Judy Garland dismissal from the film, author Jacqueline Susann said in the 1967 television documentary 'Jacqueline Susann and the Valley of the Dolls', 'I think Judy will always come back. She kids about making a lot of comebacks, but I think Judy has a kind of a thing where she has to get to the bottom of the rope and things have to get very, very rough for her. Then with an amazing inner strength that only comes of a certain genius, she comes back bigger than ever'. Returning to the stage, Garland made her last appearances at New York's Palace Theatre
Valley of the Dolls publication of her third novel, Susann said, "They can keep calling it that ["roman à clef"]. It'll only make my books sell. I don't care." Susann insisted that she began each book with a theme: "Then I start asking, what kind of a personality? And because I have a good ear, I unconsciously pick up certain people." Susann dedicated the book to her poodle Josephine, and to her husband Irving Mansfield. The book was published by Bernard Geis Associates on February 10, 1966, and "took off like a Cape Canaveral space shot." Although "Publishers Weekly", in an advance review, called