Neely O'Hara (Born Ethel Agnes O'Neill) is a fictional character in the Jacqueline Susann penned novel and movie Valley of the Dolls. She was played by actress Patty Duke in the movie. There's a song called "Neely O'Hara" on the album Every Day and Every Night by Bright Eyes.
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Extremely Self-destructive
Neely is an actress and singer who first came to attention in Vaudeville. She came from Pittsburgh, according to the movie. While working on Broadway, she worked in a musical with the legendary Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward). However, the nasty Helen had her fired, because she was very good at her part, and she was merely jealous. She had a boyfriend, in press agent Mel Anderson (Martin Milner). However, she gained two new friends in chorus girl and fellow actress Jennifer North (Sharon Tate) and entertainment attorney secretary, Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins). However, it was Neely, who was a very talented singer, who gained a stellar career and the massive ego that would later prove to be her downfall. Neely married Mel, then moved to California, where she became a talented movie actress. However, she began taking Seconal, the "dolls" of the title, while still in New York City, and the addiction became even worse whilst in Hollywood. Along the way, she began to alienate everyone she was close to. She drove Mel out, by beginning an affair with a supposedly gay man named Ted Casablanca (Alex Davion), and then divorced Mel. When Ted left Neely after she caught him swimming in their pool with another woman, her downward spiral, which included a raging alcohol addiction, got even worse. Also her more conniving nature began to come through. Neely went off to San Francisco, annoying her manager, Lyon Burke (Paul Burke) and then she began to try to break up the relationship he had with her friend, Anne, which drove her to the dolls as well. However, Anne wisely kicked the habit, broke it off with Lyon and threw him out; and went home to New England, where she felt she belonged. However, Neely made an attempt at a comeback, after a stint at a sanitarium; but her ego by this time had become worse than Helen Lawson's ever was. This followed a catfight in the ladies room with Helen, where she exposed Helen's real age by snatching her wig off her head and attempting to flush it down the toilet. Prior to her opening night, in the fictitious play, Tell Me, Darling", Neely had a vicious argument with Lyon about a girl named Allison who was overshadowing her and she wanted fired. She insulted everyone, including Anne, which truly infuriated Lyon, who had been forewarned by her about Neely and her deviousness. Neely declared arrogantly, "I don't have to live by stinking rules set down for ordinary people! I licked pills, booze and the funny farm! I don't need anybody or anything!!" Finally fed up, Lyon quit as her agent; which did nothing but infuriate Neely even further; going so far as to insult him by saying he was just an agent, and implying that as a star, she was better than he was. Reeling from the vicious insult, Lyon replied angrily, "And you're just a Helen Lawson, and not even that! Because she is a professional." After he stormed out for the last time, Neely shrilled, "They love Helen Lawson, then they love Neely O'Hara!!" After becoming truly drunk and strung out on dolls, Neely was ordered out of the opening night performance, by the director, replacing her with the understudy; and she went to a bar across the street. (she was fired for dressing in her costume for the second act) By the movie's end, she was all alone in the alley outside the theater, crying and totally alone and having driven out anyone she ever had hoped would care about her. She had finally hit rock bottom. In the book, Neely was sent to another agency, after Lyon fired her from the agency who had represented her. In the end, Neely had carried on with Lyon, and truly broke up her friendship with Anne. Also in the book, Neely had twin sons with Ted, Bud and Jud, but in the movie, she had no children. In the book, Neely O'Hara's timeline differs very much from the movie version. The book begins in 1945, when Neely is 17 years old, and ends in 1965. The movie-version takes place in the 1960's. Also, in the book, Neely isn't fired from the Helen Lawson show. She replaces Terry King (who is the one getting fired in the book version), on Anne's suggestion, and thus Neely's career begins. In the book Neely becomes a star of Hollywood musical-movies in the late 40's and 50's, while in the film-version she's more a pop, movie, and Broadway star.
Book sequel 2001
In 2001, author Rae Lawrence released her follow up book to the "Valley of the Dolls", called "Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls". In this sequel, liberties have again been taken with the characters ages and the time setting. It begins in 1987, though it picks up the story just a few years after were Susann ended in 1965, and ends in 2001. Here we meet Neely O'Hara again, 33 years old (...) in 1987, doing a one woman show in Las Vegas, and struggeling to get back on top again. And she does. A couple of years later, she plays Helen Lawson (who is now dead) in a movie about Lawson's life, and Neely wins another Oscar! Neely's back on top in Hollywood, marries Lyon Burke, but she falls into an addiction of Vicodin, and after some years she's back in rehab again. Out of rehab a year later, Neely's now in her mid-40's, and on the anti-depressant pill Zoloft and having plastic surgery. In 2001, Neely (47) is still alive, doing a Las Vegas show, and still making the tabloids every month.
Trivia
- Actress Patty Duke didn't think too highly of the movie, and she feuded with the director, Mark Robson. She explained in her book Call Me Anna that she still sees people who dress as Neely for Halloween; and, she, like her co-star, Barbara Parkins, who played Anne, is amazed that so many gay men like this movie.
- The character of model Tania Ford (played by Mini Anden), on the English language television telenovela (soap opera), Fashion House, had some resemblance to Neely, in that they were both extremely self-destructive and severely addicted to drugs and alcohol.
References
Bright Eyes - "Neely O'Hara" (song)
