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) attorney who likes rich women, but doesn't consider Dolores--with just $30,000 a year--quite rich enough. Finally, Dolores agrees to marry a fabulously wealthy shipping tycoon, who leaves her on their wedding night to go to his mistress. The book, in actuality a novella, is by far the shortest fiction of Susann's career, at just 201 pages. Susann wrote the story for the "Ladies' Home Journal", and it was first published in that magazine's February 1974 issue. "Journal" editor Lenore Hershey had asked Susann to write a piece about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis ("Jackie S on Jackie O"), but Susann was unwilling