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 Sweet Princess", which Susann did not live to write. Josephine died on January 6, 1970, just days before her sixteenth birthday. In 1962, at the age of 44, Susann was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent a radical mastectomy. During her recuperation, she made a pact with God: if she were given ten more years of life, she would prove herself to be the best-selling writer in the world. With her diagnosis, Susann felt an urgency to make money as quickly as possible, so as to ensure that her son would be properly cared for the rest of his life.