Monday 20 August 2018

Is this a dream, am I here, where are you?



The weekend may once again have flown by, it may indeed be the dreaded start of another week in the benighted office - but it also happens to be the centenary today of the one-and-only Miss Jacqueline Susann, the author who almost single-handedly invented (and certainly popularised - she remains one of the world's biggest selling authors, ever) the genre of trashy, glossy, salacious and camp-as-tits "popular fiction" that covers all the subjects that readers really want to read about - sex and drugs and glamorous, doomed people living jet-set lifestyles beyond the reach of ordinary folk.

Obviously, I have featured the grande dame before - read my post on the occasion of her 90th [yes! this blog has been going a long time...].

Perhaps Miss Susann's most famous work is (of course) Valley of the Dolls, the theme tune for which was a big hit for none other than Miss Dionne Warwick - and, by way of a celebration on this Tacky Music Monday, here she is singing it.

But, wait! I hear you cry. That Bacharach and David Andre and Dory Previn number is wistful, mournful and sedate - what part of the regular "Monday pick-me-up music" criteria does this satisfy?

You wait till you see the second number in this clip [or skip to the 4:05 mark]...


Jacqueline Susann (20th August 1918 – 21st September 1974)

12 comments:

  1. Praise Jesus darling, praise Jesus.

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  2. Dusty would have done both better !
    and Who knew Miss Warwick had such sharp looking teeth.

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    1. Miss Warwick's not a nice person, by all accounts - she probably had them sharpened. Jx

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    2. You're right, shess like the Cat from Red Dwarf.


      What a strange place to start singing hymns!

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    3. It is a most bizarre clip, all round... Jx

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  3. A natural assumption, since most of Ms. Warwicks hits were written by Bacharach and David, but Theme From Valley Of The Dolls was penned by the (then) husband and wife team of Andre and Dory Previn!

    Dory, who had been institutionalized prior, said the lyric was her attempt to describe her mental state at that time. (Given my namesake I just HAVE to be up on these things!). xoN

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    1. If anyone would know, you would, Miss O'Hara! I have corrected it... Jx

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  4. Wow, I remember The Valley of the Dolls - I had a well thumbed copy.... slightly dog-eared in places. Oh how we used to giggle at certain passages!
    Sx

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    1. I imagine most of Miss Susann's output was received in a similar fashion in schools upand down the land. Oh! The scandal... Jx

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  5. I'd never heard of Jacqueline Susann until she was immortalised by Spock in Star Trek IV as one of "the giants" of 20th century literature (along with Harold Robbins). I've still not read any of her novels, though.

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    1. Confessions time: neither have I, nor have I seen Valley of the Dolls in its entirety. What I do know from what I have seen/read of the output of Miss Susann and Mr Robbins, however, is that they are saturated with camp... Jx

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