History Literature / ValleyOfTheDolls

* HorribleHollywood: The book revels in the grime that lurks beneath the showbiz glamour of the UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood . Susann wasn't the first to explore this, as the decay that surrounded Hollywood with the UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem and the aging of Golden Age performers was already inspiring films like ''Film/WhateverHappenedToBabyJane'' in TheSixties, but she could go a lot further in the salacious details than films and TV of the time could, and this certainly contributed to the book's huge popularity in its day. Hopefully it kept starstruck young people from going to Hollywood to try to break into pictures.

* AmbiguouslyGay: Ted. Even though he is referred to as a "fag" throughout the film by several people (and he never outright denies the possibility), he is seen cavorting with another woman in a pool and implies to Neely that he loves her, defending her by saying that she makes him feel "nine feet tall". The word "bisexual" is never mentioned.

* LawOfInverseFertility: Played with. Jennifer has had seven abortions, and notes that it must mean that her womb is open and ready for her to finally have a baby, but she has trouble finding someone to have a child with.

** Neely O'Hara is Creator/JudyGarland. Her [[spoiler: time in the sanitarium is based on the experiences of Frances Farmer]]. (Garland was almost cast as Helen Lawson in the 1967 movie.) In the book she is described in terms that evoke Betty Hutton, who had a very similar experience to Terry King's working with Helen Lawson/Ethel Merman.

** Helen Lawson is Creator/EthelMerman.
** Jennifer North is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carole_Landis Carole Landis]] with a dash of Creator/MarilynMonroe. Jacqueline Susann had had an affair with Landis and continued to care deeply for her. Carole's suicide inspired Jacqueline to immortalize her as Jennifer.

* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Averted ''hard.'' [[spoiler:Jennifer thinks her relationship with Tony will be secure if she has his baby, only to learn he has a hereditary deteriorative illness that the child would inherit]]. Also, Anne hopes that her baby with Lyon will keep him around and away from affairs, but it doesn't even slow him down.]]

* WillTheyOrWontThey: Anne and Lyon. The latter doesn't want marriage so they part on amicable terms, but keep coming back to each other over the years. Anne always wants to make the relationship work, but Lyon makes things... difficult. [[spoiler:TheyDo get together in the end, only for Lyon to cheat on Anne repeatedly as she waits for her to just become numb to all the heartache. At that point, she wasted ''twenty years'' holding out a torch for him.]]

** Jennifer North is [[http://misslindsaylane.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-tragic-life-of-carole-landis.html Carole Landis]] with a dash of Creator/MarilynMonroe. Jacqueline Susann had had an affair with Landis and continued to care deeply for her. Carole's suicide inspired Jacqueline to immortalize her as Jennifer.

* ChristmasCake:
** In the film Neely is appalled that she's being replaced with a younger actress - saying she's only 26 (28 in the book).
** Jennifer is keenly aware of becoming this, given the fact that she's lying about her age, and consents to controversial treatments and mostly-unnecessary plastic surgery to keep looking youthful.

* OldMaid: Tony's sister Miriam is a virgin in her forties, having dedicated her entire life to Tony.

* TookALevelInJerkass: Neely starts out a scrappy and tough, but good-hearted and hardworking showgirl who puts in the effort to get ahead and make a name for herself, and who's loyal to her friends and boyfriend. After the timeskip, she's an entitled AlphaBitch who makes life hell for everyone on set, who dumps her chump of a husband for being too boring for the guy she's having an affair with, and who's too self-centered to care about anybody's problems but her own. Everyone remarks that she UsedToBeASweetKid, and Anne hardly recognizes her. [[spoiler:Then she goes UpToEleven after Anne secures yet another career resurrection for her, blatantly carrying on an affair with Lyon without a shred of empathy for Anne's feelings. When Anne and Lyon's infant daughter is hospitalized, she even withholds this information from Lyon, thinking Anne knows about the affair and it's just a ploy to get Lyon home.]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: Jennifer has breast cancer, in those days an automatic radical mastectomy. She's devoted her whole emotional life and soul on marrying Winston -- who seems to love her for herself -- and starting a family. Then she's told pregnancy could cause a recurrence. She tells Winston "I'll be scarred and I won't be able to have any children" and he hears "hysterectomy". Almost willfully, he won't allow her to explain, saying he doesn't mind about no kids, instead effusing over her body, especially her breasts -- even saying "[[{{Squick}} these are my babies]]" -- and being horrified at finding the tiny incision where they took the cyst out. That's enough for Jennifer. In her distraught state of mind there's only one thing to do.

