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class="ContentHearWrapper-clujbs hksevn ntent-hear article__ntent-hear"><div data-ttid="ContentHearContaer" class="ContentHearContaer-cGKRbE knDxNq"><div class="ContentHearHedAccredatnWrapper-GFiQf cDNVlV"><div data-ttid="ContentHearTleBlockWrapper" class="ContentHearTleBlockWrapper-cjmSKp ikebRK"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubric" class="ContentHearRubricBlock-LmpbT hjnEYM"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubricDateBlock" class="ContentHearRubricDateBlock-kAQcZP fTFWxD"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX iJOI bric ContentHearRubricContaer-eTudtt edKnIL"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">The Sixti</span></div></div><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX iJOI bric ContentHearRubricIssueDate-CuIT fFtVss"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">January 2000 Issue</span></div></div><h1 data-ttid="ContentHearHed" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearHed-NCyCC iUEiRd HXZX gydgrM">Once Was Never Enough</h1></div><div class="ContentHearAccredatn-lfctVB etVsnJ ntent-hear__accredatn" data-ttid="ContentHearAccredatn"><div class="ContentHearDek-bIqFFZ fYeNbg">A quarter-century after Jacquele Sann’s ath, the novelist who ma publishg history wh <em>Valley of the Dolls, The Love Mache</em>, and <em>Once Is Not Enough</em> is beg reissued, re-examed, and rernated by Bette Midler this month’s film <em>Isn’t She Great.</em> How did a pill-poppg failed actrs wre three No. 1 bt-sellers a row? Amy Fe Colls rells the showbiz world that gave Sann her sex-and-sndal-packed plots, the marriage that gave her a partner ambn, and the sheer gr that won her the fame she so sperately wanted.</div><div class="ContentHearByle-kmPyCa emiglw"><div class="ContentHearByleContent-dpPmNn DRFq"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl ContentHearByl-cZqgyJ bHLeKI"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH jqYyWD byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd bIbWCO gnILss byle__preamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd kIEUAJ lddgzd eErqIx byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributor/amy-fe-lls">Amy Fe Colls</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2013-08-26T17:11:21-04:00" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearPublishDate-eIBicG iUEiRd bSlZUC cmPkTr">Augt 26, 2013</time></div></div></div></div><div class="ContentHearLeadAsset-hGbumP dDDxdb lead-asset ContentHearLeadAssetWrapper-hfXHEc Grck" data-ttid="ContentHearLeadAsset"><figure class="ContentHearLeadAssetContent-kOfYSG dRGWbI"><div class="ContentHearLeadAssetContentMedia-bLEIpi jjhWdS lead-asset__ntent__photo"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz fahxCL"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Image may nta Jacquele Sann Human Person Glass Bottle Drk Alhol and Beverage" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></div></div></span></div></figure></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN diFyUH article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh izlawS viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU foKBbl bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-stroke" d="M11.7661 16.3228L4.5 20.1695V3.5H19.5V20.1695L12.2339 16.3228L12 16.199L11.7661 16.3228Z" stroke-lep="square"/></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd kdAzed gkccfO">Save</span></button></div><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh ledqMp viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU ePWKOF bookmark mobile"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-stroke" d="M11.7661 16.3228L4.5 20.1695V3.5H19.5V20.1695L12.2339 16.3228L12 16.199L11.7661 16.3228Z" stroke-lep="square"/></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd kdAzed gkccfO">Save</span></button></div></div></div><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP bwyLBj"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG eOdfIs"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa gwvVqF body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp">At 3:30 A.M. on December 25, 1962, Jacquele Sann—a fadg TV actrs wh an unemployed hband, an tistic son a mental hospal, and a lump her right breast—began to scribble a notebook. “This is a bad Christmas,” she wrote. “Irvg has no job. . . . I am gog to the hospal. . . . I don’t thk I have [ncer]. I have too much to acplish. I n’t die whout leavg somethg—somethg big. . . . I’m Jackie—I have a dream. I thk I n wre. Let me live to make !”</p><p>In her 12 remag years—the tumor was malignant and a full mastectomy was performed the day after Christmas—Sann more than ma good on her dream. Not only did she wre <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> (1966)—registered <em>The Guns Book of World Rerds</em> the 1970s as the bt-sellg novel of all time (30 ln pi sold)—she also beme, wh her next two novels, <em>The Love Mache</em> (1969) and <em>Once Is Not Enough</em> (1973), the first thor ever to have three nsecutive books tapult to the No. 1 spot on <em>The New York Tim</em>’s bt-seller list. No wonr she dared to proclaim to a Boston newspaper cric, who imaged he was hoistg her on her own petard, “Yeah, I thk I’ll be remembered . . . as the voice of the 60s. . . . Andy Warhol, the Beatl and me!”</p><p class="paywall">It has taken longer than the apotheosis of the Beatl or the ifitn of Andy Warhol, but Sann’s nervy prophecy has fally e to pass. The first to rurrect Jacquele Sann as a pop-culture y was Barbara Seaman, whose 1987 bgraphy, the five <em>Lovely Me</em>, was reprted 1996. The followg year Grove/Atlantic began reissug the Sann trilogy of major novels, and, acceleratg the momentum, the 1967 movie versn of <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> was released on vio 1997. Michele Lee -produced and starred a 1998 USA Networks bpic, <em>Sndalo Me</em>, and January, Universal opens a edy feature entled <em>Isn’t She Great</em> (based on a <em>New Yorker</em> story by Michael Korda), wh Bette Midler playg Sann oppose Nathan Lane as the wrer’s hband, Irvg Mansfield. The manager of Sann’s lerary talogue, filmmaker Lisa Bishop, is pre-productn on a remake of <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> and is also -thorg wh poet and Sann archivist David Tridad <em>The Jacquele Sann Scrapbook: Dogs, Dam, and Dolls.</em> Wrer Rae Lawrence is currently workg on a <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> sequel, based on plot not Bishop’s Sann fil. And then there are the rualized viewgs of <em>Valley of the Dolls</em>—the 30th-anniversary screeng San Francis’s Castro Theatre attracted 1,550 zealots, some <em>Doll</em> drag, who chanted every le, à la <em>The Rocky Horror Picture Show;</em> the evable Jackie-cult Web s; and the Columbia Universy graduate school urse which <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> was required readg.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Femist thor Letty Cott Pogreb, the origal publicist for <em>Valley of the Dolls,</em> reports, “This revival is the answer to Jacquele Sann’s prayers. She predicted the celebry culture we live now. Actually, she vented : fame is as fame do.” Imprar Anna Sosenko, whose iendship wh Sann dated om the 40s, adds, “When Jackie was dyg she’d ll me—sred, sad, and cryg. She worried that a few years everythg she’d done would be fotten. And I told her, ‘Darlg, you have exprsed your historil era—10 transnal years, om J.F.K.’s assassatn to Watergate. Your time will return.’”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">The exact historil era to which Jacquele Sann was born, Philalphia on Augt 20, 1918, was that of the <em>f guerre</em> flu epimic. Her mother, Rose, a fastid schoolteacher, add a send <em>n</em> to the Sephardic Jewish fay name, while her father, Robert, a philanrg portra artist, retaed the origal spellg. Perhaps bee Bob liked to fy his wife by dulgg their ltle girl’s taste for films and theater, Jacquele om a young age beme obssed wh showbiz and s larger-than-life personali. She papered her room wh imag of stage divas June Knight and Margalo Gillmore, and dned repeatedly for <em>The Children’s Hour,</em> a Philalphia rad program. One summer Atlantic Cy, where the Sanns rented a beach hoe, Jackie, aged about 11, disvered that a celebrated actrs had taken up rince a nearby hotel. Anna Sosenko says, “So Jackie schlepped her poor ltle girliend over to this hotel and they knocked on the actrs’s door. . . . The actrs shouted, ‘Get lost!’ and slammed the door her face. Jackie was starstck and that was the lemotif of her world of thkg. Once Jackie wanted to know somebody, she pursued them relentlsly. Sometim the door slammed, and sometim opened.”</p><p class="paywall">The ex door om Philalphia opened when her father helped judge a lol bety ntt. Deemed “Philalphia’s most betiful girl” on April 16, 1936, the 17-year-old Jackie was award a silver lovg cup and a Warner Bros. screen tt New York. The ntt left her wh the unshakable nvictn that she was “a tearg bety,” Sosenko explas. “She always scribed herself exactly that way. Jackie was very sold on her looks.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Havg flunked her screen tt, Jackie rid at Kenmore Hall, a ladi’ hotel New York, where she beiend a vville waif named Elfie—the prototype for the young Neely <em>Valley of the Dolls.