This isn’t the best movie, but it stars Bette Middler and Nathan Lane, therefore I’m in.
Middler plays Jacqueline Susann, a woman desperate for fame and constantly failing at it. She works in Broadway, radio, and even wrote her own play, but every attempt was a flop. Then she meets Irving Mansfield (Lane), an agent with a crush on her. In the movie they meet later in life, but in reality they married in the lat 1930s. He used his job to get her spots on television and help her write a series of humorous anecdotes about their dog. However, when their son is diagnosed as autistic, Jackie falls into depression after they are forced to put him in an institution (don’t judge people from the that time -there was no Americans with Disabilities Act yet).
Looking to give her a new opportunity for fame, Irving suggests Jackie write a novel. She and her friend, Flo (Stockard Channing as an amalgam of friends in Susann’s life) start listing all of their scandalous experiences and gossip. At first, no publishing house will touch what they consider to be a nearly “pornographic” and crude book. In case you are unaware, the Valley of the Dolls is about three women dealing with fame, love affairs, and drugs in the 1940s and 50s. It finally falls into the laps of a publishing house needing a big break, run by John Cleese, Amanda Peet, and David Hyde Pierce. Pierce as editor Michael Hastings tries to convince the hyperactive Jackie that her novel needs major rewrites. Instead, she wins him over with her personality and convinces him that the book needs to stay rough to keep the characters realistic. Meanwhile, Irving stars a word-of-mouth campaign to sell the book before it’s even published. All of this takes place while Jackie is secretly battling cancer.
After the book is out, the couple uses their natural talents to shmooze booksellers into carrying Valley of the Dolls on their shelves or even featuring it in windows. Jackie appears on talk shows and signings. She even gets insulted by Truman Capote on public TV. The novel becomes a bestseller (that’s not a spoiler, that’s really what happened) and changes their lives. Oh, also they go to the adaptation of the movie and, like all authors who get a movie, Jackie is not a fan.
I looked it up - pink typewriters were totally available back then!