Valley of the Dolls The screenplay was written by Helen Deutsch ("National Velvet") and Dorothy Kingsley ("Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"), and produced by Robson and David Weisbart. Reviews were scathing, but the film was an enormous box-office hit, becoming the sixth most popular of the year with $44 million at the domestic box office. Susann, who had a cameo as a news reporter, hated the film, reportedly telling director Robson that it was "a piece of shit." The novel was adapted for television in 1981 as "Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls", a mini-series executive-produced by Susann's widower Irving Mansfield and directed by
Jacqueline Susann by Bernard Geis on February 10, 1966, and "took off like a Cape Canaveral space shot." The story was said to be a "roman à clef", with characters in the novel reportedly based on real-life celebrities such as Judy Garland, Dean Martin, and Ethel Merman. Although "Publishers Weekly", in an advance review, called the novel "powerful and sometimes fascinating," the book received largely negative reviews. Gloria Steinem panned the book in "The New York Herald Tribune" as did the reviewer in "The New York Times". "Time" magazine called it the "Dirty Book of the Month," and said, "it might more