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Literature: Valley Of The Dolls

"When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top."

Valley of the Dolls is a 1966 novel by Jacqueline Susann. It follows the lives of three women (Anne Welles, Neely O'Hara, and Jennifer North) from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. They start out as roommates in New York, and each of them achieves fame and fortune, with plenty of ups and downs along the way.

"Dolls" is a slang term for pills (particularly sleeping pills and weight loss pills). Almost everyone in the book pops them like candy.

This novel provides examples of:

All Love Is Unrequited
Better to Die than Be Killed: Jennifer commits suicide when she finds out that she has cancer and needs a mastectomy.
Casting Couch
Downer Ending
- The Film of the Book changed this to a Bittersweet Ending — Jennifer is dead, Neely continues in her downward spiral and will likely die in the near future, but Anne renounces the pills and the showbiz life and goes back to her beloved hometown to start over.
Golden Age of Hollywood
Happily Failed Suicide: Neely, three times.
May-December Romance: Anne and Kevin Gillmore.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Quite a few. Susann spent the 1940s as a struggling actress, and drew on that experience while writing the book.
- Neely O'Hara is Judy Garland. Her time in the sanitarium is based on the experiences of Frances Farmer.
- Helen Lawson is Ethel Merman.
- Jennifer North is Carole Landis with a dash of Marilyn Monroe.
- Tony Polar was inspired by Dean Martin, but isn't supposed to actually be him.
Stepford Smiler: Anne.