“Valley of the Dolls” the Book- Any of you Read it?

Hell's bells, OP -- how old are you? This was practically required reading for my generation.

My parents kept their copy hidden in the bedroom, and I think I read it when I was about 13. But no one really read it for the plot. They read it for the sex, and tried to figure out who the people in the book were supposed to be in real life.

And by the way, these books were the works that gave "pulp fiction" its name.

I couldn't put it down. Easy to read, fun page turner. The characters, especially Anne, are much more complex than in the movie.

R1 I am 32. I’ve seen the film but never read the book.

Is this the 50 Shades of your generation?

It's not "good" as in well written...it's the epitome of camp. But it's a lot of fun.

Are you all getting so old you can't recognize a troll post when you see one? Not only is the guy pretending not to know VotD, he ordered if from Barnes and Noble.

Get it?

R6 huh? I never said I don’t know VOTD. I said I never read it.

I read it a few years ago. It's definitely tame by today's standards, but it was a huge deal in the day. I'd always thought dolls referred to stepford-wifey behavior. I definitely liked Anne, though.

I read it many, many years ago. It's entertaining trash. It has hilarious moments, such as when Neely O'Hara catches her bi-sexual husband fucking his mistress in their pool. She rails at him and his mistress: "Who are you protecting? A whore who contaminated my pool? You know ,honey, you mean nothing to him. He usually likes boys for his diversion. Maybe that's it...maybe you have no tits. Or maybe you're a lesbian!" After the girl runs off into the cabana she snarls at her husband "Alright, faggot--start explaining!" It's pure camp.

It's a million times better than the film, but then I never much cared for the film.

Good and trashy read. Moves quickly.

It’s actually a fun read, read it when I was a teenager.

I am watching the film right now. It’s enjoyable.

[Quote] her bi-sexual husband fucking his mistress in their pool. She rails at him and his mistress: "Who are you protecting? A whore who contaminated my pool? You know ,honey, you mean nothing to him. He usually likes boys for his diversion. Maybe that's it...maybe you have no tits. Or maybe you're a lesbian!" After the girl runs off into the cabana she snarls at her husband "Alright, faggot--start explaining!" It's pure camp.

Richard Madden's next role, perhaps.

It's smut. Smut I tell you.

It's strange that it hasn't been adapted again with the correct time period. They remade "Mildred Pierce", a classic, yet they haven't tried to rehab "Valley of the Dolls"?

I read it in the 8th grade. Interpret that as you will.

In the same scene described by R9, Neely also says, "how can you stand there with your dingle waving in the breeze..."

That's the line I remember most!

Tony Scotti was handsome in this.

I was 15 and living in a small town when I read it. I learned so much that I think it jaded me. Not sure if I picked up on all of the nuances in the book, but what I did learn was a great kick-start. After that, high school and the small town became boring and couldn't wait to leave. About this same time I watched Auntie Mame for the first time. Both greatly enriched me and were great preparation for the future.. LIfe's a banquet ...

I thought Peyton Place was a better read.

Of course I’ve read it. But I will tell you OP, you’ll love it as long as you appreciate for what it is when it was. And that edition is awesome...it has retro colored (hot pink) page edges like paperbacks from the 60s and 70s.

It’s a terribly written book and I love it.

[quote]And by the way, these books were the works that gave "pulp fiction" its name.

Not even close. Pulp fiction was around long before VOTD.

The movie is funny to me.

Okay, VotD experts, can you tell me something that's been bothering me since I first saw that mess of a movie on TV?

WFT WAS the point of Anne?

She's not famous, she's not fabulous, she's not involved in the same world of showbiz as the other characters are, and she's definitely not interesting. Why is she in the story.

R26 not only is she not interesting, neither was the actress. She’s a bore.

I hated the film. I couldn’t even enjoy it on a camp level. Jackie was a horrible writer.

Yes, it's a good read. I especially loved the descriptions of sex with Lyon Burke!

OP, that edition is a piece of shit. Read the reviews, see the pictures. The book falls apart. Cancel your order.

How is that edition any different than the original? It’s the same book.

