The Other Side of Me

EIGHT

I returned to Chicago in March of 1937, a failure. Otto, Natalie and Richard were sympathetic about my lack of success as a songwriter.

‘They don’t know great songs when they hear them,’ Natalie said.

The economic situation at home had not improved. I reluctantly went back to work at the Bismarck checkroom. I managed to get a job during the day parking cars at a restaurant on the north side, in Rogers Park. My irrational mood swings continued. I had no control over them. I became ecstatic for no reason and depressed when things were going well.

One evening Charley Fine, my Stewart Warner mentor, and his wife Vera came to the apartment for dinner. For economical reasons we served a cheap, take-out dinner I had picked up at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant, but the Fines pretended not to notice.

During the evening, Vera said, ‘I’m driving to Sacramento, California next week.’

California. Hollywood. It was as though a door had suddenly opened for me. I thought of all the magical hours I had spent at the RKO Jefferson Theater, solving crimes with William Powell and Myrna Loy in After the Thin Man, riding with John Wayne in the covered wagon to California in The Oregon Trail, watching helplessly as Robert Montgomery terrorized Rosalind Russell in Night Must Fall, swinging through the trees with Tarzan in Tarzan Escapes, and having dinner with Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Judy Garland. I took a deep breath and said, ‘I’d like to drive you there.’

They all looked at me in surprise.

‘That’s very kind of you, Sidney,’ Vera Fine said, ‘but I don’t want to imp—’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ I said enthusiastically.

I turned to Natalie and Otto. ‘I’d like to take Vera to California.’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

We picked up the conversation after the Fines had left. ‘You can’t go away again,’ Otto said. ‘You just got back.’

‘But if I could get a job in Hollywood—’

‘No. We’ll find something for you to do here.’

I knew what there was for me to do in Chicago. Checkrooms and drugstores and parking cars. I had had enough of that.

After a brief silence, Natalie said, ‘Otto, if that’s what Sidney wants, we should give him a chance. I’ll tell you what. Let’s compromise.’ She turned to me. ‘If you don’t find a job in three weeks, you’ll come back home.’

‘It’s a deal,’ I said happily.

I was sure I could easily get a job in Hollywood. The more I thought about it, the more wildly optimistic I became.

This was finally going to be my big break.

Five days later I was packing, getting ready to drive Vera and her young daughter, Carmel, to Sacramento.

Richard was upset. ‘Why are you leaving again? You just got back.’

How could I explain to him all the wonderful things that were about to happen?

‘I know,’ I said, ‘but this is important. Don’t worry. I’m going to send for you.’

He was near tears. ‘Is that a promise?’

I put my arms around him. ‘That’s a promise. I’m going to miss you, buddy.’

It took five days to get to Sacramento, and when we arrived I said goodbye to Vera and Carmel, and spent the night in a cheap hotel. Early the following morning I took a bus to San Francisco, where I changed to another bus, to Los Angeles.

I arrived in Los Angeles with one suitcase and fifty dollars in my pocket. I bought a copy of the Los Angeles Times at the bus station and turned to the want ads to look for rooms to rent.

The one that instantly appealed to me was an ad for a boarding house that had rooms for four-fifty a week, breakfast included. It was in the Hollywood area, a few blocks from the famed Sunset Boulevard.

It turned out to be a charming, old-fashioned house in a lovely residential area on a quiet street, at 1928 Carmen Street.

When I rang the doorbell, the door was opened by a small, pleasant-faced woman who appeared to be in her forties.

‘Hello. Can I help you?’

‘Yes. My name is Sidney Sheldon. I’m looking for a place to stay for a few days.’

‘I’m Grace Seidel. Come in.’

I picked up my suitcase and walked into the hall. The house had obviously been converted from a sprawling family residence to a boarding house. There was a large living room, a dining room, a breakfast room, and a kitchen. There were twelve bedrooms, most of them occupied, and four communal bathrooms.

I said, ‘I understand that the rent is four-fifty a week, and that includes breakfast.’

Grace Seidel contemplated my rumpled suit and my worn shirt, and said, ‘If you press me, I could make it four dollars a week.’

I looked at her and desperately wanted to say, ‘I’ll pay the four-fifty.’ But the little money I had left was not going to last very long. I swallowed my pride and said, ‘I’m pressing.’

She gave me a warm smile. ‘That’s fine. I’ll show you to your room.’

The room was small but neat and attractively furnished, and I was very pleased with it.

I turned to Grace. ‘This is great,’ I said.

‘Good. I’ll give you a key to the front door. One of our rules is that you’re not allowed to bring any women in here.’

