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 singer Hildegarde, who was the boy's godmother. At the age of three, Guy was diagnosed as severely autistic, and eventually had to be institutionalized; Susann and Mansfield did not reveal the true reason for his absence from home, fearing that he would be stigmatized should he eventually recover. Reportedly, Susann and Mansfield rarely missed a week visiting their son. In 1954, the Mansfields adopted a black, half-toy half-miniature poodle, whom they named Josephine, in honor of comedian Joe E. Lewis. Josephine became the subject of Susann's first published book, and was to be the subject of a sequel, "Good Night,