Jacqueline Susann of her own books. "Valley of the Dolls" spans twenty years (1945–1965) in the lives of three young women: Anne Welles, the New England beauty who liberates herself from her staid small town by coming to New York, where she falls in love with the dashing Lyon Burke; Neely O'Hara, an ebullient vaudevillian who becomes a Hollywood star and self-destructs; and Jennifer North, a showgirl with little talent but a gorgeous face and figure, who becomes a friend to both. All three women fall prey to the "dolls," amphetamines and barbiturates, a euphemism which Susann coined. The book was published
Jacqueline Susann James Dunn. For reasons which remain unclear, the play was not produced. In 1970, Susann made a brief return to the stage when she appeared in Blanche Yurka's off-Broadway revival of Jean Giraudoux's "The Madwoman of Chaillot". Clive Barnes in the "New York Times" panned the production; of the cast, he praised only Yurka, but he did mention that "Jacqueline Susann looks a great deal prettier than the publicity stills on her book jackets might lead you to believe." From 1948 to 1950, Susann appeared on "The Morey Amsterdam Show", a comedy series (telecast first on CBS, then on DuMont),