Jacqueline Susann

Irving Mansfield, the publicity agent whose best-known client was his late wife, novelist Jacqueline Susann, and who wrote both lovingly and boastfully of the campaign he carried on to make her one of the best-selling writers of all time, died Thursday of a heart attack at his Manhattan home. He was 80 and had outlived his wife by 14 years. She died in 1974 at age 53 after a 10-year struggle with cancer, some of which was fictionalized in her books.

This page, left: Edward An "Colette" twill coat, $345, at Aero & Co., Los Angeles, and Fred Segal Flair, Santa Monica, over Narciso Rodriguez beaded dress with metal chains and Swarovski crystals, through special order at Maxfield, Los Angeles. Swarovski Jewelry rhodium crystal bangle. Right: Prada Donna orange wool dress, $1,720, at Prada, Beverly Hills and South Coast Plaza. Tod's black satin purse. Opposite: Chompol Serimont sleeveless silk swirl dress, $725, at Chompol Serimont, New York.

The steamy new novel is about "women . . . men . . . fame, fortune and temptation," says the dust jacket. A cover picture features a couple, the man's arm thrown around his partner. There ends any resemblance to the partially clothed, big clinch school of cover art common to this genre of fiction. In this photograph, on the back cover of "Just This Once," Scott French--scruffy, 40ish, wearing sunglasses, jeans and a T-shirt--cuddles a Macintosh 11CX computer named Hal.

Scientific researchers haven't yet proved that brain cells melt in the summer sun. But is empirical evidence really necessary to explain the perennial popularity of beach books, or pool novels, or whatever term publishing industry marketers conjure up to describe trashy entertainments as addictive as M&Ms? Did I say addictive? Yes. As habit-forming as Percodan, the What, Me Worry, mood-elevating painkiller. Or Valium, the Chanel of sedatives, simultaneously modern and classic.

Question: What do you get when you program a supercharged computer with the glitter, glamour, drugs and sex from the campy prose of a Jacqueline Susann work? Answer: A microchip off the old block called "Just This Once," a megabyte-size bodice-ripping potboiler subtitled as a novel written by a computer programmed to think like the world's best-selling author.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's "Valley of the Dolls Weekend" was how, well, respectful the proceedings were. From Friday night's presentation of the 1967 cult classic movie to Saturday's performance of Theatre-a-Go-Go!'s over-the-top staged adaptation, the program's pair of sold-out audiences were remarkably sedate.

The "heart of the woman," actress Michele Lee is saying of famed "Valley of the Dolls" author Jacqueline Susann, whom she plays in her latest television movie, is perseverance. Persevere is precisely what Lee did to make sure that "Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story" airing Wednesday night on USA made it to television. And before "Isn't She Great," starring Bette Midler and Nathan Lane, makes it to the big screen as Universal Studios plans, in the fall.

A sizzling biography of "Valley of the Dolls" author Jacqueline Susann, due out March 19, is sending her widower, Irving Mansfield, running to his lawyers. Author Barbara Seaman, with a six-figure William Morrow advance, told Outtakes that "Jackie created her steamy best-sellers out of the raw materials of her life"--which Seaman has used as the basis of "Lovely Me," also the title of a Susann stage play.

"Isn't She Great" is just the movie Jacqueline Susann deserves--and that is no put-down. In telling the story of the publicity-hound author of "Valley of the Dolls," director Andrew Bergman and writer Paul Rudnick give Susann's life mythical dimension in a mix of fact and fictionalized supporting characters that allows them to create a satire of popular culture and the flowering of celebrity worship from the '40s through the '70s that is as affectionate as it is hilarious.

Scientific researchers haven't yet proved that brain cells melt in the summer sun. But is empirical evidence really necessary to explain the perennial popularity of beach books, or pool novels, or whatever term publishing industry marketers conjure up to describe trashy entertainments as addictive as M&Ms? Did I say addictive? Yes. As habit-forming as Percodan, the What, Me Worry, mood-elevating painkiller. Or Valium, the Chanel of sedatives, simultaneously modern and classic.

