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 After suffering from a persistent cough, Susann, who was concerned about her upcoming book tour in support of "Once Is Not Enough", checked into Doctors Hospital on January 11, 1973. Test results showed a nodular lesion in her right lung; she was transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital for a bronchoscopy and biopsy. On January 18, she received a diagnosis of lung cancer, and immediately began cobalt treatments and daily chemotherapy injections. According to Irving Mansfield, there was some disagreement between doctors as to whether this was a metastatic breast cancer or an original lung cancer; accurate evaluation would determine the