As others have said above, it's a fast, fun, trashy read, but the book has a surprisingly sharp and cynical take on relations between the sexes. Anne's early rich boyfriend basically states it when he says that women only have any real power when they are very young and beautiful. Anne's tragedy is that she won't play the marriage game cynically: She has many opportunities to marry well and refuses to, choosing instead to marry for love. But she ends up just as miserable as if she had married for money, since her One Great Love is a selfish piece of shit.

[quote] WFT WAS the point of Anne? She's not famous, she's not fabulous, she's not involved in the same world of showbiz as the other characters are, and she's definitely not interesting. Why is she in the story

Because she stood back as a lowly secretary and watched this decadent life and then was drawn into it and became famous, and fabulous. We saw it thru her eyes.

In the book Anne only starts taking dolls at the very end.

Does Anne kisses doll?

Were Jacqueline Susann's other books any "good"? I guess the word good is applied loosely here, but the question still stands!

I have my mom's hardcover version. The paper cover is gone but the dolls are still embossed on the binding!

Does it qualify as pulp fiction if it was printed in hardover, embossed no less?

I must have read it 100 times when I was in jr high....too bad that and Jacqueline's other books weren't required reading in school. We all would have read!

Cheap paper was referred to as pulp and during mass productions of these paperbacks, cheaper paper stock was used.

Yes Anne was the "outsider" who took the readers along for the ride. She tried to escape the pitfalls of the other characters - couldn't. She was the only one the readers could hope for. Neely was a lost cause, Helen was a harridan, and Jennifer was a complete victim to her face and body....

SPOILER...........BOOK...........NOT MOVIE

Anne......she shoulda stayed home and married the Yale guy.....in the end she's married to a cheater and cheating herself and hooked on dolls....at least that's the way I remember it.

Jacqueline Susann’s “Every Night, Josephine” is really a fun read. It’s about Susann and her relationship with her very spoiled poodle.

"Yes Anne was the "outsider" who took the readers along for the ride."

That really didn't come through in the movie, in the movie she seems to be this attractive and lifeless woman, who doesn't fit with the most entertaining stuff, and whose story isn't interesting in its own right.

Which is far from the movie's greatest failing, it's full of failings from beginning to end and top to bottom! But the failure of the Anne storyline is probably due to a combination of lifeless acting, bad scriptwriting, and indifferent direction, none of those factors succeed in making Anne the "entry character" she was in the book.

Jacqueline susann was not a good writer, but she was a great storyteller. Valley of the Dolls is a fast, fun read. Juicy. Dishy Deliciously low.

Susann was gifted when it came to descriptions of things, people, and behaviours. At times, she seems to touch on details I previously thought I was the only one to notice. She excelled at pronouncing judgment with very few words with many of her detailed descriptions.

Susann and her husband, Irving Mansfield, both had long experience in show biz. All the crazy shit that goes on in the book is is absolutely true to form for Broadway.

Susann's "The Love Machine" is even better.

She looked like a TRUCKDRIVER in DRAG!

“Valley of the Dolls” can't be classified as pulp fiction.

What I remember most about the book ...and I was like 12 years old....was the promotion.

Jacqueline Susann with the mod mini-skirts, heavy eye make-up and long hair with the flip. She was very cool.

She appeared on every talk show multiple times and a was fun guest. She made quite an impact at the time.

Jacqueline Susann on "What's My Line?"

Jacqueline Susann totally rocked that late-60s look.

I thought the book was much better than the movie, despite all the great campy performances. They didn't adapt it well, or it just didn't translate. I rewatched the movie a number of years ago and was bored. And it didn't seem as though any of the women really had much to do with each other, least of all Anne.

great to read beach/poolside

The book was better. The book took place over a 20-year period, from the mid-40s to the mid-60s. The relationships between the three women were much more fleshed out - they were all very good friends at the beginning and even lived together.

I love all the period slang in the book, it's hilarious. Too bad people don't still talk like that!

It would be something if someone did a remake and did it more as a four to six hour series.

Just like Mildred Pierce, the camp version and more "serious" versions can live together.

