Isn't She Great

Overview

Isn't She Great is a 2000 biographical comedy-drama film that presents a fictionalized biography of author Jacqueline Susann, played by Bette Midler. An international co-production between the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan, the film was directed by Andrew Bergman from a screenplay by Paul Rudnick based on a 1995 New Yorker profile by Michael Korda. The film covers Susann's entire life, focusing on her early struggles as an aspiring actress relentlessly hungry for fame, her relationship with press agent husband Irving Mansfield, with whom she had an institutionalized autistic son, her success as the author of Valley of the Dolls, and her battle with and subsequent death from breast cancer. In addition to Midler and Lane, the film stars Stockard Channing as Susann's "gal pal" Florence Maybelle, David Hyde Pierce as book editor Michael Hastings, and John Cleese as publisher Henry Marcus. John Larroquette, Amanda Peet, Christopher McDonald, Debbie Shapiro, and Paul Benedict have supporting roles.