Susann, Jacqueline
Born: August 20, 1918, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died: September 21, 1974, in New York City
Vocations: Novelist, Actor, Playwright, Non-fiction Writer, Science Fiction Writer
Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

Keywords: Dolores; Every Night, Josephine!; The Love Machine; Lovely Me; Once is Not Enough; Valley of the Dolls; Yargo

Abstract: Jacqueline Susann was born on August 20, 1918, in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was an artist. After graduating from West Philadelphia High School in 1936, she moved to New York City. Following the success of her first book, Every Night, Josephine!, she was able to publish her exposé on the lives of celebrities with sex, drugs, and alcohol, entitled Valley of the Dolls. It would become one of the bestselling novels ever. Valley of the Dolls later became a movie and a television series. She would later become the only novelist with three consecutive bestselling books. Susann died on September 21, 1974, in New York City.

Biography:

Jacqueline Susann was born on August 20, 1918, in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Rose, was a schoolteacher and her father, Robert or Bob, was a portrait painter. Her father’s surname was originally Susan, but her mother added the extra n to her and her daughter’s name so that her students would place the emphasis of the last syllable instead of the first and, in doing so, pronounce it correctly. The Susans, her father’s family, were descendants of a financial adviser to Queen Isabella, a “de Suzanne,” who raised the funds for Christopher Columbus’ first voyage. Although she would not become traditional royalty, Jacqueline Suzanne would make millions of dollars and become the undisputed “Queen of Pulp Fiction” of her generation.

Soon after her birth, the Spanish flu epidemic wrought havoc throughout Philadelphia. Rose and her daughter were forced to move to a small apartment in Atlantic City, NJ, which her mother had to keep sterilized. After two years, they returned home and Susann was able to grow with the love of her father, who imparted his artistic sensibility in her.

While at West Philadelphia High School, she decided that college did not suit her passion to become an actress. So, Susann did not attend college, to the disappointment of her mother, an educator. She whole-heartedly desired to be an actress that she moved to New York City when she graduated in 1936. Susann was offered mostly minor roles in plays such as The Women. She would act in a total of 21 plays over the course of her acting career. At one of her auditions, she met Irving Mansfield, a publicist, who was to become her manager and husband. They married on April 2, 1939.

After five years of trying to make it big on Broadway, Susann felt disappointed with the state and quality of the plays. So, she decided to write her own. After five grueling days, she had typed a full-length play. Susann sought the critique of a well-known actress of stage and screen and her good friend, Margalo Gillmore. After she had read it, Gillmore said, “This is a very bad play. But it’s a start. Keep trying. Just don’t show this to anyone.” Susann did just that. She hid the play along with her typewriter and did not mention it again.

Her husband made it possible for her to garner popularity by having her placed in news columns. Soon after, she appeared regularly on The Morey Amsterdam Show, a radio show featured on CBS. A spot in A Lady Says Yes, a Broadway show starring Carole Landis and Jack Albertson, came next for Susann. In the year that followed, 1939, Susann co-wrote a play with Beatrice Cole originally titled The Temporary Mrs. Smith. However, the play would not be produced and would not open until 1946.

Susann also felt unfulfilled with her marriage and so began an affair with Eddie Cantor, a famous comedian and actor. Because of this tryst, she was offered a speaking part in his show entitled Banjo Eyes. After the closing of yet another show and after Cantor returned to his wife, Susann moved back home to Philadelphia to be with her family. Soon afterward, her husband was drafted to fight in the war. As a result, Susann had asked for requested a divorce via a letter, so that she could marry Joe E. Lewis, a famous comedian. Lewis would soon sign up for the military and serve his country in New Guinea because of mixed feelings about a marriage with Susann.

Soon after the shock, Susann reconciled with Mansfield in 1944. Two years later, Susann became pregnant and her play, which had been entitled The Temporary Mrs. Smith would open. It opened on November 25, 1946 at the Walnut St. Theatre in Philadelphia. Before she had given birth to her son, she had made a remark when she had looked into the mirror while pregnant: “How could this have happened to lovely me?” So, her play would soon receive the new title of Lovely Me before opening on December 25, 1946 on Broadway at the Adelphi Theatre on Broadway. At opening night of the play on Broadway, her water broke. She would miss the performance; one of 37 before it was cancelled. Her son would be named Guy because he was “just some guy,” not the daughter that she had wanted. He was later diagnosed with autism and his parents had him institutionalized the following year.