I agree that it would make a fabulous limited-run series, and the themes are serious enough in this age of #metoo to give the series weight, while the sex, drugs, and period fashions would make it fun to watch.

If I were making the series right now, I'd cast Margot Robbie as Anne, Emma Stone as Neely, and Blake Lively as Jennifer.

I mentioned this on a thread about the movie. My friend has a first edition of "VOTD" his partner bought him in an a book auction signed by Jackie. Then we met Patty Duke and he had her look at it and confirmed it was her signature and she signed it too. Then Patty told us, she had a lot to be grateful to this lady, she brought her a whole group of loving people into her life. P.S. Patty was a great hugger and she told us to call her Anna too!

I'd go with Nick Hoult or Robert Pattinson for Lyon.

OP is wasn't any good the first time I read it 30 years ago...or more. It's a beach read.Crap. But it was SO fun.

[quote]Jacqueline susann was not a good writer, but she was a great storyteller.

I bet you say that about J. K. Rowling, too.

Fifty Shades of Grey vs Valley of the Dolls

Which is better?

I love VOTD, both the book and the movie. The book is better (isn’t it always?)

It might not be high art but not everything has to be.

Most books are better. But there are a few where I feel the film improved the story (Call Me By Your Name is one).

Or some that are different but good, like Silver Linings Playbook.

VoTD, R61. The question is kind of irrelevant, though. Aside from the fact that they're both trashy books, they don't have much in common.

R64 they’re both trashy books considered “poorly written”

My Mamma devoured every single one of that woman's books. Every single one. THey were all over our house. I read them on the sly.Even though they weren't so very dirty at all.

[Quote] Jacqueline Susann totally rocked that late-60s look.

More mutton dressed as lamb.

[quote]My parents kept their copy hidden in the bedroom

I read VOD and The Love Machine, found them in the back of my mother's dresser in their bedroom and snuck them out when I was around 12

I tried reading it, but it seemed like it was rather slow and boring at the beginning. Nothing really 'sexy' or interesting.

Anyone that likes it, is it a boring start?

I'm trying to remember - who were some of the other writers of trashy, sexy bestsellers in the '60s and '70s? I can only think of Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins, but I know there were others.

My mother read them all, along with more middlebrow stuff - any novel that was a bestseller. My parents were pretty liberal about what I read, so I started reading them, too, when I was around 13 or so.

Although not in quite the same category, the "dirty book" I remember best is The Godfather, especially the scene with Sonny Corleone and Lucy Mancini, "weeping with grateful ecstasy." Of course, that was the '70s, and by then it was no holds barred in terms of sex in literature. No holes barred, either, for that matter.

r70

You're LUCKY I'm dead.

Fun, trashy fiction. An enjoyable read.

Same here, r1. I was 17. Couldn’t wait for the movie to come out. Loved the theme song, too. Sung by DL favorite Dionne Warwick. I used to sneak Henry Miller’s books to read from my parents secret stash as well. It was quite an education.

[quote]The book is better (isn’t it always?)

No, only in the case of excellently written books. No one ranks a *Great Expectations* or *Pride and Prejudice* movie higher than the books (which continue to be read). But mediocre novels proverbially make better movies (in the right hands). The textbook example is *Gone With the Wind*. On tv, *The Jewel in the Crown* and *Brideshead Revisited* (Waugh's weakest novel).

VOTD was a worse movie than novel just because the movie was poorly done. Fortunately it still has camp value.

I agree that the movie is boring. It's probably better experienced in clip form.

I can't watch the film, it's not even entertaining. I've read the novel many times and the novel is very fucking entertaining. I have noticed the novel includes a few typographical errors.

Judith Krantz wrote a lot of potboilers in the 70s and 80s.

The book covers a twenty year period... and the film strangely seems like it's kind of all happening within the space of one year.

[quote]the "dirty book" I remember best is The Godfather, especially the scene with Sonny Corleone and Lucy Mancini, "weeping with grateful ecstasy."

I don't remember the exact quote like you can, but I was ENTRANCED by the description of how Sonny was too big to fit it in his wife.

