Valley of the Dolls

Valley of the Dolls, by Jacqueline Susann chronicles the life of a three young girls working to overcome pain, hardships, and drug abuse and cope with fame, all the while handling the pressure of everyday life. These friends go through things together that most people never dream of, and watch as each other s lives fall apart.

The main character is Anne Welles, and the novel begins with her leaving her small hometown and traveling to New York City. Bored with the sheltered life she has always lead in Lawrenceville, she is in search of love and adventure, and seems to have found exactly what she is looking for when she takes a job as secretary at Bellamy and Bellows, a law firm specializing in protecting the stars. Not long after taking the job, it seems as though she knows everyone in show business, from the big stars like Broadway icon Helen Lawson to the understudy Neely who lives in the same boarding house with her. Anne also gets a boyfriend, Allen Cooper, who is a simple man and more of a friend. For a while, it seems as though Anne has everything she wanted: she lives in New York City, has lots of friends, a nice boyfriend, and a job she enjoys. Unfortunately, things soon change for the worst.

Anne learns that while life in Lawrenceville may have been dreary, it was better than the lie she had been living in New York. It turns out her boyfriend, whom she had thought to be an unemployed insurance salesperson, was really a famous millionaire!! He began to take her to all of the most famous places, and she absolutely hates all of the attention. More over, being seen together has automatically made everyone assume they are engaged, and even though that is the last thing Anne wants, she cannot seem to get him to understand that. Although Anne does not want to get married, she would not mind being more involved . with her colleague Lyon Burke. Life has been changing for Anne, and she does not know what to do about it.

Eventually, she is able to make Allan understand that they are not getting married, and starts the life she wants with Lyon. He is a wonderful man, and she would love to marry him, but he does not want to get married. What he wants most is to write a novel about the War he has just returned from, and although he loves Anne he feels like he needs to concentrate on his work, and leaves her all alone while he goes to Europe.

Over the years, Anne transforms from the na ve girl who moved to New York City to a famous model with famous friends. Though she has never married, she has a serious relationship and has nearly forgotten about Lyon, until he arrives back in town. Once she sees him, it is like she is a young girl all over, and she leaves the man she has been with for so long and tries hard to make Lyon hers again. Eventually, she succeeds, and even talks him into marrying him.

Despite the fact that they dated for so long, their marriage is weak. They have a daughter, an Anne quits her modeling career, but even that cannot save their romance. Soon, Lyon is dating his clients (many of whom are Anne s friends), and Anne is addicted to the sleeping pills called secanols, just like all of the other New York stars. Anne has turned into everything she originally refused to be a part of, all because she could not handle the pain of New York.

Another of the novel s main characters is Neely O Hara. In the beginning, Neely is just another 17 year old actress in New York, hoping to strike it big. She sees her friendship with Anne as a perfect opportunity to get a job on Broadway, and after a little persuasion, she gets Anne to do just that. With a little scheming and voice work, Neely is soon one of the biggest stars around even bigger than her former idol Helen Lawson.

Despite the fame she has in New York City, Neely feels that she can do more in life. Therefore, she takes her boyfriend, says goodbye to Anne, and heads for Hollywood. She is very well received, not many movie actors at the time could sing and act. Neely proves to be one of those people who can t handle themselves with power, however, and soon she is causing such a problem on the set that nobody wants to work with her even though she did win an Oscar. Her tumultuous lifestyle proved to be too much for her long time boyfriend, and she left him for her clothing stylist. Life was very different for Neely, as well.

Soon, her marriage has fallen apart and she has nowhere to go. She is quickly running out of money and she has put herself in the hospital many times because of the secanols she is so fond of (she calls them dolls). Having nowhere to turn, she goes to live with her old friend Anne, who recently got back together with her old boyfriend Lyon, who just happens to be a theatrical attorney. Once again, Neely calls on a favor from Anne, and with Lyon s help, they make her career what it once was.

Success has its price, though, and nobody paid for Neely s as much as Anne. Not only was Anne supporting Neely financially, but she was in charge of making sure she went to her therapist and took care of herself. Neely decided to repay her best friends good fortune by sleeping with her husband, and eventually the pain of it all gets her back in the hospital.

At the close of the novel, Neely is off making films in Europe, where she is as famous as she ever was in America. The events that happened to Neely were tragic, but many of them were nobody s fault but her own.

The last major character of the novel was the stunning Jennifer North. Jennifer was born a poor girl in a New York suburb, and all her life her mother had dreamed Jennifer would get their family a better life. When her father died, Jennifer was nineteen, and her mother took all the money her father had left her and sent her to school in Switzerland. While there, she was supposed to find a man who could take care of their family for the rest of their lives. She is unable to do so, but does make friends with a girl who offers to pay her travel expenses so they can travel Spain together. The girl turned out to be a crazy lesbian, and messed up Jennifer s sense of trust forever.