1955 proved to be a big year for Susann. She became a fashion commentator for Schiffli Lace on Night Time, New York. The show ran two commercials nightly, which Susann wrote, starred in, and produced. Then she tried to establish an exposé about show-biz and drugs, which she wanted to title The Pink Dolls. Instead, she adopted a poodle named Josephine, who would become the muse for her book about her experiences with her dog aptly titled Every Night, Josephine!. She would be the “Schiffli Girl” until 1961, but the success of her book, although it was merely intended for dog lovers, would make her famous. Soon afterward, at the age of 44 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy at the end of 1962. In her journal, dated December 25, 1962, she wrote, “I can’t die without leaving something. Something big.” She kept her medical history a secret in hopes of becoming even more famous for her exposé on show business and drugs, which would become known as Valley of the Dolls.

Originally, Valley of the Dolls was rejected by many publishers. The subjects of the novel were taboo by nearly everyone’s standards. This book chronicled the rise and fall of three women and their comforts of sex, drugs, and alcohol in order to deal with everything. The “dolls” were the pills used by the three women, which would include uppers, downers, and diet pills. The press labeled it scandalous which only garnered more interest when it was published by Bernard Geis Associates on February 10, 1966. Also, there was the rumor that the novel was based on celebrities such as Judy Garland and Ethel Merman, with whom she had reportedly tried to start a physical relationship. Many also claimed that she had had an affair with Coco Chanel and Carole Landis, whom some claim to be mirrored in the character of Jennifer North in Valley of the Dolls. Although the public may have lauded her work, her peers did not. Gore Vidal, renowned novelist, said, “She doesn’t write, she types!” Critics would also accuse her of having “typed on a cash register.” Her response to her critics was, “As a writer no one’s gonna tell me how to write. I’m gonna write the way I wanna write!” Even Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five wrote that the main character had a copy of Valley of the Dolls. He did this in order to give the main character a “cheap thrill” and break up the monotony and boredom of his typical life, in a satirical way. Luckily, Susann took this as a compliment. The book would be turned into a hugely popular movie in 1967, starring Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, and Barbara Parkins, though the film would be a disappointment for Susann.

Three years later, The Love Machine, the story of a man who became the president of a television network, was published. It was considered a “male-oriented” novel in the wake of Valley of the Dolls. Then, Once is Not Enough, the story of a poor girl who became a rich swinger in search of her father, was published in 1973. Unfortunately, her cancer returned and stopped her from touring in support of the book. Nevertheless, it would also become a #1 bestseller, making her the only author to have three consecutive bestselling novels. While in the hospital, she went into a coma and stayed in that state for seven weeks until she died at 56 on September 21, 1974. Posthumously, Yargo, a romance, science fiction novel written in the 1950s about a woman who falls in love with an alien, and Dolores, an ode to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, were published.

Susann’s Valley of the Dolls would inspire the song “Personality Crisis”by The New York Dolls, which was released in 1973 and became a punk rock hit of the 70s. Her own life would inspire others. The life of Susann became the subject for Barbara Seaman’s Lovely Me: The Life and Times of Jacqueline Susann published in 1987, a made-for-TV movie, entitled Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story in 1998, a film entitled Isn’t She Great, starring Bette Midler and released in 2000, and the play Paper Doll, starring Marlo Thomas. Finally, author Rae Lawrence wrote and completed Shadow of the Dolls, using notes which Jacqueline Susann had planned to use for a sequel to Valley of the Dolls, and it was released in 2001. Susann’s Valley of the Dolls would tie with Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird as the bestselling novels by female writers in history by the Guinness Book of World Records with more than 20 million copies in print.

Works:
Novels:

Nonfiction:

Plays:

Sources:

<http://amsaw.org/amsaw-ithappenedinhistory-082004-susann.html>.

This biography was prepared by John Alvarez.