* AbusiveParents: Jennifer's mother - all she does is demand Jennifer do everything she can to make more money for her, and when [[spoiler: Jennifer dies]], she milks the situation for all it's worth and makes sure she gets her valuables.
* AdultChild: At first Tony is a straight example of this trope, being sex-obsessed, loose with money and only interested in getting his own pleasures met. [[spoiler:Then his sister reveals that he had to be pulled out of school before first grade and can barely read or count due to an inherited disease, and that he will likely be stunted for his entire life.]]

* AmbiguouslyGay: Ted. Even though he is referred to as a "fag" throughout the film by several people (and he never outright denies the possibility), he is seen cavorting with another woman in a pool and implies to Neely that he loves her, defending her by saying that she makes him feel "nine feet tall".
* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Averted ''hard.'' [[spoiler:Jennifer thinks her relationship with Tony will be secure if she has his baby, only to learn he has a hereditary mental illness. Also, Anne hopes that her baby with Lyon will keep him around and away from affairs, but it doesn't even slow him down.]]
* TheBabyTrap: Neely complains that Mel has been failing to pull out during intercourse, and she suspects he wants her barefoot and pregnant.

* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: In the late going, [[spoiler: Jennifer commits suicide when she finds out that she has cancer and needs a mastectomy.]] It doesn't help that the guy she was with -- whom she'd believed to love ''her'' -- revealed himself to be just another man who only cared for her looks, praising her breasts in particular. Actually stated outright in [[spoiler: one of her two suicide notes,]] where she states in the one addressed to her husband that she [[spoiler: did it to "save his babies" (this being his affectionate term for her breasts). However, he does have a nervous breakdown after her death, implying he did truly love her.]]

** Helen Lawson. Though Anne is warned of this by several characters, Anne falls for her "sheep" act, feeling sorry for her and trying to be genuine friends with her, until Helen reveals that she was only interested in her as far as she could get her sexually involved with the father of Anne's fiance, Allen Cooper.

* BreakTheCutie: The novel is one long arc for Anne and Jennifer. Both start the book kind-hearted, well-meaning women, but [[spoiler:Jennifer, already down two failed marriages, several abortions, unwanted surgeries and treatments and a life of being used by her mother, kills herself after realizing she'll have to lose her body and her chance at children, and possibly her fiance in the process.]] Meanwhile, Anne starts off a naive ingenue desperately in love with Lyon, but loses him over and over again, and also loses one friend to death and the other to a psychiatric hospital. [[spoiler:She eventually gets Lyon back, and they get married and have a child, but he starts a brazen, humiliating affair with Neely, and after dumping her begins one with an actress half Anne's age, and she realizes numbly that he will never stop having affairs and will never love her, so her only respite become the "dolls."]]

* CareerVersusMan: Both Allen and Lyon pressure Anne to quit her job for Henry, which she genuinely likes -- Allen, because he doesn't think it's appropriate for the fiancee of someone like him to work, and Lyon, because he's too proud to be supported by a woman while he writes. Anne chooses her job both times.
* CastingCouch: The Head ensures that Neely is fired so that a young up-and-coming starlet who's sleeping with him can take her place.
* CelebrityIsOverrated: All Jennifer wants is a happy life with a husband and a baby. Neely likes being on top, but her life is full of long, stressful days (made worse by her being almost non-functional on set), insincere relationships and addiction; despite all the money she's made, most of it is tied up in expenses and taxes, so she has a lot less than she lets on.

* TheDeterminator: [[spoiler:While trapped in a sanitarium, Neely is thrown in a bath as punishment. Unwilling to submit, she briefly breaks out after ripping a massive hole in the bath's canvas, which the nurses exclaim has never happened before.]]

* DoubleStandard: Said by [[JerkassHasAPoint Neely]]: "When a man says he won't do a scene, that's called 'integrity'; when a woman says she won't do a scene, she's being temperamental." Though this is undercut in the book, where it's underscored how much of a primadonna she is on set.

* HorribleHollywood: The book revels in the grime that lurks beneath the showbiz glamour of the UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood . Susann wasn't the first to explore this, as the decay that surrounded Hollywood with the UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem and the aging of Golden Age performers was already inspiring films like ''Film/WhateverHappenedToBabyJane'' in TheSixties, but she could go a lot further in the salacious details than films and TV of the time could, and this certainly contributed to the book's huge popularity in its day.