</em> In the fall of 1936, Sann’s father aga tervened on her behalf, pullg strgs to land her a part as a French maid a show headg for rehearsals—Clare Boothe Luce’s <em>The Women,</em> starrg Sann’s idol Margalo Gillmore. Dpe the help she received om a fellow st member, a patrician New England blon named Beatrice Cole, Sann uld not master the French accent required for her three l, and was fired. But she felt so attached to the productn, she watched every performance om the wgs, nurturg what Irvg Mansfield lled her “fierce csh” on Gillmore. At last a part as a lgerie mol opened up, and acknowledgment of her votn to the h show, Sann was allowed to jo the st of <em>The Women</em> on June 2, 1937.</p><p class="paywall">In the meantime, Sann monstrated Lux toilet soap wh Bea and hung out at Walgreen’s, whose bank of phone booths functned as a makhift office for a motley assortment of Broadway typ. It was this humble settg that Sann and prs agent Irvg Mansfield “met cute,” to e the parlance of old Hollywood. Dazzled by Mansfield’s abily to get her picture the paper, she married him at her parents’ hoe 1939. Mansfield admted his 1983 memoir, <em>Life wh Jackie,</em> “I n’t really claim that Jackie and I were propelled to each other’s arms by an irristible passn.” Anna Sosenko observ, “The tth is she thought that Irvg would make her a star.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Producer Armand Dtsch—who met Mansfield before the war when the prs agent was publicizg <em>The Rudy Vallee Show</em> and Dtsch was the rad program’s ad reprentative—lls the young Mr. and Mrs. Irvg Mansfield “a Damon Runyon uple.” The pair settled to the Essex Hoe, and when Eddie Cantor, star of vville, rad, screen, and stage, was town, he stayed at the same rintial hotel, ually the pany of his five dghters and his wife, Ida. Unterred by this fay entourage, Sann eagerly threw herself to an affair wh Cantor. Actrs Joan Castle Swell says, “When she told me about Cantor, I said, ‘Are you kiddg?’ I suppose he was some kd of father figure for her.” Actrs Maxe Stewart adds, “Jackie was simply crazy for Jewish ics.” Yet the liaison paid off a way that mattered to Sann. Cantor gave her a small speakg part his new vehicle, <em>Banjo Ey,</em> which opened at Broadway’s Hollywood Theatre December 1941, jt after Ameri entered the war.</p><p class="paywall">In the perd when Mansfield was promotg CBS’s <em>The Rudy Vallee Show,</em> the wrers and Dtsch met regularly at the Essex Hoe apartment of Vic Knight, their producer, to prepare the scripts. Partly bee she lived the same buildg where the rad men gathered, but mostly bee she was “an odd girl, a different girl,” Sann, Dtsch says, “hung around our workg ssns, went to dner wh . I always got the feelg she knew life uld be better for her. She yearned for somethg more.”</p><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad---ntent"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot---ntent" data-no-id="cwejnh"></div></div><p class="paywall">“Somethg more,” at that moment, turned out to be an excellent part as Helen the road versn of the wartime drama <em>Cry Havoc,</em> which opened Chigo on March 1, 1943. It so happened that the Jewish ic Joe E. Lewis—whose performanc Sann had been followg avidly sce her first days New York—was also town dog a show. Consequently, when she dragged members of the all-female st to see Lewis at the Chez Paree, she was by no means a total stranger to him. And neher was her hband—who, nveniently, had jt been drafted to the army and was statned at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Maxe Stewart, a <em>Cry Havoc</em> -star, remembers, “Jackie was love wh Joe E. She had left Irvg and she was stayg at the Royalton. She said to me, ‘I’m not gog to live wh a man who’s makg so ltle money’—he was on an army salary.” The affair wh Lewis end when the U.S.O. shipped him to New Guea. Yet even after she renciled wh Mansfield, around 1946, Sann still rried a torch for Joe E. She named her first poodle, Josephe, after him, and the tle of her last book, <em>Once Is Not Enough,</em> me om the ic’s 1971 athbed words—an eleventh-hour variatn on his signature le, that “if you play your rds right” life, once is enough.</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Sann’s attu toward the Jewish ics to whom she gave herself so eely surfac her portra of <em>The Love Mache’s</em> TV host, Christie Lane, an unuth tightwad given to leavg the bathroom door ajar as he lets rip “explosive bowel movement[s].” There is more than a ltle of her own sense of huiatn embodied the same novel’s awkward, promiscuo Ethel Evans, whose “oze is like the Lln Tunnel.” And her feelgs about Irvg at this juncture e through her characterizatn of <em>Valley of the Dolls’</em> Mel Harris, a close repli of her own spoe: “Mel was kda weakish,” Neely says, but Jewish men like him “make marvelo hbands.” Prumably the fact that Mansfield’s reer was, his words, “leapg ahead” helped lure Sann back home, now at the Hotel Navarro on Central Park South. By the late 40s he had moved to rad productn, and by 1949 he had manvered his way to the fant medium of televisn.</p><p class="paywall">And Sann’s own ambn to make herself a marquee name remaed undimished. She played J. J. Shubert’s fifth New York revival of <em>Blossom Time</em> and Cole Porter’s <em>Let’s Face It.</em> More satisfyg was her role Shubert’s <em>A Lady Says Y,</em> a 1945 vehicle for Hollywood pup Carole Landis. (Barbara Seaman believ that Landis and Sann not only pared not on their mutual nqut, Gee Jsel—yet another Jewish ic—but also were to some gree physilly volved themselv.) Durg this time Sann began a scrapbook, rervg one rdboard page for a seri of notatns which amount to a fever chart of her search for fame. “Am I any nearer to succs,” she asks herself Augt 1944. “Slightly,” she answers Febary 1945, a rponse followed by the adndum marked March 1946, “Oh yeah.” At that date she was playg a stripper lled Fudge Farrell a bomb entled <em>Between the Covers,</em> set the publishg world.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Fed up, Sann hled out of her closet edian Goodman Ace’s weddg gift, a portable typewrer. In a few weeks she and Bea Cole, whose actg reer was also on the skids, -wrote a bedroom farce lled <em>The Temporary Mrs. Smh.</em> The play actually ma to the stage, retled <em>Lovely Me</em> for s New York openg. Yet, forhadowg her books’ receptn, the universal pans received forced the play to close to standg-room-only dienc. Still steamg over bad reviews more than a year later, Sann “belted” <em>Daily News</em> cric Douglas Watt at Sardi’s, Walter Wchell reported April 1948.</p><p class="paywall">Sann did not dch her typewrer yet—she and Bea next tried wrg an exposé about women show bs, a <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> precursor entled <em>Unrneath the Panke.</em> Sann also availed herself of the wi-open opportuni of live televisn, eilly phg sponsors’ products—Qut-Shon-Mark bras, Sunset applianc, Hazel Bishop smetics, and Vigorelli sewg mach—on a spate of ill-fated programs, some of which she hosted.</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Though she was booted om one of the shows, WOR-TV’s <em>Night Time, New York</em> (a one-to-seven-A.M. variety broadst), for her nontatnal, proto-shock-jock terview tactics, s sponsor, Schiffli Lace and Embroiry Instute, retaed Sann as s spokwoman. Never one to do thgs by halv, Sann not only acted her Schiffli ads but produced and wrote them as well. From 1955 until 1962 she shilled on Schiffli’s behalf on <em>The Ben Hecht Show</em> and then on <em>The Mike Wallace Interview.</em> Offscreen, the “Schiffli Troubadour” plugged her ware at shoppg centers, synagogu, and partment stor. “She loved the TV mercials,” Joan Castle Swell says. “Anythg to get her face ont of the public.”</p><p class="paywall">In January 1951, Mansfield took out a full-page <em>Variety</em> ad, dub taste and of unfathomable motivatn. In banner type-face clared, “This is Show Bs—nceived by Irvg Mansfield. The New Sam Levenson Show—nceived by Irvg Mansfield. Arthur Godey’s Talent Suts—nceived by Irvg Mansfield. The Stork Club—nceived by Irvg Mansfield.” And beneath this proud scroll of creds ran a photograph of a sg ltle boy, acpanied by the ptn “Guy Mansfield—nceived by Irvg Mansfield.*” Farther below was the le “* associatn wh Jacquele Sann.” This was not the first prs mentn of the Mansfields’ son. <em>New York Post</em> lumnist Earl Wilson had n an em back on July 16, 1946: “Irvg Mansfield and Jacquele Sann will have a baby December.” Guy Hildy Mansfield was born on December 6, 1946, unr markedly spic circumstanc. Sann and Bea Cole’s <em>Lovely Me</em> was tryouts Philalphia, and “flop sweat” was the air. Not far om her due date her water broke, and wh a hotel towel wedged between her legs she took the tra back to New York, where Guy was livered wh the aid of forceps.</p><p class="paywall">“Guy seemed like a lovely ltle baby at first,” Swell remembers. “But once he started to stand and walk he began screamg a lot.” Penny Bigelow, a CBS producer for <em>Arthur Godey’s Talent Suts,</em> says, “Guy was standg up his crib, htg his head agast the wall.” When he started to speak, “Mama,” “Dada,” and “Goddamn!” were the extent of a vobulary that soon vanished entirely, Seaman says. Dr. Lretta Benr, a pneer children’s psychiatric disorrs, diagnosed Guy’s ndn as tism, an illns jt then beg intified. In Dr. Benr’s re the three-year-old unrwent shock treatments. When that drastic measure failed, she advised the Mansfields to send Guy to the Emma Pendleton Bradley Home, a mental stutn for children Rho Island. Swell says, “Jackie had a broken heart. That was the reason for all the pills. And I thk ma her sick—what I mean is, I thk gave her the ncer.”