Jacqueline Susann, whose 1966 book, "Valley of the Dolls," became the world's best-selling novel and made her name a household word, died of cancer Saturday night at doctors Hospital. She was 53 years old. Her husband, Irving Mansfield, television and film producer, said yesterday that Miss Susann had last entered the hospital seven weeks ago. She had surgery for breast cancer in 1962, he said, and 10 years later began cobalt radiation treatments and chemotherapy when cancer was found in other areas.
"Valley of the Dolls" as the country's top-selling book for 22 weeks. With subsequent novels, the former actress and television performer became the first novelist to have three consecutive books ranked No. 1 on The New York Times's list of best-sellers. With more than 17 million copies sold, in hardcover and paperback, "Valley of the Dolls" is recognized by the "Guinness Book of Records" as the best-selling novel of all time surpassing "Peyton Place." In a style that combined soap-opera woes and details with fast-moving action and Broadway-Hollywood settings, the book was a juicy morality tale about the sex lives and aging problems of four 1945-vintage "glamour girls" and their eventual dependence on alcohol and drugs. The pills they took to pep themselves up, to go to sleep and to stay slim were nicknamed "dolls" by the author herself, she said.
"The Love Machine," which followed in 1969, remained the No. 1, best-seller for five months. Described by Miss Susann as "an attempt to get into men's ids," the book displayed again her story-telling gift, which was applied this time to the career and sexual perversities of a power-hungry television executive. Miss Susann's last novel, "Once Is Not Enough," was published last year. It continued the through-the-keyhole look--essentially disapproving, despite the four-letter words--at sex and drugs among the so-called "beautiful people" with added overtones of incest and lesbianism. The book inspired fewer guessing games than its predecessors about the real-life persons on whom the characters were based, although Miss Susan always insisted that her characters were her own creations.
"They can keep calling it that--it will only make my books sell," she once said of the roman ý clef element in her writing. "I start with a theme in my mind. Then I start asking, what kind of a personality? And because I have a good ear, I unconsciously pick up certain people. When Flaubert wrote 'Madame Bovary,' 20 women in town said they were Emma." All three novels were made into movies, with "Once Is Not Enough" scheduled for release next spring. "Once Is Not Enough" moved into first place on the best-seller list in 1973, during one of Miss Susann's increasingly frequent hospital stays. When it dropped to No. 2 after nine weeks, she and Mr. Mansfield were on a promotion tour in Europe. "Watergate has knocked off everything," she said sadly then, comparing the book's sales with her earlier records. "When women get home at night, they want to turn on the television set and watch the hearings on replay, not read novels."
In the Mansfields' 24th floor condominium on Central Park South, Miss Susann did her three-finger typing in a study with Pucci-print draperies. Once a book's theme, main characters and ending were chosen, the pink patent-leather walls began to sprout elaborate charts that plotted the addition and evolution of characters and incidents. She sometimes wrote eight hours a day, pausing only to lunch on blueberry yogurt or banana. Usually she wrote four or five drafts of a book, first on yellow paper, then on pink and blue and green, then finally on white. The last draft of "Valley of the Dolls" was turned in 18 months after it was started, and Miss Susann--occasionally described as "a writing machine"--began at once on "The Love Machine." During her last working months, Mr. Mansfield said she made notes for a new novel and for a sequel to "Every Night, Josephine!" a story about the couple's poodle that was her first book. She called it her favorite.
Critics were almost unanimously unkind to her books. "The Love Machine" is popcorn," said a relatively gentle review by Christopher Lehman-Haupt in The New York Times. "It goes down quickly and easily. It is the bernel of an idea, the seed of an inspiration, exploded into bite-sized nothingness." "A good writer," she said, "is one who produces books that people read--who communicates. So if I'm selling millions, I'm good." Miss. Susann and her husband traveled tirelessly to promote her books and she was a frequent television panelist, both before and after she had become a best-selling writer. In one memorable exchange on the David Frost show, John Simon, the critic, asked her: "Do you think you are writing art or are you writing trash to make a lot of money?" Said Miss Susann: "Little man, I am telling a story. Now does that make you happy?"
Her books earned $8-million for her in royalties and more than $1-million remained after taxes and expenses, Miss Susann said last November. Sixty per cent was invested in tax-free municipal bonds and the rest in stocks, all of it through two corporations established jointly with her husband, she said.
Miss Susann had appeared in mainly minor roles in 21 plays on Broadway and in road companies, including the original production of Clare Boothe's "The Women" in 1937, and was co-author of a play, "Lovely Me," that ran four weeks on Broadway.
Miss Susann, always reluctant to be specific about her age, explained that "I have a cult--it's best for me to be ageless to my readers." She also refused to talk to more than a few intimates about both her original and more recent illnesses, a refusal a close associate attributed to "a sense of pride that could not bear what she called 'eyes of pity.'" "She though it was a very private thing," Mr. Mansfield said yesterday. "But recently she said to me, 'For 10 years I treated cancer as though it were a 'social disease' and I was wrong."
Miss Susann was born Aug. 20, 1921, in Philadelphia, were her father, the late Robert Susann, was a portrait artist, and her mother, Rose, was a public school teacher. She worked in New York first as a model and then as a performer until 1962, the year of her first illness and first book. In addition to her husband, whom she married in 1945, and her mother, she is survived by a son, Guy.
great article. what's next for you Kev? I think webisode might be your direction.
ReplyDeleteKim