Jacqueline Susann accurately be described as a highly effective sedative, a living doll." Despite the poor reviews, the book was a commercial juggernaut. On May 8, 1966, in its ninth week on the list, the book reached #1 on the "New York Times" Best Seller List, where it remained for 28 consecutive weeks. With a total of 65 weeks on the list, the book became the best selling novel of 1966. By the time of Susann's death in 1974, it had entered the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the best selling novel in publishing history, with more than 17 million copies
Jacqueline Susann made publishing history as the first writer to have three consecutive number one novels on the "Times" list. The book was filmed in 1975 by Guy Green as "Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough", with Kirk Douglas, Alexis Smith, Melina Mercouri, Brenda Vaccaro (in an Oscar-nominated performance), and Deborah Raffin as January. The film, executive-produced by Irving Mansfield, was not a critical favorite, but was a commercial success, grossing $15.7 million (the equivalent of $65.2 million in 2016).) Susann's final work was a novella, "Dolores" (Morrow), a "roman a clef" about Jacqueline Kennedy, originally written for the February 1974 issue