You know, back when you had to imagine in order to jack off.

[quote]I'm trying to remember - who were some of the other writers of trashy, sexy bestsellers in the '60s and '70s? I can only think of Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins, but I know there were others.

Better than all of them was Penelope Ashe and her 1969 blockbuster "Naked Came the Stranger".

[quote] ENTRANCED by the description of how Sonny was too big to fit it in his wife.

Come again?

R80, LOL, yes. The Wiki article about the book is a quick read and very funny.

R81, oh my goodness, yes! Sonny's prodigious endowment is a prominent feature (no pun intended) of his character in the book. It's in the movie, too, although not quite as much.

Here's the thing: If you've seen the movie, you will picture Sonny in the book as James Caan. It's inevitable, so if you don't find Caan attractive, that might spoil it a bit.

The book is a good read in any case, although the movie followed it very closely, so a first-time reader won't see much new material.

R79, that same scene in the movie wasn't bad in the inspiration department, either.

What book are you speaking about?

As Truman Capote famously said about Susann's books:

"That's not writing, it's typing."

[quote] who were some of the other writers of trashy, sexy bestsellers in the '60s and '70s?

Rosemary Rogers wrote smut and we got hold of someone’s mom’s copies in seventh grade. Good times.

[quote]Better than all of them was Penelope Ashe and her 1969 blockbuster "Naked Came the Stranger".

Thanks r80, I just checked it out and am going to read it.

[Quote] I'm trying to remember - who were some of the other writers of trashy, sexy bestsellers in the '60s and '70s? I can only think of Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins, but I know there were others.

Veering into porn, the glorious and hilarious Ted Mark.

Was a kid when the "Naked Came The Stranger" scandal happened, it was a big deal . The article doesn't mention that Newsday was Long Island's own daily paper. Everybody on it LI got it along with the NYC papers so it was shocking this best selling dirty book was written by the Newsday group and not the N.Y. Daily News or N.Y. Post.

"Naked Came The Stranger" has to be the most ridiculously pompous title ever. Thank you for introducing me to this classic of 60s middlebrow titillation.

I love stuff that was popular in the 60s. So much more fun watching and reading stuff that was scandalous then

[quote]"Naked Came The Stranger" has to be the most ridiculously pompous title ever.

Ridiculously pompous but a brilliant title for the genre. Campy. Kitsch. And memorable.

Three powerful images: "Naked", "Came", "the Stranger".

Low brow in the extreme and I loved it. Susann told many true stories that would have gotten her exiled from Hollywood had she presented them in non fiction form. Also recommend Hollywood Babylon for more delectable gossip--plus photos!

Is it true Patty Dukes performance killed her career?

[quote]Is it true Patty Dukes performance killed her career?

Well, her next movie " Me Natalie" she won The Golden Globe Best Actress - Comedy or Musical but didn't headline any more big screen features but she went back to TV and won 3 Emmys in 9 nominations.

[italic]Naked Came the Stranger,[/italic] though a parody/hoax, inspired a popular hardcore porn flick.

Wasn’t there also a pretty famous Alice in Wonderland porn?

r86, I thought Capote said that about Jack Kerouac. Anyway, I enjoyed VOTD MUCH more than On the Road.

Is Valley of the Dolls the novel where Jacqueline Susann fictionalizes her affairs with movie starlets?

Neely O'Hara was of course inspired Judy Garland, but also the now-forgotten Betty Hutton, who was a big musical MGM star in the 40s and destroyed her career with pills and irrational behavior.

Jennifer North was of course inspired by Marilyn Monroe but also a starlet named Carole Landis, who Jackie had a lesbian affair with and who killed herself in the late 40s.

Anne Welles was partly Grace Kelly and also partly a kind of cleaned-up fantasy version of Jackie herself, who imagined herself to come from an upper-class background (she didn't).

Helen Lawson was Ethel Merman. Crude, crass and vulgar.

Tony Polar was based on Dean Martin, who Susann thought was mentally retarded.

