Anne: Lyon we can’t move to Lawrenceville I hate it there, I’d rather die [followed by a huge fight and Lyon went awol] The caricatured question of second-wave feminism was “Are all men rapists?” This was the idea used to deflate and ridicule it, the conflation of a bid for equality with an unshakable animus to men. In fact, the critical question was much more subtle but just as threatening to the patriarchy: are you a Neely (“Look – if someone loved me, I’d love him”) or an Anne, with a sexual destiny of her own, a set of desires that were not just triggered by the lust of another, but were self-generating? This was the fight of the 60s, subverted over the 70s and 80s into a victim narrative: were women something other than the gatekeepers of sex? Did they have appetites of their own? In an interview with Roger Ebert, Susann offered her thoughts on why Garland was let go. “Everybody keeps asking me why she was fired from the movie, as if it was my fault or something,” she said. “You know what I think went wrong? Here she was, raised in the great tradition of the studio stars, where they make 30 takes of every scene to get it right, and the other girls in the picture were all raised as television actresses. So they’re used to doing it right the first time. Judy just got rattled, that’s all.” 5. PATTY DUKE PARTIALLY BLAMES THE DIRECTOR’S BEHAVIOR FOR GARLAND’S EXIT. Fremont-Smith, Eliot. Thank You, Franz Kafka! The New York Times. February 4, 1966. Retrieved January 10, 2017. Neely's drug and alcohol abuse lands her in the same sanitarium as Tony, where they discover each other when Neely begins singing in the common area and he joins her. After she is released, Lyon gets her a role in a Broadway play. Neely soon causes trouble by having an affair with Lyon and attending a press party for Helen Lawson. During a catfight in the ladies' room, Neely removes Helen's wig and throws it in the toilet. Lyon ends his relationship with Neely when she relapses and is replaced by her understudy. Neely continues her bender at a nearby bar and is left screaming and sobbing in a deserted alley when the bar closes.

Valley of the Dolls (novel) - Wikipedia

Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p.255. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. Even though this book was published over 50 years ago, it is still so relevant. Fame can corrupt anyone and everyone, even those with the strongest of minds. I love that Susann was able to reveal these truths that are still, unfortunately, valid to this day. To promote the film, the studio hosted a month-long premiere party on a luxury liner. At a screening in Venice, Susann said the film “appalled” her, according to Parkins. She also thought Hollywood “had ruined her book,” and Susann asked to be taken off the boat. At one point she reportedly told Robson directly that she thought the film was “a piece of sh*t.” 2. BARBARA PARKINS WAS “NERVOUS” TO WORK WITH JUDY GARLAND.Neely was my least favorite. I really disliked her early on in the book, which disappointmented me because she starts out as a very likeable character. It didn’t get better, I continued to dislike her to the very end. She showed her true colors only running to her friends when she really needed them but when she was on top she would forget about them even though they tried to be a constant in her life, the "dolls" and stardom were her only worries.

The Real-Life Sex and Scandal That Inspired Jacqueline Susann

Actually there a lot of other parallels: the themes of reinvention through false identities, focuses on the American dream of success (note that it's becoming a stinking rich capitalist for men and a famous actress/model for women), and plots that hinge on characters doing stupid shit because of LOVE. Why was Valley of the Dolls, movie and book, such an extraordinary success? Don Preston believes the answer lies in the Mansfields’ peerless promotional skills. Clearly, it could not just have been the risqué subject matter; more prurient books were available, although maybe not ones a secretary could safely read on the subway. 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. Above all, she knew her audience. Before People or Hollywood Babylon had ripped the scales from the public’s eyes, “ Valley of the Dolls showed that a woman in a ranch house with three kids had a better life,” Susann said, “than what happened up there at the top.”Despite being a classic had I before I got asked if I wanted to participate in the blog tour never read nor seen the movie version of Valley of the Dolls. But, since I'm a daring person when it comes to books did I not hesitate to read it, despite not knowing much about the book. I do not know how big a hit the book was in Sweden when it was published, but I have never really heard that much about the book, could be because I was not born when it was published. So, it was interesting to read a book that so many people seem to like and that seemed to have been an inspiration source for other female writers. The film was included in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way) by Harry Medved, Randy Dreyfuss, and Michael Medved. [14] Accolades [ edit ] Award While I don't appreciate the use of words like fag and dyke, I've read that Jacqueline Susann was actually incredibly supportive of the LGBT community. She gave them a voice in Valley of the Dolls, probably one of the first forms of media to do so. According to Simon Doonan, who wrote in the foreward of the 50 year anniversary edition, "members of the gay community were thrilled to find themselves, at long last, unleashed with such gusto onto an international stage." It's going to be really difficult for me to rate this, because I can't deny that I enjoyed it. It was, by definition, craptastic, or as my good friend Em likes to say, trashtastic. I mention Em because I did this buddy read with her, and that made it all the more an enjoyable experience. She's as much a masochist as I am, and we find the same things ironically funny, so all in all, it was fun. Read her review, because her analysis is better than mine, as is her sense of humour.