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 seller list, and was the third highest-selling novel of its year. Reviews were not favorable; one reviewer in the "New York Times" compared the book to "popcorn... a kernel of an idea... exploded into bite-sized nothingness," while "Time" magazine complained that the book "lacks Valley's primitive vigor. Film rights were sold to Columbia Pictures for a then-record $1.5 million. Directed by Jack Haley, Jr., the film adaptation was released in 1971, starring Dyan Cannon, Robert Ryan, and John Phillip Law. Despite the fact that Irving Mansfield was executive producer, the movie was a critical and commercial flop. Susann, who had