After finally escaping the problems she had in Spain, Jennifer made her way back to America. Unfortunately, that meant she also made her way back to her nagging mother. Not knowing where else to turn, Jennifer decided to rely on her looks and became a model. With her striking beauty, it was no trouble passing the 27 year old off as 19. She was soon the talk of the town, dating all of the most famous, and richest, young men New York City had to offer.

Jennifer seemed to have everything made; she was young, beautiful, and had a wonderful modeling career. Then she made a mistake: she fell in love. The man she fell in love with was named Tony, and he was a very talented singer. She desperately wanted to marry him, but his sister would not allow it. She had raised Tony and he was very good to her- she lead his whole life. Meanwhile, Jennifer s mother was very unhappy with the way things were going in Jennifer s career. There still was not enough money for everyone to live as she had hoped they would. It seemed nothing Jennifer could do was going to make things easier.

Finally, Jennifer decided that if Tony would not marry her she would leave him, and when faced with that ultimatum, they eloped. His sister was very unhappy, and still ran his life, causing great problems in their marriage. Jennifer was taking secanols to sleep at night (she had been introduced to them by her friend Neely O Hara), and is happy only when she learns that she is pregnant. Tony s sister forbids her to have the baby, and admits that the reason she is so protective over Tony is that he has a mental handicap she is hiding from everyone, and that she is afraid the baby will inherit it. Not knowing what to do, Jennifer has an abortion, leaves Tony, and never tells anyone why.

Jennifer now had enough money to support her family, but was disappointed because she had always thought that would make her happy, and she was still as miserable as ever. She had tried moving away, she had lived in France for may years and made lots of money starring in French films (although many of them were considered too risqu for America, it had helped her career here, too). It seemed nothing was going to happen, until one day she fell in love again. The new man in her life was a senator, and although he was older than her, they truly were meant for each other. He wanted to have children with her and spend the rest of their lives together, and so did she. Jennifer was thrilled she was about to get what she, Anne, and Neely had always dreamed of having: true love.

In true New York fashion, however, things went wrong for Jennifer. She was diagnosed with cancer, and told she could never have children and that her breasts would have to be cut off. For fear of what that would do to her new lover, Jennifer snuck out of the hospital, went home and put on her best stage outfit and make up, and killed herself. She had wanted to go looking her best, and on her own terms.

This is the story of what happens to each of the main characters in the novel. The book is about women emerging as women in a time where they had been supposed to act as ladies. Each learns new things about careers, drugs, and sex, and each uses them very differently. Anne is at first revolted by sex, but learns that it is different with someone you love. Jennifer considers sex a tool she has been given, and uses it to do what she sees necessary. Neely, being the drama queen that she is takes full advantage and sleeps with everyone she can. At first, they have the same feeling towards the drugs- Anne uses them only when she feels she needs them, Jennifer whenever she is in the mood, and Neely as often as she can (of course, eventually they all get addicted.) As for their career, Anne just kind of had hers handed to her, Jennifer worked hard for hers, and Neely just kept messing hers up and relying on everyone else to fix it. Despite all of these differences, these women had a big part in each other s lives, and at a time were truly best friends.

The setting is very important to this novel, because no other time or place would have had the same effect on these people. In the 1940 s and 1950 s, women were just beginning to realize there was more to them than the ability to have children and clean the house, and many were wondering what to do with their new knowledge. Anne was born in a town where women did as their husband had asked and married because the man was from the right family all of these things had made her childhood dull and she was trying to get away from them in her adult life. That was the main reason she went to New York, she was in search of a little adventure and she got just that. Also, there are many references to the effect that television is having on the career of all of the film stars (including Neely), and this would only be a big deal when television was originally becoming a main source of media. Currently, nobody would care if a new television star were in a movie, because there are plenty of rolls to go around. In addition, we would not care if our favorite star was out sleeping with everyone and taking drugs to function, we almost expect it. Those years were definitely a time about experimenting, and I think the novel captured that perfectly.

The fact that a majority of this story takes place in New York City and the rest in Hollywood is also helpful to the plot. These cities are still considered to be among the most glamorous places in the world, and that is where all of these famous people were. Without these characters, Anne, Jennifer, and Neely would not have been so interesting, and they would not have had so many experiences. The fame and notoriety each of these women obtained made their story even more captivating, because it truly helped prove that once you get to the top there is no where to go but down, and I think that is what the story was trying to prove. In the minds of most people, reaching the top is when we become famous and rich, and that is as good as it gets. Very rarely do we think of the fall from the pedestal on which we put celebrities, and I think this setting made it a little more evident.