** Lyon becomes increasingly self-centered as the novel goes on, forcing Anne to choose between the life in New York that she loves and him, even if it means being in the city she loathes and letting him support her, because he can't stand the idea of her fiscally supporting him (in his view, "controlling" him) -- essentially putting her in a tough spot to give up everything just to support his writing career, which he isn't even that good at.

* PrettyInMink: A few mink coats are worn. Jennifer can't get enough of buying them.

* TookALevelInJerkass: Neely starts out a scrappy and tough, but good-hearted and hardworking showgirl who puts in the effort to get ahead and make a name for herself, and who's loyal to her friends and boyfriend. After the timeskip, she's an entitled AlphaBitch who makes life hell for everyone on set, who dumps her chump of a husband for being too boring for the guy she's having an affair with, and who's too self-centered to care about anybody's problems but her own. Everyone remarks that she UsedToBeASweetKid, and Anne hardly recognizes her. [[spoiler:Then she goes UpToEleven after Anne secures yet another career resurrection for her, blatantly carrying on an affair with Lyon without a shred of empathy for Anne's feelings. She even withholds information about their daughter's hospitalization from Lyon, thinking Anne knows about the affair and is trying to get Lyon home.]]

* WakeUpMakeUp: Neely has rather good make-up for someone who's ferociously hung over in the scene where Lyon wakes her up.

* WhatDidIDoLastNight: Neely goes on a drunken bender, only for her to wake up half-dressed in a motel room with a seedy guy stealing her money and leaving her to her devices without even telling her his name.

[[quoteright:305:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/valley_of_the_dolls_movie_poster_1967_10201441401.jpg]]

The novel was wildly popular upon publication (thanks largely to its juicy HorribleHollywood detailing), and had two [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptations]]. The first, made in 1967, was directed by Mark Robson and starred Barbara Parkins, Creator/PattyDuke, Creator/SharonTate, Creator/LeeGrant, Paul Burke, Martin Milner, and Creator/SusanHayward. Just like its source material, it was [[CriticalDissonance hated by critics yet a huge box-office hit]]; today it's seen as a SoBadItsGood CultClassic. The second adaptation was a MadeForTVMovie in 1981. The first adaptation also had a 1970 parody pseudo-sequel, ''Film/BeyondTheValleyOfTheDolls'', screenwritten by Creator/RogerEbert and directed by famed schlockmeister Creator/RussMeyer.

* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: The film never clarities how the three girls met and takes it for granted that they’re already friends from the start, but in the novel it’s explained that they were roommates when they first arrived in New York City.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Tony is ''much'' nicer of a guy in the film version than he was in the original book; he truly loved Jennifer [[spoiler: even though their love is cut short due to him being diagnosed with Huntington's Chorea, which is ultimately a terminal disease]] versus his more childish and brutish manner in the book.

* AwardBaitSong: "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls" by Music/DionneWarwick.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: ...sort of. In the film version, Jennifer is played by blonde Sharon Tate, Anne is portrayed by (dark brown) brunette Barbara Parkins and Neely is played by auburn-haired Creator/PattyDuke. This is canon. In the book, Jennifer and Anne are blondes and Neely has brown hair.

* CompressedAdaptation: The novel takes place over twenty years - beginning in 1945 and finishing in 1965. The film clearly unfolds in a much shorter time frame. It's already the 60's when it starts.

* DownerEnding: For [[spoiler: all three protagonists in the book: Jennifer kills herself, Neely will probably destroy herself due to her personal and professional hangups, and though Anne gets the man she's been pining after for decades, they exist in a loveless marriage full of affairs and betrayal on his part, and apart from her daughter she is completely alone and friendless.]] The FilmOfTheBook changes this to a more BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: while Jennifer is dead and Neely's downward spiral will likely kill her in the near future, Anne renounces the pills and the showbiz life and goes back to her beloved hometown to start over]].

* DumpThemAll: By the end of the film version, [[spoiler: Anne]] is in this situation. [[spoiler: Already ending things with the basically decent Kevin in the hopes of getting back with the faithless Lyon, she decides to dump him as well, despite his claims that he loves her and wants to be with her. It ends with her walking down a snow-covered road, content with her decision.]]

* AdaptationExaplanationExtrication: The film never clarities how the three girls met and takes it for granted that they’re already friends from the start, but in the novel it’s explained that they were roommates when they first arrived in New York City.