Helen Lawson she has left to play a "character role" in a television series. For the 1967 film adaptation, author Susann hoped that the Bette Davis would play the role, but Judy Garland was hired instead. Garland was replaced by Susan Hayward. Lawson made another appearance in the 2008 novel "Candy Everybody Wants" by Josh Kilmer-Purcell, where she acts as a mentor to the protagonist, 15-year-old Jayson Blocher, as he is beginning his career in Hollywood. Helen Lawson Helen Lawson is a fictional character from Jacqueline Susann's best-selling 1966 novel "Valley of the Dolls", said to be based largely on legendary stage
Dolores (Susann novel) to devote her time to research as she was seriously ill with cancer. The "Journal" had offered Susann $20,000 for 20,000 words, but the manuscript she turned in was nearly 38,000 words. It was cut by "Journal" editors, but the excisions were restored when the story was published in book form. Certain details were changed in the book (for example, in the original story, Dolores's husband, Jimmy Ryan, is felled by a heart attack, not by an assassin's bullet). Rumors that film critic (and friend of Susann) Rex Reed rewrote the work are unsubstantiated. The book is dedicated to the