David Trinidad

(This talk was presented at "The Other Jackie," a multimedia presentation and panel discussion of the enduring influence of Jacqueline Susann on the occasion of the reissuing of Valley of the Dolls, at The New School, October 21, 1997.  Other panelists were Rona Jaffe, Michael Korda, Esther Margolis, Rex Reed, and Barbara Seaman.  Ira Silverberg was the moderator.)
  
     I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, in the city of Chatsworth, and it was there, in another well-known valley—the San Fernando—that I first encountered Valley of the Dolls.  It was July of 1967, and I had just turned fourteen.  Introverted and troubled (particularly by the secret of my homosexuality), my view of reality had been shaped, for the most part, by books, movies, and television shows.  I didn't care for newspapers—they were too real.  I spent much of my time—especially during the summer months—at the magazine stand in the local Thrifty Drug Store.  It was there that I'd found my treasured comics and movie magazines and, in the book rack right next to it, my equally treasured paperbacks—Up the Down Staircase, Ray Bradbury stories, Agatha Christie mysteries, novelizations of films like Arrivederci, Baby!

      I distinctly remember how Valley of the Dolls jumped out at me.  I'm sure it was the word "Dolls"—rather than the red, blue and yellow-and-green pills strewn across the cover—that immediately captivated me.  Barbie, a different kind of doll, had long been an obsession.  And when I read the jacket copy and learned that the novel was about "the secret, drug-filled, love-starved, sex-satiated, nightmare world of show business," I had to buy it.

      I brought the book home and began devouring it.  I was enrolled in a junior high summer English class; I naively asked the teacher if I could do my required book report on Valley of the Dolls.  The next day she gave me her stern answer: "Absolutely not!"  I ended up doing my report on Oliver Twist—also a good story, but no Valley of the Dolls.

      When my mother noticed I was reading Valley of the Dolls, she had a fit and took it away from me.  She'd already heard about this "dirty" book.  I was now officially forbidden to read it.  She read it instead, then passed it on to one of her friends.

      I saved my nickels and dimes (a dollar twenty-five—the price of the book—was a lot of money) then rode my bicycle back to Thrifty Drug and bought myself another copy.  This time I hid it under my mattress and read it on the sly.

     While my mother thought I was upstairs doing homework, I was lost in a "world where sex is a success weapon, where love is the smiling mask of hate, where slipping youth and fading beauty are ever-present specters [. . .] a world where the magic tickets to peace or oblivion are 'dolls' [. . .] pep pills, sleeping pills, red pills, blue pills . . ."   I forfeited reruns of Gilligan's Island and Bewitched, left the dinner table early, even read by flashlight under the covers at night.  When I got to the last page, I was overcome by an acute sense of sadness.  I couldn't bear that the story was over; I wanted it to go on and on.  I immediately started reading the book again.  I must have read it four or five times by the end of that summer.

     My obsession with the book quite naturally led to an obsession with the movie of Valley of the Dolls, which came out later that year.  The three stars of the film—Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke and Sharon Tate—appeared on the cover of Look magazine, lounging on a big pink bed.  I began buying every movie magazine with pictures from the movie, which I cut out and taped into a special Valley of the Dolls scrapbook.  I added advertisements and reviews from newspapers, and made little plastic captions with my label maker, affixing them beneath the photos: "BARBARA PARKINS AS ANNE WELLS," "SHARON TATE AS JENNIFER NORTH," and so on.  I put "OSCAR WINNER PATTY DUKE" under a picture of Patty, tears streaming down her face, clutching at a huge jar of red "dolls."  I even made one that said "COSTUMES DESIGNED BY TRAVILLA" for a picture of Barbara Parkins in a filmy Gillian Girl gown.  My Valley of the Dolls scrapbook got thrown out in the 70s; I wish I still had it today.

      The movie opened at Grauman's Chinese Theater.  I begged my mother to take me to see it.  She finally gave in and an outing was arranged: me and five women driving from the Valley to Hollywood in a beige, wood-paneled station wagon to see the "sensational, much talked about"  hit film that was "for mature audiences only."

