. Gloria Steinem panned the book in The New York Herald Tribune as did the reviewer in The New York Times. Time magazine called it the "Dirty Book of the Month," and said, "it might more accurately be described as a highly effective sedative, a living doll."
File:Valley of the Dolls still 1.jpg|thumb|281x281px| 1967 film adaptation of Valley of the Dolls. Left to right: Patty Duke, Mark Robson, Lee Grant, David Weisbart, Jacqueline Susann, and Barbara Parkins.
Despite the poor reviews, the book was a commercial juggernaut. On May 8, 1966, in its ninth week on the list, the book reached #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list, where it remained for 28 consecutive weeks. With a total of 65 weeks on the list, the book became the best selling novel of 1966. By the time of Susann's death in 1974, it had entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the best selling novel in publishing history, with more than 17 million copies sold. By 2016, the book had sold more than 31 million copies.
In 1967, the book was adapted into the film of the same name, starring Barbara Parkins as Anne, Patty Duke as Neely, Sharon Tate as Jennifer, and Susan Hayward as Helen Lawson, the aging Broadway legend. Susann made a cameo appearance as a reporter at the scene of Jennifer North's suicide. Valley of the Dolls received scathing reviews, but was a widespread commercial success, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of its year with $44.4 million at the domestic box office, a huge amount for its time. Susann herself hated the film; after its November premiere aboard the passenger liner, Princess Italia, she confronted the film's director, Mark Robson, and stated, "This picture is a piece of shit."
In 2001, author Rae Lawrence published a continuation of Valley of the Dolls, titled Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls, which was reputedly based on notes left by Susann for an intended sequel. In its review, Publishers Weekly stated, "This tedious, tame sequel is aptly titled, as it languishes deep in the shadow of the original... Susann's original still packs a wallop; the sequel is a pulled punch."
''The Love Machine''
Susann's second novel, The Love Machine, is the story of Robin Stone, a ruthless but tormented executive in the cut-throat world of 1960s network television, and three women who love him: Amanda, the doomed fashion model; Maggie, the independent television personality turned movie actress; and Judith, the insecure wife of the network founder. Like Valley, the book was considered a roman à clef, with Robin reportedly based on former CBS president James Aubrey.Published by Simon & Schuster on May 14, 1969, the book was an immediate success: it spent 32 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, and was the third highest-selling novel of its year. Reviews were not favorable; one reviewer in The New York Times compared the book to "popcorn... a kernel of an idea... exploded into bite-sized nothingness," while Time magazine complained that the book "lacks Valley's primitive vigor.
Film rights were sold to Columbia Pictures for a then-record $1.5 million. Directed by Jack Haley, Jr., the film adaptation was released in 1971, starring Dyan Cannon, Robert Ryan, and John Phillip Law. Irving Mansfield was executive producer but the film was a critical and commercial flop. Susann, who had loathed the film version of Valley, believed this adaptation was even worse.