</p><p class="paywall">The Mansfields said to the rt of the world that their son was attendg school Arizona due to severe asthma. Penny Bigelow explas, “They always hoped Guy might rever, and they didn’t want him stigmatized once he got out.” Says one ex-patient, Judy Raphael Kletter, who was at Bradley wh Guy for three years, “The Mansfields were always there. They were very to Guy, but they uldn’t help him.” (Guy, now 53, is still stutnalized and vised regularly.)</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Grievg, Sann began graspg at anythg that would numb the pa or distract her. There were her pills, which she nicknamed her “dolls”—her favore term of enarment. There was work—the manic forays to televisn and rad dated om this time, as did another playwrg attempt wh Bea Cole. “Now, add to Jackie’s nate drive to succeed,” Mansfield wrote, “was this new sense of sperate need to earn money, big, big money, for Guy’s sake and secury.”</p><p class="paywall">There was also the nsirable diversn provid by her female iends, loosely anized around her to a society known as the Hockey Club. The group took s name om a rptn of the Yiddish word for “bangg,” and the ma topic of nversatn was, Penny Bigelow says, “who was ‘hockg’ who.” In addn to talkg about their own romantic adventur, the women—many of them former actrs (Joyce Mathews, Joan Swell, Dorothy Strels) who had married well—spied on one another’s errant men. “Billy Rose feared —he said we were more efficient than the K.G.B.,” says Bigelow. Their explos were even chronicled Leonard Lyons’s <em>New York Post</em> lumn. Dorothy Strels (the spiratn for the character Cher played Fran Zeffirelli’s tobgraphil <em>Tea wh Msoli)</em> says: “Jackie was our n mother. We all phoned her when we had nothg else to do and told her everythg.”</p><p class="paywall">Unr the spell of the glamoro chantse Hilgar—whose popular performanc at the Plaza Hotel New York she attend wh the fervor of a groupie—Sann also attempted to fd solace Catholicism. “Jackie was an imprsnable woman,” says Anna Sosenko, then Hilgar’s manager. “A hero-worshiper.” Hilgar beme Guy’s godmother, and Sann gave him the middle name Hildy after her. Swell says, “Jackie turned Catholic bee of her huge csh on Hilgar. She would go to Sat Patrick’s and make als wh God for her son. She would qu smokg if Guy would get better.” This unual approach to relign led Mansfield to say his wife “was treatg God like the William Morris office.”</p><p class="paywall">More plited for Sann than her idolizatn of Hilgar was her ill-fated iendship wh Ethel Merman, which rembled an exceptnally hard se of puppy love. “She was absolutely loony, like a 12-year-old,” says Swell. Yet, Sosenko elaborat, “Ethel was as trigued by Jackie as Jackie was by Ethel. But all that baloney about them havg an affair—they were jt girliends. Then the two of them got to a fight over somethg. Ethel had a weird temper. Irvg, I thk, got mad and threw a drk at her a rtrant, and Ethel was embarrassed and hurt. Jackie was mortified. That’s how the fight started. Beg rebuffed by Ethel stung Jackie eply—she had really fallen for her. When Jackie wrote about her, as the character Helen Lawson <em>Valley of the Dolls,</em> Ethel was very burnt up.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Sann, however, had found another female on whose nstancy she uld pend. Around 1954, “Jackie fell madly love wh my ltle Tker Toy,” Dorothy Strels says. “After that she simply had to have a poodle.” Sann end up adoptg a black half-toy, half-miature, whom she named Josephe, after Joe E. Lewis. Sann had Josephe’s portra pated on the si of her Cadillac Eldorado, appeared wh her Schiffli ads, and fed her foie gras, Bloody Marys, and ffee, some of sent up urty of the Hotel Navarro’s room service. Never md that Josephe’s teeth were g out and her belly bulged to such proportns that her legs uld barely support . Sann now had a creature the hoe to whom she uld be “Mother.” And wh a Jewish mother’s pri, Sann wrote letters tailg her beloved poodle’s pas, many sent to her iends Billy Rose and his wife, Joyce Mathews, then livg the South of France. When they returned to New York, the uple told Sann, “That dog of yours is a rd.” Sann objected, “It’s not the dog that’s a rd, ’s me.” In that se, Rose advised, “put a book.”</p><p class="paywall">Once aga, Sann dted off her typewrer om Goodman Ace. “I cid to take a year off,” Sann wrote a long diary entry, recently redisvered Lisa Bishop’s archive. “Neher TV or the theatre was about to fall apart wh my temporary ‘retirement.’ I worked on the book for ne months. . . . Deep down I didn’t expect to be published. I figured after I’d get all the rejects, I’d type neatly—paste all her pictur—have bound—and keep as an album. But before I settled for this I was termed to try for the top. . . . To have rejected would csh a very real belief I had nurtured all my life—that I uld wre.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Sann did beg at the top—wh William Morris, which alt wh Mansfield’s TV shows. But, Sosenko rells, “when Irvg would talk to them about Jackie, they turned a af ear.” Sosenko agreed to have a look at the mancript, entled <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em> “It was adorable, lic,” she says. “I acted immediately.” Sosenko sent to her iend Annie Lrie Williams, an agent of John Stebeck, who had jt won the Nobel Prize Lerature, and Harper Lee, who had jt won the Pulzer Prize. Williams shared Sosenko’s enthiasm and ved the thor to her office for a meetg. “I’ll never fet that day,” Sann wrote. “Before I went, I changed outfs ten tim. First I tried a su—I looked like a wrer—but maybe I was too much ‘on the nose’—perhaps a pla black drs.” To Sann’s relief, she noted the diary, Williams spoke to her new client exactly the language she unrstood. “As an actrs when you’re up for a part, if the producer says no—that’s . But wh a book, if a publisher says no—you send to another publisher. . . . It only tak one y to make a h.”</p><p class="paywall">In the early fall of 1962, Williams sent <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em> to Doubleday—which shortly thereafter stopped returng lls. To take her md off Doubleday’s madng silence, Irvg treated his wife and her mother, Rose, to a trip around the world. Sann rerd the monthlong odyssey a journal wh photographs, the kd of scrapbook that she feared would be <em>Josephe’s</em> fate. Durg the voy-age, Sann happily disvered that Senals were sold over the unter Japan. She stockpiled them, tendg to barter them wh Joyce Mathews for “new outfs.” But the revelatn that would permanently alter Sann’s life was ma Hong Kong. On November 9, 1962, she wrote an affectnate epistle to Mansfield: “Doll! . . . Any news om Annie Lrie Williams about <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em>? This wag is a killer. . . . I love you. . . . Jackie. P.S. Call and make an appotment wh Dr. Davids for me. I have a ty lump. It’s probably nothg, but we might as well make sure.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Like Jennifer <em>Valley of the Dolls,</em> when Sann learned the tth about her tumor—filtratg ductile rcoma, Seaman stat, was the diagnosis—her first stct was to bolt om the hospal. Back at home, Sann ma a diary entry for January 1, 1963: “I’ve looked at the ledger and don’t add up. God, Sat Andrew, the Che good luck charm and the whole mishpocheh owe me more than I owe them. I’ve got to leave somethg worthwhile on this earth before I go. I also don’t want disvered AFTER I go. I want to be around to get that Nobel Prize.” And when she was strong enough, she went out to a rise Central Park near the Navarro that she lled her Wishg Hill and ma a pact wh God. If He would give her only 10 more years, she promised God, “she would prove she uld make as a wrer,” Mansfield said, “as the number-one wrer.”</p><p class="paywall">Doubleday fally rmed Sann that s edors liked <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em> But sce the firm had already paid an advance to Beatrice Lillie for a book on her pet, Sann’s poodle story would have to wa. Dpairg, Sann began to see a psychoanalyst and gt huge quanti of pills. Determed to help his wife, Febary 1963 Mansfield sent a py of the mancript to Earl Wilson, their fluential lumnist iend. “Earl hadn’t read [<em>Every Night, Josephe!</em>]” Sann reunted her diary pag. “He was jt beg a good iend” when he rang up Bernard Geis, the head of the “flashy and prtig” hoe that bore his name. Geis remembers, “When Earl Wilson lled, he said, ‘I’ve got a betiful young woman my office, tears.’” After hearg Sann’s tale, Geis told Wilson the distrght lady should “dry her tears.” Intendg to read only 20 pag as a urty, Geis stead “fished the mancript” at seven A.M., Sann wrote the diary. “He got drsed and took a walk. All the dogs and their masters or mistrs were emergg. He stared at them all. . . . When he me home, his wife was up and readg the MS. She looked up and said, ‘you’re publishg this, aren’t you?’ . . . <em>Josie</em> me out November 1963. I always say I was ‘born’ on that day.”</p><p class="paywall">Bernard Geis Associat was “born” 1958, and “five of our first six books were on the [bt-seller] list,” says Geis. The clud books by Groucho Marx and Art Lkletter, who were also vtors Geis’s new venture. By the time Sann me on board Geis had also published <em>Sex and the Sgle Girl,</em> by the unknown ad pywrer Helen Gurley Brown, and Print Tman’s <em>Mr. Cizen.