LOS ANGELES — Sidney Sheldon, who won awards in three careers —
Broadway theater, movies and television — then at age 50 turned to
writing best-selling novels about stalwart women who triumph in a
hostile world of ruthless men, has died. He was 89.
Sheldon died Tuesday afternoon of complications from pneumonia at
Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, said Warren Cowan, his
publicist. His wife, Alexandra, and his daughter, author Mary Sheldon,
were by his side.
"I've lost a longtime and dear friend," Cowan said. "In all my years
in this business, I've never heard an unkind word said about him."
Sheldon's books, with titles such as Rage of Angels, The Other Side of Midnight, Master of the Game and If Tomorrow Comes,
provided his greatest fame. They were cleverly plotted, with a high
degree of suspense and sensuality and a device to keep the reader
turning pages.
"I try to write my books so the reader can't put them down," he
explained in a 1982 interview. "I try to construct them so when the
reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she has to read just one
more chapter. It's the technique of the old Saturday afternoon serial:
leave the guy hanging on the edge of the cliff at the end of the
chapter."
Analyzing why so many women bought his books, he commented: "I like
to write about women who are talented and capable, but most important,
retain their femininity. Women have tremendous power — their
femininity, because men can't do without it."
Sheldon was obviously not aiming at highbrow critics, whose reviews
of his books were generally disparaging. He remained undeterred,
promoting the novels and himself with genial fervor. A big, cheerful
man, he bragged about his work habits.
Unlike other novelists who toiled over typewriters or computers, he
dictated 50 pages a day to a secretary or a tape machine. He corrected
the pages the following day, continuing the routine until he had 1,200
to 1,500 pages.
"Then I do a complete rewrite— 12 to 15 times," he said. "I spend a whole year rewriting."
Several of his novels became television miniseries, often with the author as producer.
Sheldon began writing as a youngster in Chicago, where he was born
Feb. 17, 1917. At 10, he made his first sale: $10 for a poem. During
the Depression, he worked at a variety of jobs, attended Northwestern
University and contributed short plays to drama groups.
At 17, he decided to try his luck in Hollywood. The only job he
could find was as a reader of prospective film material at Universal
Studio for $22 a week. At night he wrote his own screenplays and sold
one, South of Panama, to the studio for $250.
During World War II, he served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps. In the
New York theater after the war he established his reputation as a
prolific writer. At one time he had three musicals on Broadway: a
rewritten The Merry Widow, Jackpot and Dream with Music. He received a Tony award as one of the writers of the Gwen Verdon hit Redhead. His Broadway success brought about his return to Hollywood.
His first assignment, The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer, starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple, brought him the Academy Award for best original screenplay of 1947.
While under contract to MGM, he recalled in 1982, "I worked like hell
and I never stopped. Dore Schary [then production head] one day looked
at a list of MGM projects. I had written eight of them, more than three
other writers put together. That afternoon, he made me a producer."
With the movie business hurting because of television's popularity, Sheldon decided to try the new medium.
"I suppose I needed money," he remembered. "I met Patty Duke one day at lunch. So I produced The Patty Duke Show
[in which she played two cousins], and I did something nobody else in
TV ever did. For seven years, I wrote almost every single episode of
the series."
Another series, Nancy, lasted only a half-season, but I Dream of Jeannie,
which he also created and produced, lasted five seasons, 1965-1970. The
show concerned an astronaut, Larry Hagman, who lands on a desert island
and discovers a bottle containing a beautiful, 2,000-year-old genie,
played by Barbara Eden. She accompanies him back to Florida and
eventually marries her.
"During the last year of I Dream of Jeannie,
I decided to try a novel," he said in 1982. "Each morning from 9 until
noon, I had a secretary at the studio take all calls. I mean every
single call. I wrote each morning — or rather, dictated — and then I
faced the TV business."
The result was The Naked Face,
which was scorned by book reviewers and sold 21,000 copies in
hardcover. The novel found a mass market in paperback, reportedly
selling 3.1 million. Thereafter Sheldon became a habitue of best-seller
lists, often reigning on top.
Sheldon prided himself on the authenticity of his novels. He
remarked in 1987: "If I write about a place, I have been there. If I
write about a meal in Indonesia, I have eaten there in that restaurant.
I don't think you can fool the reader."
For Windmills of the Mind,
which dealt with the CIA, he interviewed former CIA chief Richard
Helms, traveled to Argentina and Romania, and spent a week in Junction
City, Kan., where the heroine had lived.
Having won a Tony, an Oscar and an Emmy (for I Dream of Jeannie), Sheldon declared that his final medium was the best.
"I love writing books," he commented. "Movies are a collaborative
medium, and everyone is second-guessing you. When you do a novel you're
on your own. It's a freedom that doesn't exist in any other medium."
Sheldon was married for more than 30 years to Jorja Curtright
Sheldon, a stage and film actress who later became a prominent interior
decorator. She died in 1985.
He married Alexandra Kostoff, a former child actress and advertising executive, in 1989.
Along with his wife and daughter, survivors include his brother Richard, two grandchildren and other family members.
Associated Press writer Daisy Nguyen in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
from Time magazine
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