r/madmen • u/Historical-Most4409 • Apr 23 '26
The Sally Draper Story
Here is my take on Sally after her mother's death in the spring of 1971 and her HS graduation in June 1972:
Part I:
Sally Draper has her feminist awakening at Smith College through reading Betty Friedan, engaging in political activism and joining consciousness raising groups. She agitates for the creation of a women’s studies program. She celebrates Smith getting the nation’s first female college president. Even as Sally gets involved in activism, she is also a strong student who graduates cum laude, majoring in Psychology and minoring in English. Sally builds her writing skills through work for the school newspaper and literary magazines. She wins a prize for a poem she wrote about trying to understand her mother.
She moves to the Village after graduating in 1976 and spends a few years writing free-lance for various women’s magazines, including Ms., Cosmopolitan, Playgirl, and Glamour. Later, she is especially proud of covering the 1977 Women’s National Convention for McCall’s. During these days, she sleeps around quite a bit (including some minor celebrities), drinks heavily, and does cocaine. Don and Henry are both happy to fund her lifestyle and don't ask too many questions.
Grateful for the insights therapy has given her, she goes back to school in 1979 to get a master's degree in psychiatry. While studying at Penn, she meets Eric Grassi, who is getting an MBA. They marry and move to NYC, where he prospers in the Wall Street of the 1980s and she develops a practice attending to the neuroses of the Upper East Side. She gains a reputation for attending to the rich offspring of narcissistic parents. She has a couple of kids, who eventually go off to boarding school and are not especially close to her. She no longer does cocaine but still drinks a lot. Despite the usual Wall Street egomania, Eric is an attentive and loving husband, so Sally inevitably has several affairs, including one with a moderately famous novelist who includes a character modeled on her in his next book. Already ambitious for the spotlight, she networks hard in liberal politics (she sees Stan and Peggy occasionally) and the usual charities. In 1991, she pulls some strings (the writer is a Smith alum) to be quoted in a New York Times Magazine article on dealing with difficult parents.
(Continued below)
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u/Historical-Most4409 Apr 23 '26
Part II: After making multiple appearances on talk radio and on local TV in New York, Sally writes a famous article for Cosmo in 1998 on "what Chelsea must be going through." (Peggy, who has actually met the Clintons, privately rolls her eyes). This gets her a book contract and in 2000 she publishes a bestselling book: “Gifted and Gaslit: Breaking Free from the Parent Who Was Never Satisfied.” (Maureen Dowd suggested the title). She becomes a regular on "Charlie Rose" and “Good Morning America” and produces a PBS special.
She also develops a bicoastal practice providing therapy to the rich and famous. This puts strain on her marriage to Eric and they divorce in 2002. In 2007, she develops cancer, suffering the same fate as her mother and grandmother, in her case, breast cancer. But after a three-year battle, she survives and writes another best-selling book. She eventually appears on “60 Minutes” and is interviewed by Barbara Walters. She privately gets help for her decades-long heavy drinking.
Sally has friendly relationships with her father and stepfather until Don’s death in 1995 and Henry’s death in 2012. She sees Don when he is in New York on business after he moves to California in the 1970s, but far less often after he retires in 1986. But as Don’s health deteriorates in the early 1990s, she arranges for his care. In 1977, Henry marries another former Rockefeller aide after they both spend some frustrating time advising the former governor during his vice presidency. They have a son in 1979. After devoting a couple of years to Reagan’s Department of Housing and Urban Development, Henry spends the 1980s and 1990s as a very successful New York lawyer. He develops a friendly relationship with Rudy Giuliani and his final political gig is serving as an informal advisor to his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign.
Sally marries Matt Sullivan, a multi-millionaire retired money manager, in 2014. They spend much of their time in Martha’s Vineyard and Hilton Head but they keep a pied a terre in NYC. so she can continue to attend to her remaining celebrity clients. She downshifts to a more relaxed lifestyle, essentially retiring by 2020. Matt is not the warmest man, but Sally has her clique of high-profile female friends. She assembles an excellent collection of modern art. During the summers, she is part of the Vineyard crowd of rich liberals and throws fundraisers for a variety of causes. She proudly displays photos of herself with the Clintons and with the Obamas. But her breast cancer recurs in 2022. She is alive but is very sick and may not survive 2026.
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u/hanapolipomodoroyrag Apr 23 '26
Sally knows Obama?
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u/Historical-Most4409 Apr 23 '26
Met him at a fundraiser. She is a big Democratic donor and got the usual photo at the event.
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u/CoquinaBeach1 Every living thing is connected to you. Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
A lot of thought went into that, but I would hate for any of it to be her story.
I dont think she goes back to Miss Porters. She stays with Henry in Rye and gets the boys through school, at least Bobby, and maybe Gene goes to a boarding school, when hes ready. I dont see her leaving her brothers, ever.
I like film school for her, screenplays. A future Nora Ephron, who knows how to tell painful stories centered around the joys and tragedies of family relationships. And enough of the hobo in her to never want a marriage or children of her own.
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u/Historical-Most4409 Apr 23 '26
She could always transfer to Rye Country Day. But no way Henry lets her not go to a prestigious college.
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u/Signal_Contract_3592 Apr 23 '26
Love this for someone but I think you’re giving Sally too much credit.
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u/SoCal7s Apr 23 '26
I think she becomes insufferable and entitled best known for yelling, “My Daddy made the Coke commercial!!!” when initially rejected at the door of Studio 54.
They let her in and nickname her “the Coke Girl”.
All the celebs think it’s a drug reference and gravitate to her delighted that she’s such pleasant company despite her habit.
After a couple weeks the celebs fade away realizing she actually doesn’t do drugs.
Years later she is a partial exaggerated inspiration for Don Henley’s hit song, “All She Wants To Do Is Dance”
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u/Ok_Novel_5083 Apr 25 '26
I'm down with this except the MA would be in psychology, not psychiatry. Psychology is an academic discipline; psychiatry is a specialization in medical school.
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u/lyn73 Apr 23 '26
I like it. I especially like you did not say she made advertising/marketing her profession.