</em> Thanks to what movie producer (and Helen’s hband) David Brown lls Geis’s “riverboat gambler’s” stcts, his volvements wh televisn personali, and his clever publicy director, Letty Cott Pogreb, Geis at that time was, the publisher himself says, “the only one who knew how to promote books.”</p><p class="paywall">The Mansfields, who moled their publicy tour on Helen Gurley Brown’s for <em>Sex and the Sgle Girl,</em> also njured up a few novel P.R. tricks of their own. “To remd people of the ver of the book,” Sann wrote her diary pag, on every TV show she and Josie drsed matchg leopard-patterned pillbox hats and ats. To her chagr, however, some of Sann’s “mother and dog” engagements were thwarted. “I was booked on a tour—first stop Los Angel. And then a week later the whole world llapsed,” Sann wrote, somewhat disgenuoly, the diary. “Print Kennedy was assassated.” Pogreb remembers clearly “how appalled she was that J.F.K. dared to be shot so close to her publitn date! We were all watchg the TV my office, tears rollg down our ey. And she was stompg around, mandg, ‘What’s gog to happen to my bookgs!’” <em>Josephe,</em> which had an ial prtg of 7,500, sold 35,000 pi, ma to No. 9 on <em>Time</em> magaze’s bt-seller list, and went on to sell about a ln pi when was republished the 70s. Sann earned a few thoand dollars, and Geis paid her $3,000 for the rights to whatever she wrote next.</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">The day that she put on her ltle black drs and troduced herself to Annie Lrie Williams, Sann “went home, put a piece of paper the typewrer immediately—and wrote Chapter One of <em>VOD.</em> Bee I figured,” Sann told her diary, “ se, all the publishers said no, I wanted to be eply volved another book.” The story had been gtatg Sann’s md all durg the sojourn wh her mother. In fact, the letter om Hong Kong which Sann had announced so offhandly to her hband the prence of the lump her right breast, she had also excedly reported to him, “I thk I have a great tle—<em>Valley of the Dolls</em>—all based on our ltle red dolls the medice cht.”</p><p class="paywall">Sann labored on her mancript for a year and a half, followg a discipled wrg route that would serve her for the rt of her reer. Drsed troers, or, if was warm, her nightgown (to which she would p a Van Cleef poodle brooch, a gift om Irvg to memorate <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em>’s publitn), and wh her hair tied to pigtails, she sequtered herself daily om 10 until 5 her Navarro office—Guy’s former nursery. (When the Mansfields moved to 200 Central Park South 1970, her office walls were upholstered pk patent leather and the curtas ma up om Pucci fabric.) “It’s like givg up cigarett or gog on a diet,” Sann said of her regime. “Only you have to do every day.” She pound out five drafts, on as many different lors of paper stock, a practice appropriated om the theater. The first draft, typed on “expensive whe paper,” was where she would “spill out,” she explaed a 1968 WABC-TV documentary. On the yellow paper she worked out the characters, on the pk she foced on “story motivatn,” and on the blue she “cut, cut, cut.” The fal draft was wrten on “good whe paper.” Coordatg chalk lors to the paper lors, she would diagram the plot on a blackboard.</p><p class="paywall">The origs of her system dated back to the summer of 1963, when producer Joe Cat, his wife, Lily, and the Mansfields were all stayg together at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “I would see Jackie wh her nose a Harold Robbs book,” says Lily Naify (the former Lily Cat). “She’d smack her lips and say, ‘I know exactly how he do and I’m gog to do , too!’ The two of were havg lunch at the Beverly Wilshire and we went to a nearby bookstore and bought three pi of whatever the latt Harold Robbs was. Then we proceed to scissor . What I mean is, we spent a week cuttg the piec out of the books, and then reanizg the snipped piec by character. Then each character was wrten up on a different-lored set of x rds. She cid that Harold Robbs had created a formula: give a set of different characters one mon nomator. It uld be the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, uld be the <em>Tanic.</em> In <em>Valley of the Dolls,</em> was the pills.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">In January 1965, Berney Geis heard om Annie Lrie Williams. “She told me, ‘Don’t lgh, but Jacquele Sann is wrg a novel,’” Geis says. “I supprsed a chuckle. Then along a huge mancript, and I turned over to my edorial staff. They marched to my office and begged, ‘Please, don’t publish this book. It’s lerary trash.’” The Geis edor who would take on <em>Valley of the Dolls,</em> Don Prton, rells, “It was a big ms of a book. A cheap soap opera—not a book anyone wh any bra cells uld take serly. Why did Berney go to such trouble for somethg so loy? Well, when Jackie wanted a full-page ad for <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em> <em>The New York Tim Book Review,</em> and Berney said no, Irvg pulled out his checkbook, wrote a check for about $6,000, and said, ‘Let’s jt do .’ So Berney took the book home to do what we lled ‘Srsdale Rearch.’” Geis, other words, gave the mancript to his wife, Darlene, to read. Halfway through , Geis says, his wife “turned to me and said, ‘I feel like I picked up the phone and I was listeng on a nversatn of women talkg about how their hbands are bed. Who would hang up on a nversatn like that?’”</p><p class="paywall">What Darlene Geis was rpondg to was almost exactly that: a dialogue-heavy, highly fictnalized retellg of the checkered reers of the Hockey Club women and their far-flung iends. Anna Sosenko not, “If you follow <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> closely, ’s very tobgraphil.” Gossip lumnist Cdy Adams, whom Sosenko once tried to pair wh Sann for a rad show, says, “Jackie was the qutsential, the ultimate yenta—by which I mean ‘storyteller.’ Individually, the tal she’d tell over the phone would never have terted me. But she would extract the most lic, wonrful parts, and wh her credible memory for tail she’d weave stori about the love liv, the chineri, the Machiavellian ways, the li and limatns of the people she knew. You know, anyone uld have done Schiffli. As an actrs, she was no Meryl Streep. Her plays—anyone uld have wrten them. But no one else uld have taken all that dish and put on the plate. So stead of the phone, was the typewrer! Jackie was like the grass on the Wailg Wall. It’s stone and six feet thick—but somehow grass fds a way to grow on . Even if her reer was fallow, Jackie would fd a way. This woman had to be known, to be seen, to be heard. She would not be a nonenty.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">As she wrote, Sann said, “ was like a Ouija board—characters would sprg up.” <em>Valley of the Dolls’</em> noble-hearted Anne Well, whom many rears mistook for Grace Kelly (and who shar certa tras wh the thor), was basic outle Bea Cole, whom Sann scribed her diary as “the mother of the World.” But Anne’s selfls votn to dashg agent Lyon Burke, even while he is sleepg wh her iend Neely O’Hara, om the saga of Lee Reynolds, who remaed loyal to her talent-agent hband, David Begelman, even after his entanglement wh Judy Garland helped stroy their marriage. Lyon Burke’s name was rived om Kenny Lyons, a man whom Penny Bigelow loved when they worked together on Mansfield’s <em>Arthur Godey’s Talent Suts.</em> The stle that Lyon Burke hers refers to the fay seat that Swell habed durg her marriage to a Brish aristocrat. “Jackie,” Mansfield noted, “didn’t waste a thg.”</p><p class="paywall">Though the early Neely rembl Elfie, Sann’s hapls ragamuff iend om Kenmore Hall, the later Neely was based, a ltle too close for fort, on Judy Garland, as rears spected. Betiful, vulnerable, pill-poppg Jennifer was not Marilyn Monroe, as many supposed. Rather, she was a pose of Sann (the breast ncer), Carole Landis (the moneygbbg mother, the extraordary figure, the bisexualy, and the suici), and Joyce Mathews, the cream-puff showgirl twice married to both Milton Berle and Billy Rose. Mathews, whose raison d’être, Sann wrote a diary entry, was strivg “to be the prettit girl [E1] Moroc,” was “the biggt pill taker of everybody,” a iend says. “She hid pills all around the hoe, chanliers, ndy box. She even worked a hospal as a nurse’s ai. Everyone said, ‘Oh, how noble.’ But was really jt to get pills!” Mathews’s ex-hband Milton Berle says, “Jackie ked that iendship for all was worth.” Tony Polar, the tellectually ficient crooner who performs anal sex on Jennifer, was Sann’s revenge on one of her longtime fatuatns, Dean Mart, Seaman says. When she fally met him, Mart barely looked up om the ic book he was readg. Tony’s protective big sister Miriam’s fears that his bra disorr uld be geic, and her worri that he would end up a public stutn if she didn’t watch his money refully, parallels Sann’s ncerns about Guy. It was hardly a secret that the agg, loudmouthed, ill-tempered, egomanial—but preternaturally talented—sger Helen Law-son was Ethel Merman. About the character, Sann said, “I loved Helen Lawson. . . . She uld emasculate men wh her strength.” And about “the Merm,” Sann said, “We didn’t speak before the book me out. Let’s jt say that now we’re not speakg lour.