‘No problem,’ I said.

‘Let me introduce you to some of the other boarders.’

She took me into the living room where several of the boarders were gathered. I met four writers, a prop man, three actors, a director, and a singer. As time went on, I learned that they were all wannabes, unemployed, pursuing wonderful dreams that would never come true.

Gracie had a well-mannered twelve-year-old son, Billy. His dream was to become a fireman. It was probably the only dream in the boarding house that would come true.

I phoned Natalie and Otto to tell them that I had arrived safely.

‘Remember,’ Otto said, ‘if you don’t find a job in three weeks, we want you back here.’

No problem.

That night, Gracie’s boarders sat around the large living room, telling their war stories.

‘This is a tough business, Sheldon. Every studio has a gate and inside the gate the producers are screaming for talent. They’re yelling that they desperately need actors and directors and writers. But if you’re standing outside the gate, they won’t even let you in. The gates are closed to outsiders.’

Maybe, I thought. But every day someone manages to get through.

I learned that there was no Hollywood, as I had imagined it. Columbia Pictures, Paramount, and RKO were located in Hollywood, but Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Selznick International Studios were in Culver City. Universal Studios was in Universal City, Disney Studios was in Silverlake, Twentieth Century-Fox was in Century City, and Republic Studios was in Studio City.

Grace had thoughtfully subscribed to Variety, the show business trade paper, and it was left in the living room like a bible for all of us to look at, to see what jobs were available and which pictures were being produced. I picked it up and looked at the date. I had twenty-one days to find a job, and the clock was running. I knew that somehow I had to find a way to get through those studio gates.

The following morning, while we were having breakfast, the telephone rang. Answering the telephone was almost an Olympic event. Everyone raced to be the first to pick it up because—since none of us could afford any kind of social life—the phone call had to be about a job.

The actor who picked up the phone listened a moment, turned to Grace and said, ‘It’s for you.’

There were sighs of disappointment. Each boarder had hoped that it was a job for him. That phone was the lifeline to their futures.

I bought a tourist’s guide to Los Angeles, and since Columbia Pictures was the closest to Gracie’s boarding house I decided to start there. The studio was on Gower Street, just off Sunset. There was no gate in front of Columbia.

I walked in the front door. An elderly guard was seated behind a desk, working on a report. He looked up as I came in.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes,’ I said confidently. ‘My name is Sidney Sheldon. I want to be a writer. Who do I see?’

He studied me a moment. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, but—’

‘Then you don’t see anybody.’

‘There must be someone I—’

‘Not without an appointment,’ he said firmly. He went back to his report.

Apparently the studio did not need a gate.

I spent the next two weeks making the rounds of all the studios. Unlike New York, Los Angeles was widely spread out. It was not a city for walking. Streetcars ran down the center of Santa Monica Boulevard and buses were on all the main streets. I soon became familiar with their routes and schedules.

While every studio looked different, the guards were all the same. In fact, I began to feel that they were all the same man.

I want to be a writer.

Who do I see?

Do you have an appointment?

No.

You don’t see anybody.

Hollywood was a cabaret, and I was hungry. But I was outside looking in, and all the doors were locked.

I was running out of my short supply of funds, but worse than that, I was running out of time.

When I was not haunting the studios, I was in my room, working on stories on my old battered portable typewriter.

One day, Gracie made an unwelcome announcement. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but from now on there will be no more breakfasts.’

No one had to ask why. Most of us were behind in our rent and she could no longer afford to keep carrying us.

I woke up the next morning, starving and broke. I had no money for breakfast. I was trying to work on a story, but could not concentrate. I was too hungry. Finally, I gave up. I went into the kitchen. Gracie was there, cleaning the stove.

She saw me and turned around. ‘Yes, Sidney?’

I was stammering. ‘Gracie, I—I know the new rule about—about no breakfast, but I was wondering if—if I could just have a bite to eat this morning. I’m sure that in the next few days—’

She looked at me and said, sharply, ‘Why don’t you go back to your room?’

I felt crushed. I walked back to my room and sat in front of my typewriter, humiliated that I had embarrassed both of us. I tried to go back to the story, but it was no use. All I could think of was that I was hungry and broke and desperate.

Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the door. I walked over and opened it. Gracie stood there, holding a tray, and on it was a large glass of orange juice, a steaming pot of coffee, and a plate of bacon and eggs with toast. ‘Eat it while it’s hot,’ she said.

That may have been the best meal I ever had. Certainly the most memorable.

When I returned to the boarding house one afternoon, after another futile day making the rounds of the studios, there was a letter from Otto. In it was a bus ticket to Chicago. It was the most depressing piece of paper I had ever seen. His note read: We will expect you home next week. Love, Dad.

