“I didn't have a script so I read the book and then the script once I got one,” he explained of his approach to the film. WILLIAM TRAVILLA BASED THE FILM'S COSTUMES ON THE WOMEN’S LIKES.Ĭostume designer William Travilla had to assemble 134 outfits for the four leading actresses. “She said, ‘Honey, just go in there and enjoy her.’ So I went onto the set and Judy came up to me and wrapped her arms around me and said, ‘Oh, baby, let’s just do this scene,’ and she was wonderful.” 3. “I called up Jackie Susann, who I had become close to-I didn’t call up the director strangely enough-and I said, ‘What do I do? I’m nervous about going on the set with Judy Garland and I might get lost in this scene because she knows how to chew up the screen,’” Parkins told Windy City Times. BARBARA PARKINS WAS “NERVOUS” TO WORK WITH JUDY GARLAND.īarbara Parkins had only been working with Judy Garland for two days when the legendary actress was fired for not coming out of her dressing room (and possibly being drunk). At one point she reportedly told Robson directly that she thought the film was “a piece of sh*t.” 2. She also thought Hollywood “had ruined her book,” and Susann asked to be taken off the boat. At a screening in Venice, Susann said the film “appalled” her, according to Parkins. To promote the film, the studio hosted a month-long premiere party on a luxury liner.

( 20th Century Fox), Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons Here are 14 deep facts about the iconic guilty pleasure. (Garland died on Jfrom a barbituate overdose.) Two months after Garland’s sudden demise, the Manson Family murdered the very pregnant Tate in August 1969.ĭespite all of the glamour depicted in the movie and novel, Susann said, “Valley of the Dolls showed that a woman in a ranch house with three kids had a better life than what happened up there at the top.” A loose sequel, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls-which was written by Roger Ebert-was released in 1970, but it had little to do with the original. Mark Robson directed it, and he notoriously fired the booze- and drug-addled Judy Garland, who was cast to play aging actress Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward took over), who was supposedly based on Garland.

John Williams received his first of 50 Oscar nominations for composing the score. Years after its original release, the film became a so-bad-it’s-good classic about the perils of fame. Both the film and the novel focus on three young women-Neely O’Hara (Patty Duke), Jennifer North (Sharon Tate), and Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins)-who navigate the entertainment industry in both New York City and L.A., but end up getting addicted to barbiturates, a.k.a.

Based on Jacqueline Susann's best-selling 1966 novel (which sold more than 30 million copies ), Valley of the Dolls was a critically maligned film that somehow managed to gross $50 million when it was released 50 years ago, on December 15, 1967.

Valley of the dolls novel