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Edor Don Prton says, “Berney sent me home wh the mancript and told me not to e back to the office until I was fished. I holed up Rockland County wh the thg, and I cut about a third out.” Next, Prton had “a lot of meetgs” wh Sann to troublhoot particular problems wh the story. “I talked her to wrg some scen,” he says. “For example, ially Neely and Helen Lawson didn’t meet at any pot durg the book, which wasn’t right. Both were flamboyant, spark-sptg characters. Rears would have wanted them to lock horns. So I said, ‘Ladi are always gog to the bathroom together. Why not have them meet the ladi’ room and get to an argument?’” Out of that grew the classic passage which Neely yanks off Helen Lawson’s wig and tri to flh down the toilet. It’s a mp tfight that echo the climactic nontatn the play that earned Sann her Equy rd, <em>The Women.</em></p><p class="paywall">Prton ntu, “Jackie didn’t unrstand the emotnal si of sex—which she always lled ‘humpg.’ All she unrstood was the physil act. When Anne los her virgy to Lyon, I suggted that she set this tawdry hotel room wh a naked lightbulb. She still lov him, but she’s left wonrg, How did get kd of ugly when I thought would be betiful? But Jackie objected: ‘Can’t I jt wre, “and then they fucked,” and leave at that?’ Jackie had far more sensivy wrg the sex scen between women.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In Febary 1966, <em>Valley of the Dolls</em>—wrapped a slick, spare jacket showg lored pills sttered agast a whe background—“explod like a land me a placid landspe,” says Letty Cott Pogreb. A primer for adults about pre-maral sex, adultery, lbianism, dgs, abortn, and the domatn of women by men, <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> “got at very lurid stuff that was then still subsurface,” Liz Smh remembers. Geis Associat, which had already sold the paperback rights to Bantam for more than $200,000—enablg Mansfield to broker the movie rights to Twentieth Century Fox for ultimately around the same amount—utly orred an ial prtg of 20,000. Thanks to Bantam’s money, the publicy mpaign was budgeted at a hefty $50,000. Pogreb kicked off wh the kd of splashy mailgs, prevly alien to book publishg, which had bee a Geis tramark. The first, wrten on a prcriptn pad, advised, “Take 3 yellow ‘dolls’ before bedtime for a broken love affair; take 2 red dolls and a shot of stch for a shattered reer; take <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> heavy dos for the tth about the glamour set on the pill kick.” Fifteen hundred advance pi were dispatched to anyone who might help publicize , cludg celebri. Pasted one of Sann’s <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> scrapbooks are a charmg thank-you letter, dated Febary 15, 1966, om Senator Robert Kennedy’s prs assistant, and a terse reply, dated Febary 20, om Norman Mailer’s secretary, statg that Mailer “won’t have time to read <em>Valley of the Dolls.</em>” This was an admissn Mailer may have e to regret, bee Sann nsigned him to the fate of beg *Once Is Not Enough’*s Tom Colt—a hard-drkg, pugnac wrer wh a child-size penis.</p><p class="paywall">Mansfield by now had left televisn to manage his wife’s reer full-time. This gture reprented “Jackie’s romantic ial,” says Lily Naify. “To her was like the Kg of England givg up his throne for Wallis Simpson.” And by hlg his showbiz know-how to a new arena, Mansfield uld claim to <em>Life,</em> for once whout exaggeratn, “We’ve revolutnized book publishg.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Before embarkg on her natnal tour—which never really stopped until she began hawkg <em>The Love Mache</em> 1969—Sann nsulted a notebook she had kept while pluggg <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em> Into went mute notatns about every reporter, bookshop clerk, and talk-show host she had enuntered. Wiv’ and kids’ nam were rerd, as were birth dat, hobbi, and ments on their importance, personaly, and physil appearance. “She studied , memorized , wrote the people on letters,” says <em>Love Mache</em> publicist Abby Hirsch. “She was a polician.”</p><p class="paywall">Advertisements for <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> were placed not jt the ual newspaper book pag but entertament sectns as well. Cdy Adams says, “No effort was too huiatg, too horrifyg, or too tough for Irvg” if meant helpg them atta their “one goal—which was to make ‘Jacquele Sann’ a hoehold name.”</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Somehow, says talent manager Arnold Stiefel (then a Bantam P.R. assistant), Mansfield managed to obta the nam of the 125 bookstor that <em>The New York Tim</em> polled when pilg s all-powerful bt-seller list. Like a general spearheadg a battle, Mansfield reced iends for his strategic book-buyg mpaign. “Irvg would say, ‘You’re gog to San Francis to vis your mother,’” Lily Naify rells. “‘Go to this bookstore on Post Street and buy every py of the book you see. Then orr five more.’ In New York he’d want you to go to Doubleday or Colism and say, ‘You only have four? I need 12 for Christmas.’ And then we had to make sure the book was displayed up ont. I had stacks of them my closet.” Twentieth Century Fox apparently also pched ; was the stud’s tert to be able to tmpet s ads the exhilaratg words “based on the bt-seller.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Mansfield may have stirred up a lot of activy wh his book-buyg csa, but the uple’s real secret weapon was televisn, a medium each of them knew timately. “All you had to do was pot a TV mera at Jackie and she’d light up like a pball mache,” Don Prton says. Early the game Mansfield had even borrowed CBS meras and monors to lor-tt <em>Valley of the Dolls’</em> ver. Televisn was a very different stment 1966—wh jt three works, no ble, no channel-surfg, no petn om vios or puters, and no splter mographics, Ameri was one monolhic dience tung ast to ast to the same entertament at the same time. And, Bernard Geis rells, “Jackie knew how to manipulate every nversatn right back to the book. It got to the pot where you uld not turn on a water fcet whout gettg Jacquele Sann.”</p><p class="paywall">All told, Sann ma about 250 appearanc, visg as many as 11 ci 10 days and nductg up to 30 terviews a week. “I took amphetame pills when I was on tour,” she told <em>Pageant</em> magaze Febary 1967. “I felt that I owed to people to be bright. Rather than droop on televisn . . . I was sudnly awake, uld give my bt.” Barbara Seaman says, “All Jackie’s life she had been trag for this great, glor explosn. Who else had spent 25 years learng to be a TV pchwoman?—the soap, the bras, the sewg mach, Schiffli, and then the books.”</p><p class="paywall">On April 29, 1966, while she was Florida, Sann left a note for Mansfield, who was out playg golf. “Our man New York jt lled,” she reported. “He said I’m Number One on the btseller list the <em>New York Tim</em> next Sunday—WOW!!! Irv, ’s fally happened! . . . I uldn’t have done whout you. . .. I’ll give up smokg and pills and never take more than two drks. Anyway, tonight we’ll bt out the Dom Perignon (see, I’ve already fotten about the two drks). . . . I love you. . . . Jackie.” The book officially entered the top slot on May 8, s nth week on the list, and stayed there for 28 nsecutive weeks.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB kNleGZ sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="xw3v"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RecircMostPopularWrapper-bRuGTi jkTTgR recirc-most-popular-wrapper viewport-monor-anchor"><div class="RecircMostPopularConter-jiViNn ktrplG recirc-most-popular-sparrow-trackg hi-asi-ad" 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summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz cCcPgL"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet="" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet="" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Red, Whe & Royal Blue May Be “the Most Expensive B of Fan Fictn Ever”" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent summary-em__ntent--no-bric"><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM fPFrPI summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div data-ttid="ClampWrapper" class="ClampWrapper-kZxfkB hTTNGO clamp SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ eNPkjl summary-em__hed"><div class="ClampContent-hilPkr jVhSBH"><div class="SummaryItemHedTag-TWblf gxaOcP" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed"><em>Red, Whe & Royal Blue</em> May Be “the Most Expensive B of Fan Fictn Ever”</div></div></div></a><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY gRtaxp summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH iNSiTG byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd bIbWCO gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Savannah Walsh</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></li><li><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ RecircMostPopularSummaryItem-jQxxiw gzPpAt ad ad--asi"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--asi" data-no-id="93bkb"></div></div></li></ul><div class="RecircMostPopularFooter-enPjgs eAuebe"></div></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="f90wd"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa gwvVqF body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Though there was hardly a newspaper or magaze the untry that hadn’t n a feature on Jacquele Sann, there was a pcy of actual <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> reviews. One exceptn was a notice the <em>New York Herald Tribune</em> by Gloria Steem (who, David Brown says, sensibly turned down a Fox offer to wre the novel’s screenplay). In Steem’s opn, pared wh Jacquele Sann, Harold Robbs wrote like Prot. But Sann had a ready fense for the “double-domed,” “artsy-craftsy” crics. “So if I’m sellg lns,” she said, “I mt be good.” The rults of the Mansfields’ efforts on behalf of the Geis hard-back were staggergly imprsive. <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> remaed on the bt-seller list for 65 weeks and sold close to 400,000 pi. And for each $5.95 book sold, Sann received about $1.35.