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 in which she played Lola (later Jackie) the Cigarette Girl to Amsterdam's nightclub emcee. In 1951, she hosted "Jacqueline Susann's Open Door" (DuMont), the premise of which was to help people—most of whom had experienced hardships—find jobs. She also appeared in such series as "Danger" (CBS), "Studio One" (CBS), and "Suspense" (CBS), but found herself typecast: "I got cast as what I looked like—a glamorous divorcée who gets stabbed or strangled." In the summer of 1956, she appeared in NBC's revival of the panel show "This Is Show Business", which was produced by her husband. In addition to her acting