Themes: Social Climbing, Writer's Life, Rags To Riches
Main Cast: Bette Midler, Nathan Lane, Stockard Channing, David Hyde Pierce, John Cleese
Release Year: 2000
Country: US
Run Time: 93 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Jacqueline Susann spent a long career on the edges of show business as an actress and model, but it never really paid off until she quit acting to write her first novel. Valley of the Dolls was a proudly sleazy potboiler that sold 26 million copies and had readers wondering which characters matched up to which real-life show-biz figures. Susann wrote several other successful novels, but fame and fortune didn't make her life any less tumultuous; she had well-publicized problems with drugs and alcohol and a series of free-wheeling affairs, although she stayed with her husband Irving Mansfield until her death in 1974 at the age of 56. Isn't She Great is a screen biography that focuses on Susann's roller-coaster literary career, with Bette Midler as Susann and Nathan Lane as Mansfield; David Hyde Pierce, Stockard Channing, John Cleese, and Sarah Jessica Parker round out the supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
John Larroquette - Maury Manning; Amanda Peet - Debbie Klausman; David Lawrence - Steve Lawrence; Debbie Gravitte - Eydie Gorme; Jack Eagle
Credit
Raymond DuPuis - Art Director, Rosina Bucci - Casting, Elite Productions - Casting, Julie Weiss - Costume Designer, Glen Trotiner - First Assistant Director, Andrew Bergman - Director, Barry Malkin - Editor, Mark Gordon - Executive Producer, Ted Kurdyla - Executive Producer, Gary Levinsohn - Executive Producer, Burt Bacharach - Composer (Music Score), Burt Bacharach - Musical Arrangement, Hal David - Songwriter, Linda de Vetta - Makeup, Stuart Wurtzel - Production Designer, Karl Walter Lindenlaub - Cinematographer, Mike Lobell - Producer, Susan MacQuarrie - Set Designer, Amy Burt - Set Designer, Don Cohen - Sound/Sound Designer, Paul Rudnick - Screenwriter, George De Titta, Jr. - Set Decorator, Michael Korda - Short Story Author
Midler was nominated for a Worst Actress Golden Raspberry Award. Opening in 750 US theatres on January 28, 2000, it was assaulted by the critics and shunned by the public, and domestically earned only $2,954,405 at the box office, far less than its cost of $36 million [1].