      I was mesmerized by the movie, took it all quite seriously—which shows how mature I really was.  (It wasn't until the mid-80s, when I saw the film after almost twenty years, that I realized how wonderfully horrible it is.)  I remember calling a radio talk show shortly after seeing the film that first time.  The commentator had put down Patty Duke's performance; I indignantly defended her, saying she deserved to win a second Oscar for her dramatic portrayal of Neely O'Hara.  I also remember reenacting the famous wig scene with my best friend Mark.  We used his mother's curly brunette wig and recited the lines verbatim: "They drummed you right out of Hollywood.  So you come crawling back to Broadway.  Well, Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope."  I wonder what became of my friend Mark.

     My obsession with Valley of the Dolls came full circle in August of 1969, with the senseless murder of Sharon Tate and four others on Cielo Drive.  The shock of those murders was intensified because of my fascination with Valley of the Dolls.  Hadn't I clipped numerous photos of Sharon Tate and taped them in my Valley of the Dolls scrapbook?  Hadn't I punched her name on my handy label maker?  I stopped running to the magazine stand at Thrifty's; instead, I waited for the daily paper for news of the murders.  This wasn't some clever Agatha Christie puzzle.  Reality had come closer than I ever wanted it to.

     It came even closer a few months later when it was revealed that the murderers had lived at the Spahn Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, just a few miles from our home.  I'd never been to the ranch, but as a child had climbed the rocks at nearby Stony Point.

      I was thrown into confusion and panic.  How was I to live in this real world?  This world where kids just a few years older than me mercilessly stabbed a beautiful blonde eight-and-a-half-month-pregnant actress to death in her own home.  Only two years had passed since I spotted Valley of the Dolls in the revolving paperback rack at Thrifty Drug.  But Jacqueline Susann's "nightmare world of show business" now seemed like a fairy tale from my distant childhood.

* * *

      As happy as I am that Valley of the Dolls is back in print, I wasn't sure I'd be able to read the new pink edition.  I didn't want to be unfaithful to the white, pill-splattered Bantam paperback that I cherished in my youth.  But when I saw the brand new version with its fresh white pages (compared to the yellowing pages of my poor old Bantam), I couldn't resist.

      Although the book is no longer a delirious escape for me, it's still a damn good read.  The same themes that enticed me as a teenager still pull me right along—Anne's obsession with Lyon, the Broadway back-stabbing and the Hollywood decadence, Neely's self-destruction, Jennifer's futile attempt at happiness.  In much of the press that the book's re-release has received, it's still referred to as "trash" or "mindless fluff."  This amazes me.  It's pointless to debate the book's literary merit.  In defense of her own writing, Susann once said, "Way back then they didn't think Shakespeare was a good writer.  He was the soap opera king of his day."  But I will say I don't think any text (except possibly Breakfast at Tiffany's) has given me as much pleasure as Valley of the Dolls.  It has a certain magic that sets it apart from other novels.

      Part of that magic comes from the intimate way Susann constructed her characters.  On the surface they resemble real life celebrities (Grace Kelly, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe), but underneath they're pure Susann.  They house her most private feelings and desires.  She's there in Lyon's ambition to become a respected novelist, in Anne's craving for the excitement of New York and her ambivalence toward her mother's New England stiffness, in Jennifer's fear of aging and her confrontation with breast cancer.  Susann's love for her husband Irving Mansfield is evident in Anne's devotion to Lyon, and her respect for his business savvy can be found in the character of Henry Bellamy.

      There's also magic in the plot; it's a beautifully structured novel.  Over a period of twenty years, with numerous subplots and tangents, Susann maintains an elegant narrative intricacy.  Nothing seems extraneous; it's all part of her elaborate masterplan.  She's a swift, expert storyteller.

      Susann's vision of life—in all of her novels—is bleak.  In Valley, none of the characters are spared—Jennifer commits suicide to avoid a mastectomy, Neely becomes a monster, Anne settles for an adulterous husband and pill addiction.  Susann's women are punished for simply wanting to be loved.  Beautiful young women have some power—but it's get what you can before the clock ticks your looks away.  Talented women can have a career—but forget personal fulfillment.  It's a pretty harsh world—for "mindless fluff."