The Metrograph in NY next month will be screening VOTD with an intro by Dionne Warwick.

It's a shame Miss Warwick didn't have a cameo in VotD.

Love Warwick.

Joanna Barnes - another 60's actress-model-TV panelist - wrote a book like VOTD called The Deceivers which was much better.

She really let Hollywood have it and her characters were much stronger and more interesting.

She played the fiancee in The Parent Trap and the friend in Goodbye, Charlie among other roles.... And Patty Duke was SURE she was after her first husband and really messed up a friendship she could have used when times got rough for her.....

I liked The Love Machine, too. I remember reading that the dad from Flipper, Brian Kelly, whose big hairy chest fascinated me, was going to be Robin, the protagonist, but that he'd been badly injured in an accident so he wasn't able to do so. Tragic.

Another good trashy read was The Users by Joyce Haber, who was a gossip columnist in LA.

Susann's Dolores, which is a non-veiled recounting of Jackie O's life, is pretty worthless.

"Once Is Not Enough" is also a good read by Susann. Susann's long-forgotten scifi novel "Yargo" pretty much explains the bizarre ending to "Once Is Not Enough."

Dyan Cannon would have made a better Neely than Patty Duke.

That's Miss Warwick to you. Bitch.

r105 You discuss Joanna Barnes as if we've never heard of her. You're clearly not top-drawer.

Rona Barrett and Joanna Barnes together hosted the daytime talk show "Dateline Hollywood".

As a young gayling I loved it but I think I'm the only person in the world who remembers it.

[quote]Dyan Cannon would have made a better Neely than Patty Duke.

Shame on you Swany, shame on you.

I'm sorry R110.

I know that so MANY of us know Miss Barnes - and yes Dateline: Hollywood was a must watch - but I get weary of posting about someone and getting the "Who?" and "Ok, Boomer" and "Never heard of her...." comments from some, that I thought I would add a bit about her.

I didn't speak of AUNTIE MAME - or her many appearances in the 1970's syndicated version of To Tell The Truth or as a guest star in many television series....

[Quote] I get weary of posting about someone and getting the "Who?" and "Ok, Boomer" and "Never heard of her...." comments from some

I wonder what threads you frequent. In my experience, there is no one too obscure to be namechecked on the DL.

This is true, R114. Even Miss Allison Hayes got kudos after her mention on the Perry Mason thread.

I need this to be made into a mini-series, but set in that original time period. Not modern day.

Joanna Barnes, the poor man's Dina Merrill.

Dina Merrill, the poor man's Grace Kelly.

(Of course Dina Merrill and the word "poor" don't quite belong together.)

I thought Hope Lange was the poor man's Eva Marie Saint, who was the poor man's Grace Kelly.

Well, except for the fact Eva Marie Saint was a real, trained actress.

Joanna Barnes got to be famous doing the idiot debutante routine in comedy nightclubs in Manhattan... that brought her to the attention of the producers of "Auntie Mame," and won her the role of the ne plus ultra of idiot debutantes everyone remembers her playing.

And Joanna was dropped from the Boston Social Register when she became an actress.

It was ghastly -- it was just ghastly.

One of the things I loved about it was how when the main characters were all young they were so aware of how OLD all the middle aged women were. Then when they got into their 30s and 40s that awareness of age suddenly vanished.

[quote]R3 The characters, especially Anne, are much more complex than in the movie.

Anne is a bore, and just there to give the mainstream readers someone to identify with. She’s also the black hole at the center of the movie.

There. I said it.

[quote]R3 The characters, especially Anne, are much more complex than in the movie.

Anne is a bore, and just there to give the mainstream readers someone to identify with. She’s also the black hole at the center of the movie.

There. I said it.

[quote]R43 in the movie she seems to be this attractive and lifeless woman, who doesn't fit with the most entertaining stuff, and whose story isn't interesting in its own right.

They wanted Candice Bergen for that part. She would have made the film fun, as she’d have acted horrified to be there.

Bergen costume sketch for character of Anne:

R126, why was she standing in a wind tunnel? Or was she balancing on the wing of a biplane, 1920's-style?