I had four days left and nowhere else to go. The gods must have been laughing.

That evening, as Gracie’s group and I sat around the living room, chatting, one of them said, ‘My sister just got a job as a reader at MGM.’

‘A reader? What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘All the studios have them,’ he explained. ‘They synopsize stories for producers, which saves them the trouble of reading a lot of trash. If the producer likes the synopsis, he’ll take a look at the full book or play. Some studios have staffs of readers. Some use outside readers.’

My mind was racing. I had just read Steinbeck’s masterpiece, Of Mice and Men, and—

Thirty minutes later I was skimming through the book and typing a synopsis of it.

By noon the next day I had made enough copies on a borrowed mimeograph machine to send to half a dozen studios. I figured that it would take a day or two to deliver them all and I should hear about the third day.

When the third day came, the only mail I received was from my brother, Richard, asking when I was going to send for him. The fourth day brought a letter from Natalie.

The next day was Thursday, and my bus ticket was for Sunday. One more dream had died. I told Gracie that I would be leaving Sunday morning. She looked at me with sad, wise eyes. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked.

I gave her a hug. ‘You’ve been wonderful. Things haven’t worked out as I hoped they would.’

‘Never stop dreaming,’ she told me.

But I had stopped.

Early the following morning, the telephone rang. One of the actors ran over to it and grabbed it. He picked up the receiver and in his best actor voice said, ‘Good morning. Can I help you?…Who?’

The tone of his voice changed. ‘David Selznick’s office?’

The room went completely silent. David Selznick was the most prestigious producer in Hollywood. He had produced A Star is Born, Dinner at Eight, A Tale of Two Cities, Viva Villa!, David Copperfield, and dozens of other movies.

The actor said, ‘Yes, he’s here.’

We were literally holding our breaths. Who was he?

He turned to me. ‘It’s for you, Sheldon.’

I may have broken the boarding house record, racing to the phone.

‘Hello?’

A woman’s high voice said, ‘Is this Sidney Sheldon?’

I sensed instantly that I was not speaking to David Selznick himself. ‘Yes.’

‘This is Anna, David Selznick’s secretary. Mr. Selznick has a novel that he wants synopsized. The problem is that none of our readers are available.’

Is available, I thought automatically. But who was I to correct someone who was about to launch my career?

‘And Mr. Selznick needs the synopsis by six o’clock this evening. It’s a four-hundred-page novel. Our synopses usually run about thirty pages with a two-page summary and a one-paragraph comment. But it must be delivered by six o’clock this evening. Can you do it?’

There was no possible way I could get to the Selznick Studios, read a 400-page novel, find a decent typewriter somewhere, write a thirty-page synopsis and get it done by six o’clock.

I said, ‘Of course I can.’

‘Good. You can pick up the book at our studio in Culver City.’

‘I’m on my way.’ I replaced the receiver. Selznick International Studios. I looked at my watch. It was nine-thirty in the morning. Culver City was an hour and a half away. There were a few other problems. I had no transportation. I am a hunt and peck typist, and to have typed a thirty-page synopsis would have taken me forever, and forever did not even include time to read a 400-page novel. If I arrived at the Culver City studio at eleven, I would have exactly seven hours to perform a miracle.

But I had a plan.

NINE

It took a streetcar and two buses to get me to Culver City. On the second bus, I looked around at the passengers and wanted to tell them all that I was on my way to see David Selznick. The bus dropped me off two blocks from the Selznick International Studios.

The studio was a large, imposing, Georgian structure, fronting on Washington Street. It was familiar because I recognized it from the opening credits of David Selznick’s movies.

I hurried inside and said to the woman behind the desk, ‘I have an appointment with Mr. Selznick’s secretary.’ At least I was going to meet David Selznick now.

‘Your name?’

‘Sidney Sheldon.’

She reached into the desk and pulled out a thick package. ‘This is for you.’

‘Oh. I thought maybe I could see Mr. Selznick and—’

‘No. Mr. Selznick is a busy man.’

So I would meet David Selznick later.

Clutching the package, I left the building and started running down the street toward the MGM Studios, six blocks away, reviewing my plan as I ran. It stemmed from a conversation with Seymour about Sydney Singer, his ex-wife.

Do you ever see her, Seymour?

No. She went to Hollywood. She got a job as a secretary at MGM for a woman director. Dorothy Arzner.

I was going to ask Sydney Singer to help me. It was a long, long, long shot, but it was all I had.

