Bette Midler "Isn't She Great" and "Drowning Mona". In Andrew Bergman's "Isn't She Great", a highly fictionalized account of the life and career of author Jacqueline Susann, she played alongside Nathan Lane and Stockard Channing, portraying Susann with her early struggles as an aspiring actress relentlessly hungry for fame, her relationship with press agent Irving Mansfield, her success as the author of "Valley of the Dolls", and her battle with and subsequent death from breast cancer. The dramedy garnered largely negative reviews by critics, who dismissed it as "bland material [that] produces entirely forgettable comic performances." For her performance in the film,
Jacqueline Susann and hosting work, Susann did commercials. In 1955, she became spokesperson for the Schiffli Lace and Embroidery Institute. Over the next six years, she wrote, produced, and starred in commercials which aired during such shows as New York's local "Night Beat" (DuMont's WABN), with Mike Wallace, and then nationally on such shows as "The Mike Wallace Interview" (ABC) and "The Ben Hecht Show" (ABC). Sometimes she was joined on the air by her poodle, Josephine. Susann energetically promoted the product, and made personal appearances on its behalf. One night in the early 1960s, as she was leaving a New York