      Broadway battle-ax Helen Lawson is the most maligned character in Valley of the Dolls.  Her Fellini-esque grotesqueness is depicted in lovingly brutal detail.  This is Jackie's revenge on ex-friend Ethel Merman, and she pulls out all the stops.  Lawson is described as "rough, tough, unfeeling, coarse and rotten," as an "old war horse," "a bull in heat," "an old cow," an "old bag" (twice), "Old Ironsides," "a big brassy bore," "a bloated, loud-mouthed broad," "a rat," and an "old bald eagle."

      Lawson is also given the most vulgar lines in the novel.  Referring to Henry's fading sex drive, she says, " I guess it's not easy to put starch in his lob."  About Gino she says, "There's nothing like a wop in the kip."  And arguing with her director, she utters, "And what should an ingenue look like?  A fucked-out redhead with big tits?"

      Elsewhere Susann is equally over the top.  When an overweight Neely emerges from the sanitarium, she's referred to as "fat as a pig," as "a greasy pig," a "cow," "a pig," "a fat slob," a "fat little pig," a "bag of blubber," and a "pig of a star"—all in just twelve pages.

     From our vantage point, it seems almost impossible that the sex scenes in Valley of the Dolls were once considered "shocking" or "dirty."  They either seem tame or, in the scenes where Tony and the senator slobber all over Jennifer's breasts, a bit ridiculous.  The pill-taking seems more sensual than the lovemaking.  When Anne loses her virginity to Lyon, the writing is florid.  But when Jennifer takes a Seconal for the first time, we get Susann at her most poetic:

     Should she try one?  It was a frightening idea, that a little red capsule as tiny as this could put you to sleep.  She walked to the small pantry and poured a glass of water.  She held the pill for a second, feeling her heart pound.  This was dope—but that was ridiculous [. . .] one pill couldn't hurt.  She swallowed it, replaced the bottle in her bag and rushed into bed.
     How long would it take?  She still felt wide awake.  She could hear [. . .] the clock on the night table ticking, the traffic sounds outside—in fact, everything seemed intensified . . .
   Then she felt it!  Oh, God!  It was glorious!  Her whole body felt weightless . . . her head was heavy, yet light as air.  She was going to sleep . . . sleep . . . oh, the beautiful little red doll . . .

      "Tiny, bullet-shaped red capsules," "gorgeous red dolls," "gleaming red capsules," "lovely red dolls," "faithful little red dolls"—Susann's dolls provide "the most beautiful feeling in the world."  "Oh, God!" Jennifer exclaims again as "the soft numbness [begins] to slither through her body."  Neely sips her Scotch and waits for "the real reaction, the anesthetic feeling that would seep through her whole body and drag her down into sleep."  And when she gets Demerol shots in Spain, Neely experiences a feeling of "silken happiness."

      With her mammoth black wigs and her gold ankhs and her Pucci outfits (Rex Reed called them her "banana-split nightmares") and her private Love Machine jet, Susann epitomized the author as star.  She made writing look glamorous and fun.  For most of us, it is far from that.  And unlike her characters, who are disappointed once they reach the top of Mount Everest, Susann seemed to thoroughly enjoy her success.

* * *

      A few weeks ago as I reread Valley of the Dolls, I kept stopping at each reference—and they are numerous—to "fags" and "faggots" and "queers."  I wondered how these references must have struck me as a closeted fourteen-year-old.  Homophobic peer pressure was at its worst in junior high.  "Fag" and "faggot" and "queer" were the very words I lived in daily terror of.  Yet there, on page ten of Valley of the Dolls, was "a fag singer"; a few pages later "a fag dancer" appeared.  I counted almost thirty such references throughout the book.  At fourteen, I must have marveled at each one.  And they must have offered me immense hope.

      The message from "real" literature was ever grim: Tennessee Williams' homosexuals died sad pathetic deaths; and with Truman Capote, I had to read between the lines.  But Susann's fags and faggots and queers sang and danced and directed plays, designed costumes, escorted aging Broadway actresses to openings.  They may have been stereotypes, but they actually functioned in the world.  And more importantly, they had sex with each other:  "Dickie is having a ball with all those chorus boys—it's like smorgasbord."

      No wonder my gratitude to Jacqueline Susann refuses to wane.

© David Trinidad 2004-2005. All rights reserved.