(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls (Theme from) Valley of the Dolls "(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls" is a 1967 song by André and Dory Previn, composed for the film version of the Jacqueline Susann novel "Valley of the Dolls", and recorded by Dionne Warwick. Actress Barbara Parkins, who starred in the motion picture, suggested that Warwick be considered to sing the film's theme song. The song was to be given to Judy Garland, who had been fired from the film. Warwick performed the song, and when the film became a success in the early weeks of 1968, her single of the film theme became
Naked Came the Stranger year, further spurring the book's popularity. Mike McGrady was convinced that popular American literary culture had become so base—with the best-seller lists dominated by the likes of Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann—that any book could succeed if enough sex was thrown in. To test his theory, in 1966 McGrady recruited a team of "Newsday" colleagues (according to Andreas Schroder, nineteen men and five women) to collaborate on a sexually explicit novel with no literary or social value whatsoever. McGrady co-edited the project with his "Newsday" colleague Harvey Aronson, and among the other collaborators were well-known writers including 1965 Pulitzer Prize