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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.

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 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 actress Jennifer North (Sharon Tate) and Entertainment attorney secretary, Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins). However, it was Neely, who was a 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 while 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 problem, got even worse.

Neely went off to San Francisco, annoying her manager, Lyon Burke (Paul Burke) and then began to try to break up the relationship he had with her friend, Anne. Which drove Anne to the dolls as well. However, Anne wisely kicked the dolls 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, Neely had a vicious argument with Lyon about a girl who was overshadowing her and she wanted fired. She insulted everyone, including Anne, which truly infuriated Lyon, who had been warned by her about Neely.

Neely declared arrogantly, "I don't have to live by stinking rules set down for ordinary people! I don't need anybody or anything!!" Lyon then 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. Lyon replied angrily, "And you're just a Helen Lawson, and not even that! Because she is a professional." After he stormed out, Neely yelled, "They love Helen Lawson, then they love Neely O'Hara!!"

After becoming truly drunk, Neely was ordered out of the opening night performance, by the director, replacing her with an understudy; and she went to a bar across the street. By the movie's end, she was alone in the alley outside the theater, crying and totally alone and having driven out anyone she ever had hoped would care about her.

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.

NB! In the book, Neely O'Hara's timeline differs very much from the movie version. The book begins in 1945 and ends in 1965. The movie-version takes place in the 1960's. And 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.

• 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.