</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">For Bantam’s July 4, 1967, <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> paperback release, C.E.O. Osr Dystel orred a first prtg of two ln—wh the goal of a Labor Day sellout. Unlike the staff at Geis, everyone at Bantam had immediately liked <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> and s thor. “She had a scery, an almost naïve directns,” Dystel says. “She wanted to know everythg about how our bs worked—the paper, the typography, the distributn mechanisms. Other publishers thought that was meddlome. But we weled —Jackie saw the big picture.”</p><p class="paywall">Thanks no small part to Esther Margolis’s endls P.R. genuy, her boss need not have worried. Not only did <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> paperback bee No. 1, beme the fastt-sellg book history, wh a peak volume, <em>The Saturday Eveng Post</em> reported, of 100,000 per day. “We sold between six and eight ln pi six months,” Osr Dystel stat. “Wh a sale of that velocy, had to be reachg men and younger people too, not jt women.” Margolis says the gargantuan sal of <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> even helped “brg suors to Bantam,” which had been put on the market by s owner, Grosset & Dunlap. Natnal General Corporatn, the parent pany of a cha of movie theaters, end up makg the purchase. “So Jackie fely played a role mergg publishg wh the entertament dtry and turng to really big bs,” Margolis says.</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Eddie Cantor had once advised Sann, “Never go to Hollywood; make them send for you.” Wh a major motn picture of <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> the works, Hollywood now beckoned. Hopg for the kd of ntrol over the film that she had exercised over her book, she tried to mcle her way to Twentieth Century Fox’s stg, wrg, and srg cisns. The director, Mark Robson, was already on board, but Sann had assembled her wish list for the st: Ursula Andrs as Jennifer; Grace Kelly, “if she’d lose 10 to 15 pounds,” as Anne; Shirley MacLae as Neely; Bette Davis as Helen Lawson; and Elvis Prley as Tony Polar. She even wrote a theme song wh Bob Gd and rerd wh the Arbors, a male quartet. “She was fur that they didn’t e ,” says Arnold Stiefel.</p><p class="paywall">Though none of Sann’s favor ma to the picture, she beme satisfied wh some of the stud’s choic. Barbara Parks, already powerful at Fox bee of her part the TV show <em>Peyton Place,</em> was st as Anne Well. Sharon Tate was an ial Jennifer; Patty De as Neely O’Hara was more problematic. But the most irksome stg dilemma ncerned Helen Lawson. In a stunt-stg <em>up théâtre</em> the stud chose “a fast-fadg Judy Garland,” David Brown says. Sann and Garland teamed up for a prs nference, at which reporters uldn’t rist terrogatg Garland about <em>Valley of the Dolls’</em> pictn of pill abe among entertaers. “I fd prevalent among newspaper people,” Garland snapped.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In April 1967, Parks was lled upon to do her first scene wh Garland, which she brgs ntracts to Helen Lawson backstage. “I was so sred I lled Jackie,” Parks says. “She told me, ‘Jt go and enjoy her.’ The first day Judy did fe, but as time passed she fot her l and smoked a lot. The director was not gentle wh her.” Fally, Garland locked herself her trailer and refed to budge. She was given two weeks’ rpe to ci whether to stay or go. After the 14 days passed, the stud said, “We cid for you—you’re fired,” Parks says. San Hayward was brought to replace her, and, Parks says, Garland “walked out of the stud wh all the stum.” A few weeks later, Arnold Stiefel says, Garland performed at the Wtbury Mic Fair, glterg and twklg one of Fox signer Travilla’s bead pantsus.</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Fox held a sneak preview at San Francis’s Orphm Theatre. The marquee, which uld not give away the tle, stead teased passersby wh the e-on “the biggt book of the year.” Those words alone attracted “a huge preview dience,” David Brown rells. “And the film was so mpy, everyone roared wh lghter. One patron was so irate he poured his Coke all over Fox print Dick Zanuck the lobby. And we knew we had a h. Why? Bee of the size of the dience—the book would brg them .”</p><p class="paywall">Sann’s own reactn was not so different om the outraged la tosser’s. Fox publicy had orchtrated a snazzy, monthlong floatg premiere aboard the luxury ler M.V. <em>Prcs Italia.</em> At each port of ll there would be prs screengs wh the stars and the thor. At the first screeng, Venice, Sann “was appalled,” Barbara Parks remembers. Wh s happy endg, lacklter male leads, ngo stg, and $1,300 worth of false hair, the movie “had ed her book. Jackie mand to be flown off the boat.”</p><p class="paywall">When she had overe her anger, Sann rejoed the junket Miami—and kept quiet, for fear of damagg book sal. Dpe the predictably nasty reviews, the movie, which opened New York at the Crern and Ftival theaters on December 15, 1967, broke stud box-office rerds, grossg a total of around $70 ln.</p><p class="paywall">The picture was still playg theaters Augt 1969 when the Mansfields were at the Beverly Hills Hotel, this time htlg <em>The Love Mache.</em> On the eighth of the month, Sharon Tate ved Sann to her hoe for a small dner party. But when cric Rex Reed dropped for a surprise vis at the hotel, Sann and he cid to stay for the eveng. The next morng at the pool, where the Mansfields ctomarily held urt at Cabana 8, “Jackie was cryg her ey out,” rells Svend Petersen, pool manager sce 1963. “She had jt found out that Sharon Tate was murred the night before.” Several years later when Sann was termally ill, she said to Reed, “It uld all have happened a lot sooner if we’d gone to Sharon’s that night.”</p><p class="paywall">Why was <em>Valley of the Dolls,</em> movie and book, such an extraordary succs? Don Prton believ the answer li the Mansfields’ peerls promotnal skills. Clearly, uld not jt have been the risqué subject matter; more prient books were available, although maybe not on a secretary uld safely read on the subway. Whout doubt Sann had an thentic, almost evangelil empathy for female emotnal experience, at the exact moment when women’s place the world was about to unrgo a seismic upheaval. Above all, she knew her dience. Before <em>People</em> or <em>Hollywood Babylon</em> had ripped the sl om the public’s ey, “<em>Valley of the Dolls</em> showed that a woman a ranch hoe wh three kids had a better life,” Sann said, “than what happened up there at the top.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Jt as Sann had begun <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> before <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em> was accepted by Geis, so <em>The Love Mache</em> was already germatg while she was peddlg the first novel. In the Augt 19, 1966, issue of <em>Life,</em> Sann revealed that she had already fished the first draft of the new book. It would be lled <em>The Love Mache,</em> she told reporter Jane Howard. And s hero would be “like the most excg man televisn. The tle has a dual meang, you see, the man is like a mache and so is the televisn box, a mache sellg the love of the actors and love of the sponsors.” Though he bore the ials of Sann’s rogue father, <em>The Love Mache’s</em> protagonist, Rob Stone, was fact “like” the Mansfields’ iend Jam Aubrey, the handsome, praved head of CBS. Nicknamed “the sg bra,” he abed women, dgs, animals, and his power until CBS chairman William Paley fally ejected him om the work 1965. Liz Smh, who worked as an associate producer at CBS durg Aubrey’s reign of terror, rells, “Aubrey was a mean, hateful, tly sry, bad, outré guy.” Yet 1969 he rebound to bee head of MGM studs. There he was known to refer to himself as “trisexual—I’ll try anythg,” and to have at his disposal a dog traed to perform sex acts wh women. Aubrey, fully aware of what Sann was up to, implored her to “make me mean, a real son of a bch.”</p><p class="paywall">Rather than pills, the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, or the <em>Tanic,</em> the lk this time among the hero was hopels love for Rob Stone; her <em>Tim</em> review, Nora Ephron lled the female characters “the most willg group of masochists assembled outsi the pag of Sa.” Mol Amanda was based on the exquisely elegant fashn journalist Carol Bjorkman. A me of Halston’s, a iend of Tman Capote’s, and the mistrs of Seventh Avenue mogul Seymour Fox, Bjorkman, like Amanda, died of lkemia at the height of her bety, July 1967. Sann, who worshiped Bjorkman’s style, was a fixture the dyg woman’s hospal room, and even dited <em>The Love Mache</em> to her. “Call a csh if you want,” says Anna Sosenko. “But don’t put them bed together.”