"Isn't She Great" is just the movie Jacqueline Susann deserves--and that is no put-down. In telling the story of the publicity-hound author of "Valley of the Dolls," director Andrew Bergman and writer Paul Rudnick give Susann's life mythical dimension in a mix of fact and fictionalized supporting characters that allows them to create a satire of popular culture and the flowering of celebrity worship from the '40s through the '70s that is as affectionate as it is hilarious.

Not too many comedies are based on the lives of people who can come across as obnoxious, boorish and unappealing because not too many people will pay to see them. One subject who at least partly fits this description is the late Jacqueline Susann, celebrated and reviled author of heavy-breathing immorality tales that turned the stuffy publishing business on its ear some 30 years ago.

The "heart of the woman," actress Michele Lee is saying of famed "Valley of the Dolls" author Jacqueline Susann, whom she plays in her latest television movie, is perseverance. Persevere is precisely what Lee did to make sure that "Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story" airing Wednesday night on USA made it to television. And before "Isn't She Great," starring Bette Midler and Nathan Lane, makes it to the big screen as Universal Studios plans, in the fall.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's "Valley of the Dolls Weekend" was how, well, respectful the proceedings were. From Friday night's presentation of the 1967 cult classic movie to Saturday's performance of Theatre-a-Go-Go!'s over-the-top staged adaptation, the program's pair of sold-out audiences were remarkably sedate.

The steamy new novel is about "women . . . men . . . fame, fortune and temptation," says the dust jacket. A cover picture features a couple, the man's arm thrown around his partner. There ends any resemblance to the partially clothed, big clinch school of cover art common to this genre of fiction. In this photograph, on the back cover of "Just This Once," Scott French--scruffy, 40ish, wearing sunglasses, jeans and a T-shirt--cuddles a Macintosh 11CX computer named Hal.

Question: What do you get when you program a supercharged computer with the glitter, glamour, drugs and sex from the campy prose of a Jacqueline Susann work? Answer: A microchip off the old block called "Just This Once," a megabyte-size bodice-ripping potboiler subtitled as a novel written by a computer programmed to think like the world's best-selling author.

Not too many comedies are based on the lives of people who can come across as obnoxious, boorish and unappealing because not too many people will pay to see them. One subject who at least partly fits this description is the late Jacqueline Susann, celebrated and reviled author of heavy-breathing immorality tales that turned the stuffy publishing business on its ear some 30 years ago.

This page, left: Edward An "Colette" twill coat, $345, at Aero & Co., Los Angeles, and Fred Segal Flair, Santa Monica, over Narciso Rodriguez beaded dress with metal chains and Swarovski crystals, through special order at Maxfield, Los Angeles. Swarovski Jewelry rhodium crystal bangle. Right: Prada Donna orange wool dress, $1,720, at Prada, Beverly Hills and South Coast Plaza. Tod's black satin purse. Opposite: Chompol Serimont sleeveless silk swirl dress, $725, at Chompol Serimont, New York.

Irving Mansfield, the publicity agent whose best-known client was his late wife, novelist Jacqueline Susann, and who wrote both lovingly and boastfully of the campaign he carried on to make her one of the best-selling writers of all time, died Thursday of a heart attack at his Manhattan home. He was 80 and had outlived his wife by 14 years. She died in 1974 at age 53 after a 10-year struggle with cancer, some of which was fictionalized in her books.

A sizzling biography of "Valley of the Dolls" author Jacqueline Susann, due out March 19, is sending her widower, Irving Mansfield, running to his lawyers. Author Barbara Seaman, with a six-figure William Morrow advance, told Outtakes that "Jackie created her steamy best-sellers out of the raw materials of her life"--which Seaman has used as the basis of "Lovely Me," also the title of a Susann stage play.