When I reached the MGM Studios, I went up to the guard behind the desk in the lobby. ‘My name is Sidney Sheldon. I want to see Sydney Singer.’

‘Sydney…Oh—Dorothy Arzner’s secretary.’

I nodded knowingly. ‘Right.’

‘Is she expecting you?’

‘Yes,’ I said confidently.

He picked up the phone and dialed an extension. ‘Sidney Sheldon is here to see you…’ He repeated slowly, ‘Sidney Sheldon.’ He listened a moment. ‘But he said—’

I stood there, paralyzed. Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.

‘Right.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘She’ll see you. Room 230.’

My heart started beating again. ‘Thank you.’

‘Take the elevator, over there.’

I took the elevator and hurried down a corridor on the second floor. Sydney’s office was at the end of the corridor. When I walked in, she was seated behind her desk.

‘Hello, Sydney.’

‘Hello.’ There was no warmth in her voice. And I suddenly remembered the rest of the conversation with Seymour. She hates my guts. She said she never wants to see me again. What the hell had I gotten myself into? Would she ask me to sit down? No.

‘What are you doing here?’

Oh, I just dropped in to ask you to spend your afternoon as my unpaid secretary. ‘It’s—it’s a long story.’

She looked at her watch and rose. ‘I’m on my way to lunch.’

‘You can’t!’

She was staring at me. ‘I can’t go to lunch?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Sydney—I—I’m in trouble.’ I poured out the whole story, starting with the fiasco in New York, my ambition of becoming a writer, my inability to get past any of the studio guards, and the telephone call that morning from David Selznick.

She listened, and as I got to the end of the story, her lips tightened. ‘You took the Selznick assignment because you expected me to spend the afternoon typing for you?’

It was a bitter divorce. She hates my guts.

‘I—I didn’t expect it,’ I said. ‘I was just hoping that—’ It was hard to breathe. I had acted stupidly. ‘I’m sorry I bothered you, Sydney. I had no right to ask this of you.’

‘No, you didn’t. What are you going to do now?’

‘I’m going to take this book back to Mr. Selznick. Tomorrow morning I’ll leave for Chicago. Thanks anyway, Sydney. I appreciate your listening to me. Goodbye.’ I started for the door, in despair.

‘Wait a minute.’

I turned.

‘This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?’

I nodded. I was too upset to speak.

‘Let’s open that package and take a look at it.’

It took a moment for her words to sink in. I said, ‘Sydney—’

‘Shut up. Let me see the book.’

‘You mean you might—’

‘What you’ve done is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. But I admire your determination.’ She smiled for the first time. ‘I’m going to help you.’

A feeling of relief flooded through me. I couldn’t stop grinning. I watched her riffle through the book.

‘It’s long,’ she said. ‘How do you expect to finish this synopsis by six o’clock?’

Good question.

She handed the book back to me. I glanced at the inside cover to get a quick idea of what it was about. It was a period romance, the kind of story that Selznick seemed to enjoy making.

‘How are we going to do this?’ Sydney asked.

‘I’m going to skim the pages,’ I explained, ‘and when I come to a story point, I’ll dictate it to you.’

She nodded. ‘Let’s see how it works.’

I took a chair opposite her and began turning pages. In the next fifteen minutes I had a fairly clear sense of the story. I began skimming through the book, dictating when I came to something that seemed pertinent to the plot. She typed as I talked.

To this day, I don’t know what made Sydney agree to help me. Was it because I had blundered into an impossible situation, or because I looked desperate? I will never know. But I know that she sat at her desk all that afternoon, typing the pages as I thumbed through the book.

The clock seemed to be racing. We were only halfway through the book when Sydney said, ‘It’s four o’clock.’

I started reading faster and talking faster.

By the time I finished dictating the thirty-page synopsis, the two-page summary, and the one-page comment, it was exactly ten minutes to six.

As Sydney handed me the last page, I said gratefully, ‘If there is anything I can ever do for you—’

She smiled. ‘A lunch will be fine.’

I kissed her on the cheek, stuffed the pages into the envelope with the book and raced out of the office. I ran all the way back to the Selznick International Studios, and arrived there at one minute to six.

I said to the same woman behind the desk, ‘My name is Sheldon. I want to see Mr. Selznick’s secretary.’

‘She’s been waiting for you,’ she said.

As I hurried down the corridor, I knew that this was just the beginning. I had read that Selznick had started as a reader at MGM, so we had something in common that we could chat about.

Selznick will put me on the staff. I’ll have an office here. Wait until Natalie and Otto hear that I’m working for him.

I reached his secretary’s office. When I walked in, she looked at her watch. ‘I was getting worried about you,’ she said.