</p><p class="paywall">Though legally Geis owned <em>The Love Mache,</em> the Mansfields manvered their way out of their ntract wh the ltle publishg hoe and to a much more lucrative arrangement wh Simon & Schter. “Essanss” (as Sann playfully lled a publishg hoe <em>The Love Mache</em>) plied the Mansfields wh a $250,000 advance, a $200,000 promotnal budget, and guarante of su and limo. The Mansfields fed a pletely separate agreement wh Bantam, to whom they remaed loyal, and om whom they extracted a 100-percent-royalti sweetheart al.</p><p class="paywall">Lnched May 1969, <em>The Love Mache</em> (to e one newsman’s metaphor) was “a heat-seekg missile” head “straight for first place on the btseller list.” It arrived at s tend statn on June 24, topplg Philip Roth’s <em>Portnoy’s Complat</em> om the hight spot. About her rival Roth, Sann said, “He’s a fe wrer, but I wouldn’t want to shake hands wh him.” Mansfield sold the movie rights to Columbia Pictur’ Mike Frankovich for $1.5 ln, a percentage of the gross, and a producer’s cred. This embarrassment of rich was jt a ltle more than some members of the lerary tablishment uld bear.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">On July 23, 1969, Mansfield’s 61st birthday, Sann arrived at a stud to tape the David Frost show wh a panel of iendly journalists: Rex Reed, Nora Ephron, and Jimmy Brl. At the last mute and wh-out Sann’s knowledge, cric John Simon was brought to replace Brl. Simon went for the jugular, lashg out at Sann for “wrg trash” and sg “through false teeth.” Rex Reed rells, “It was terrible. Simon was sptg all over Nora Ephron’s arm and Nora was stg there like a ged animal. It was the only time I ever saw Jackie lose her ol.”</p><p class="paywall">Later that eveng at Danny’s Hi-A-Way, Sann simmered down over Mansfield’s birthday dner. Back at home, the uple was drowsily viewg Johnny Carson’s <em>Tonight Show</em> bed. Sann sudnly jolted to attentn at the sound of Tman Capote mentng her name. He was llg her “a born transvte” who “should have been st the tle role of <em>Myra Breckridge”</em> bee, wh her “sleazy wigs and gowns,” she rembl “a tckdriver drag.” Sann dumped water on her dozg spoe, who, awakened, sprang to actn. He lled lawyer Louis Nizer, who advised agast a su. Instead, Mansfield extracted om NBC an agreement to place Sann on <em>The Tonight Show</em> and <em>Today,</em> as well as a daytime game show. And Sann took re of her ventta by the ual means. Capote beme an cintal figure <em>Once Is Not Enough,</em> a pudgy “ltle pon” who “hadn’t wrten anythg” for years but had ma “a whore” of himself “gog on talk shows and attendg celebry parti.” And he returned <em>Dolor,</em> a 1974 novella Sann wrote for <em>Ladi’ Home Journal,</em> this time as the viperish gossip Horat Capon. As for Capote, he issued an apology—to the tckdrivers.</p><p class="paywall"><em>The Love Mache</em> paperback exceed <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> swiftns of sal; Sann’s statistics moved David Frost to remark that the wrer typed “on a sh register.” From the first two novels, Barbara Seaman lculat, Sann earned $8 ln between 1966 and 1972 (about $30 ln today). Vigilant about Guy’s future secury, she utly vted the wdfall municipal bonds and blue-chip stocks. And the trated thpian who only a before had longed to be intified at Sardi’s as more than “jt the Schiffli girl” now found herself seated ahead of Henry Fonda at Mateo’s, the Beverly Hills rtrant. “No one ever said, ‘Hey, you look faiar,’” publicist Abby Hirsch rells. ”It was always ‘There go Jacquele Sann!’”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Sann, aga, was at work on her third novel while still on tour wh her send. If <em>The Love Mache</em> had been an “attempt to get si of men’s ids,” then, Sann announced, <em>Once Is Not Enough</em> was all about “mental ct. I thk happens to every girl who has a great father.” Bantam already owned the paperback rights to Sann’s story of heirs January Wayne’s efforts to fd a man who measur up to her high-roller father, Mike Wayne. But, as before, Sann “felt she might be better off wh another” hardback publisher, Mansfield wrote. Sherry Arn, whom Sann knew om the WABC <em>Valley of the Dolls</em> documentary, suggted Morrow, where Arn had bee publicy director. Larry Hugh, then head of Morrow, says, “Jackie was a pretty shrewd person. She knew they lghed behd her back at Simon & Schter. Jackie told a good story, and that’s an art of s own. She’s too easy a mark for risn.”</p><p class="paywall">Sann’s edor at Morrow, Jim Landis, remembers, “Jackie would listen very refully to your suggtns, and then revise. Other No. Is stopped listeng after a while, but never Jackie. Her books were driven by what happens to characters, and how they alt wh each other. The sex was jt a part of that.” One scurrilo episo that Landis asked Sann to rewre ma him wonr about the nature of Sann’s own sexual experience. Lda Riggs, the rnchy nymphomaniac who eds <em>Gloss</em> magaze, at one pot teach the virgal January Wayne how to make a “facial mask” out of a lover’s semen. “Lda origally told January that she had jt llected ‘a k-rtonful’ of semen om a ‘hand job,’” Landis reunts. “And I said, ‘Jackie, what size k rton is this?’ And she asked me, ‘Well, what size should be, Jim—a gallon, a quart, a pt?’ It was strange how naïve she was.”</p><p class="paywall">Sann, turn, found Landis naïve. “Jackie wasn’t a good speller. I me across an unregnizable word one day and asked her what was. She said, ‘You poor darlg, you don’t know.’” She led Landis to the kchen and opened the door to her reigerator. It was empty except for a bottle of champagne, but when she opened the vegetable b, si there was also “somethg like an egg rton,” Landis says. Angrily, she slammed the drawer shut and grabbed the kchen phone, “a Touch-Tone, one of the first I’d ever seen,” Landis rells. After punchg the number of Mansfield’s office, where her old iend Bea Cole now worked, she screamed to the receiver, “Bea! Where is he?!” And when Mansfield got on, she shouted, “Goddamn, every night when you said you were gettg out of bed for water, you were sneakg one of the Nembutal supposori! You son of a bch! There’s only one left!” Sann banged the phone down and explaed to her edor that Nembutal supposori were what “rich people brought back for each other om Europe—they were sold over the unter there.” And she said, “Do you know what you do wh this? You get your bed, shove up your ass, and then you fall asleep—om your feet up.” Landis nclus, “The word she uldn’t spell was <em>supposori!”</em></p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Landis remembers that the fall of 1972, while he was edg Sann, a former three-pack-a-day smoker, she had “a ltle ugh. Irvg kept tellg me that I was workg her too hard.” And when Sann and Mansfield traveled to Paris the summer of 1973 to spread the gospel about <em>The Love Mache,</em> which had jt been published France, Sylvie Msger, Sann’s subsidiary director at Édns Belfond, paid a ll at the Mansfields’ Rz sue. “I asked to e the bathroom,” Msger says. “There were bottl and bottl of pills everywhere. I didn’t unrstand, so I asked Jackie, ‘How many pills do you take a day?’ And she told me, ‘Oh, they’re all vams.’ I thought that maybe this was a new Amerin fashn.” What Landis had noticed the fall of 1972 and Msger stumbled upon the next summer were both symptoms of a problem the Mansfields had at first dared not spect. On January 18, 1973—jt as Sann’s 10-year pact wh God was expirg—her ternist rmed her that she had veloped “metastatic breast rcoma.” In other words, her breast ncer had spread to her lungs and was so advanced she probably had only a few months to live. In addn to balt treatments and daily chemotherapy jectns, Seaman says, she was subjected to massive dos of a spectm of powerful dgs, all wh hio si effects. Aga, she kept her ndn unr wraps. She feared for her glamoro image—she uld not bear “ey of py,” she said—she feared for her book ntracts, and, most of all, she feared for Guy.</p><p class="paywall">Bis, Sann had a book to promote. “Grab every brass rg you n,” Sann wrote <em>Once Is Not Enough,</em> “bee when you look back, seems like a hell of a short ri.” No longer jt fashn statements, her Korean-hair wigs and theatril makp were now necsi. Even when she began sproutg a beard, she faced down the meras. “She had hair all over her ch, and up the sis of her face,” says Anna Sosenko, who was privy to her illns. “But her pri her looks was so great that she went through this vastatg procre of electrolysis so that on the air she uld still be ‘a tearg bety.’”</p><p class="paywall">Not surprisgly, the reviews of <em>Once Is Not Enough</em> were cel, and as always she toured csantly, natnally and ternatnally, om April to October 1973, when she llapsed. Somehow, amid all the promotnal efforts and harrowg medil treatments, she found time to wre the novella <em>Dolor</em> for <em>Ladi’ Home Journal</em> durg the summer and fall of 1973. And the issue which appeared, Febary 1974, was the most succsful the magaze’s history. But all that was jt an upbeat footnote to the big news that had e months earlier. <em>Once Is Not Enough</em> had claimed top place on the <em>Tim</em> bt-seller list, phg Frerick Forsyth’s <em>The Ossa File</em> down to No. 2—makg her the first thor publishg history to h No. 1 three tim a row.