The first deleted scene that has survived through production stills is Doris’ dramatic entrance in the emergency room after Suzanne’s stomach has been pumped. She announces herself as Suzanne’s mother, making sure everyone knows she is not a bad mother, before starting to reminiscence about previous movie roles. The majority of the scenes cut from the final film take place in the drug clinic that Suzanne enters after her overdose and the bond she makes with fellow inmates Aretha, Sam and Bart (the two men singing a tribute to Doris later) and a couple others. In what would have been a hilarious addition to the film, Suzanne and the patients spend time in the tv room watching “The Outer Limits”, before someone switches the channel to a re-run of an appearance by Suzanne on “Late Night with David Letterman”. Suzanne objects to watching this year-old appearance, but her new friends watch on as Suzanne talks about her first and second husband – which means she came just out of a divorce or separation before her trip to the drug clinic. There’s no picture evidence that Streep and Letterman really filmed this scene, and, to my knowledge, neither of them ever mentioned it.

In the script, the scene with Suzanne’s agent Marty Wiener, played by Gary Morton, doesn’t exist. The scene takes place in the clinic between Doris, Suzanne and Julie Marsden, played by CCH Pounder, Suzanne’s drug counselor, who was in conversation with the production company of her upcoming film. The first act at the drug center ends with a cut scene that featured John Cusack as a new resident in the clinic. He is decribed as an 18-year-old with bad skin and hair who looks “moderately insane”. Mark pushes Suzanne on a swing in the park and tells her that he was in prison with Charles Manson. He swings Suzanne higher into the sky which then descends right down to the first day on the movie set, “L.A. Beat”, which is reminiscent to Carrie Fisher’s 1986 film “Hollywood Vice Squad”. Most of her direct scenes with on-screen partner Robert Munch, played by Michael Ontkean, have been altered. In the script, Suzanne prepares for a scene in a parking lot instead of hanging from a building. A car chase was later reshoot as a boat chase. Between the scene of Suzanne’s first day on set and driving home to her surprise party features a scene with Doris chatting to people on the movie set while waiting to pick up her daughter.

After Doris’ performance at the party, a scene was cut when Suzanne has an unfortunate meeting with her father, Tony Vale, played by Jerry Orbach. Jack climbed a tree and hid in her room to not run into Doris. While Suzanne is happy to see her dad, he turns out to be another unfortunate character in her life, and judging from his dialogue, a rather creepy one as well. Tony only shows up when he needs something from Suzanne, in this instance the keys to her New York apartment because he has lost his place. Once he starts blaming her for believing what her mother told her about him, their conversation runs dry and Tony opts out.

Originally, the conversation about Suzanne’s birthday party and Doris’ twirled up skirt in the kitchen right after Dennis Quaid’s Jack picks up Suzanne at her parent’s house. It can be assumed that the kitchen scene was reshoot to use the dialogue for the later scene, which was quite grim and sobering in the script. The kitchen scene is followed by Jack and Suzanne driving to Jack’s apartment. He mentions that he didn’t know Doris Mann was her mother and how it feels to have a famous mom, to which Suzanne replies: “Compared to what? When I didn’t have a mother that was a movie star – when I had a normal mother and said ‘naw – this is so blah – can’t we go with something that has a little bit more pizzazz?”

Meryl Streep was supposed to sing Carly Simon’s “Have You Seen Me Lately?” over the title credits. One reason the song was not used, Ms. Simon told The New York Times, was that Carrie Fisher, felt it was too soft and emotional to fit the sensibility of the lead character. Another was that Mike Nichols, who directed the film, was unhappy with the front credits and decided to remove them. “The song is about shame, about hiding something and being very self-conscious about it and imagining everyone is noticing,” Ms. Simon said. “In the film, of course, that something was drugs. The two images that I pulled out that I thought were generic enough were dream images of being naked and dancing in a church choir and of being caught with one’s hand in a cookie jar. It’s a dreamy, insecure song.”