</p><p class="paywall">In the late sprg and early summer of 1974 the Mansfields were back L.A., where Howard Koch’s Paramount movie versn of <em>Once Is Not Enough</em> was wrappg. From the Wt Coast, Mansfield kept stallg Esther Margolis and Osr Dystel, who were gearg up for the tradnal July Fourth Bantam paperback lnch. Fally, Mansfield told them they had better fly out for a meetg. Margolis says, “Irvg ma an early dner rervatn, six o’clock at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Jackie me , lookg th, and joed at the booth. And she told Osr and me about her ncer. She was fabulo, matter-of-fact, and optimistic. She was cidg which book she should wre next. Jackie went back to their room, Sue 135–136, and Irvg stayed wh . He told that her ncer had spread all over her body and was unlikely she’d be able to do any of the books she talked about.”</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">On her 56th birthday, Augt 20, 1974, Sann was admted to Doctors Hospal for the last of her 18 stays there. In her fal days Sann said to her hband, “Maybe we’ve had too many secrets. Guy, my illns earlier, my illns now.” Mansfield told Osr Dystel that shortly before she died, Sann, the thro of a ln, ripped off her turban and mand her hband, “Let’s blow this jot!”—which she fally did at 9:02 P.M. on September 21, 1974. The secret of Sann’s termal illns had been so rigoroly guard, the prs—wary of yet another publicy stunt—lled 200 Central Park South repeatedly for nfirmatn.</p><p class="paywall">After a service at Frank E. Campbell’s, Mansfield had Sann’s body cremated and her ash posed a bronze vsel the size and shape of a book. He placed on a shelf, among the many rows of edns of his wife’s books. The metallic volume, like all the No. 1 books to which Sann poured the substance of her beg, was a work of fictn. Its ver was scribed, not wh the actual year of her birth, 1918, but wh 1921, “the birthdate Jackie had chosen for herself,” Mansfield said.</p><p class="has-dropp paywall">Sann died wh several unwrten books her. At the dner three months before she expired durg which she nfsed her ndn to Esther Margolis and Osr Dystel, the thor had spoken of her plans for a sequel to <em>Every Night, Josephe!</em> She had also mentned the possibily of a <em>roman à clef</em> about a Cantor-like edian—possibly a reworkg of <em>Cock of the Walk,</em> the play she and Bea Cole had -thored 1950 right after Guy was taken to Bradley. But Sann’s greatt aspiratn, Osr Dystel timated his logy, was to wre what she lled the “Real Book.” In the redisvered journal pag Lisa Bishop’s posssn (Mansfield burned virtually all his wife’s diari immediately after her ath), Sann rolved, “I am wrg my tobgraphy first,” rather than the “three more novels” for which she had ias, “bee I don’t know how much time I’ve got. I don’t know whether I’ll live to fish the book. But ’s important to me to set the facts straight.” Her athbed remarks to Mansfield about Guy and her fatal disease suggt some of the “facts” fterg her md. New Millennium Entertament’s Michael Ver, who wh his wife, Deborah Raff (who played January <em>Once Is Not Enough),</em> remaed close to Mansfield until his 1988 ath, says, “She fely would have matured to wrg a ser book about her experienc wh tism and ncer.” Sosenko is also nvced that “her plan was to bee a really fe wrer. She was already studyg Dostoyevsky, all the Rsians.” Joan Castle Swell rellects, “Jackie would say, ‘I don’t want the Pulzer Prize. I want the Nobel Prize. I’m not gog to settle!’ Was that dream any more unlikely than what had already happened to her?”</p><p class="paywall">Columnist Jack Mart, who passed untls days wh the Mansfields at Cabana 8 at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, says, “I never met anyone who enjoyed fame more than Jackie. When she fally got , she appreciated , was grateful for , loved everythg about . And Irvg basked her glory. They were two pigs sh.” Sosenko, a fellow somniac who routely received nocturnal lls om Sann, says that “one night shortly before she died Jackie beme tragilly philosophil. ‘Jackie,’ I said, ‘you’ve been gog through so much wh your sickns. Do you thk the whole thg was worth ?’ And she said, ‘Porky’—that’s what she lled me—‘I want to tell you somethg. The last 10 years were the 10 most meangful of my life. I’ve been everywhere, met everyone, done all. I’ve been succsful beyond my fonst hop.’” David Brown nclus, “Jackie had started out a star-fucker, starved for love. But she was saved by a talent she never knew she had.” The choice she prented to Neely O’Hara, “between mass love and a private life,” was, for Sann, no ntt. If Jacquele Sann was not precisely the “voice of the 60s,” then she was s achg female heart.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="uugwa"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv brYtrA grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-body__footer"><div class="ContentFooterContributorSpotlightWrapper-jglHff edmTAt"><sectn data-ttid="ContributorSpotlightContaer" class="ContributorSpotlightContaer-ccVxgz fwlOPD"><div class="ContributorSpotlightInnerContaer-elBox jSvXVx"><div class="ContributorSpotlightSgleColumn-idLiJU goRdaE"><sectn class="ContributorSpotlightSummaryGrid-jZdHDE hJMn"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK hvFIAc grid grid-ems-2 ContributorSpotlightMaSectnGrid-kYVLYK gpZeIC"><div class="GridItem-buujkM eHLzLy grid--em"><div class="ContributorHearWrapper-cMHleS bnIcwz"><div class="ContributorGrid-fKcSKO fnuDrA"><div class="ContributorHearContent-gJdnVA cyzBPN"><div class="ContributorDenseHearWrapper-gwHjlj jdTgya"><div class="ContributorNameAndTleWrapper-jlSeaF ifAFdg"><h1 data-ttid="ContributorHearName" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContributorHearName-fNrWXe iUEiRd cSfQOi kxfYnW">Amy Fe Colls</h1><h2 class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContributorHearTle-kiBYJJ iUEiRd cSfQOi gglfXw">Amy Fe Colls is a special rrponnt at *Vany Fair.*</h2></div></div><a href="/ntributor/amy-fe-lls" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ContributorHearSeeMoreLk-iRIKOz iUEiRd bJVYxx UDwfc gkcXuI">See More By Amy Fe Colls <!-- -->»</a></div></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM eHLzLy grid--em"></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"></div></div></sectn></div></div></sectn></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"></div></div></div><div data-ttid="ContentFooterBottom" class="ContentFooterBottom-jwWZfC kcbyiW"><div class="ContentFooterNewsletterContentWrapper-bmjtna kixtae"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper-fCqqkN jKSBhE newsletter-subscribe-form ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper-fpMElW eglIBL"><h3 class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDangeroHed-kRwWjt hHzEKn newsletter-subscribe-form__hed ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf">Cocktail Hour</h3><div class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDek-kXonvc ermzvy newsletter-subscribe-form__k">Sign up for our sential daily brief and never miss a story. 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London</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryCollectnGridToActnWrapper-gnReGN eGayfk"></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="TaboolaWrapper-hMVdpE iYfBhy"><div class="TaboolaWidgetWrapper-egPIjc hkSrgt TaboolaWidget-eUSdED hQCCRa" data-ttid="TaboolaWidgetWrapper"><div class="TaboolaWidgetContent-iBEQTO eXroXG TABOOLA" id="taboola-below-article-thumbnails" data-ttid="TaboolaWidgetContent"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--footer should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--footer" data-no-id="6ysvtj"></div></div></div></div></div></ma><div class="BasePageMaFooterFiller-hTlZph jSriYf page__ma-footer-filler"></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--cm-footer" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--cm-footer"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan BasePageSeFooterRow-kpEBGH jqlJed"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 BasePageSeFooterRowGrid-iBGjXL zQNeb"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><footer class="SeFooterWrapper-bXjkRY bwIeHh se-footer--wh-store"><div class="SeFooterGridNoMargs-jSrXSj kdlxBX" data-ttid="SeFooterGridNoMargs"><div class="SeFooterBrandInfo-cdoqKy cdkwFG"><div class="SeFooterLogo-eYlNHY eigdAF se-footer__logo"><a href="/"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset SeFooterLogoRponsiveAsset-ckjzWk kubVDn se-footer__rponsive-image"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SeFooterLogoRponsiveAsset-ckjzWk kubVDn se-footer__rponsive-image rponsive-image"><img alt="Vany Fair" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="/verso/static/vany-fair/assets/" srcSet="" siz="100vw"/></picture></span></a></div><div data-ttid="SeFooterAbout" class="SeFooterAbout-lflfWa XEKOX"><div class="SeFooterAboutText-XXKBX blTbmF"></div></div><div class="SocialInsWrapper-hKMEXV hwdgCG social-ins social-ins--footer SeFooterSocialIns-cLAKVY pJQob"><ul data-ttid="socialInslist" class="SocialInsList-cHVTIA gBoIvv social-ins__list"><li class="SocialInsListItem-mbhR gQILrJ social-ins__list-em social-ins__list-em--facebook social-ins__list-em--footer"><a aria-label="Follow on Facebook" class="external-lk SocialInExternalLk-huuzOU bjORTK social-ins__lk social-ins__lk--facebook" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><div class="SocialInContaer-huXzUC pMzVC social-ins__in-ntaer"><svg class="SocialInNetworkInComponent-cZaKGz dlOAhZ in in-facebook" focable="false" viewBox="0 0 32 32" width="32" height="32" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Facebook

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