Chapter 9
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 do know that she sat at her desk all that afternoon, typing the pages as I thumbed through the book.
The clock was racing. We were only halfway through the novel 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.
"No problem," I told her, nonchalantly. I handed her the package and watched her glance through the pages.
"This is beautifully done. " She handed me an envelope. "There's ten dollars in there. "
"Thank you. I'm ready to do the next synopsis whenever - "
"I'm sorry," she said, "our regular reader will be back tomorrow. Mr. Selznick doesn't usually use outside readers. As a matter of fact, you were called by mistake. "
I swallowed. "Mistake?"
"Yes. You're not on our regular list of readers. "
So I was never going to be a part of David Selznick's team. We were not going to have a cozy chat about his days as a reader. This frantic day had been the beginning and the end. At that moment, I should have been deeply depressed. Oddly enough, I felt happy. Why? I had no idea.
When I reached Gracie's, the boys were waiting for me.
"Did you see Selznick?"
"What's he like?"
"Are you going to work there?"
"It's been an interesting afternoon," I said. "Very interesting. " And I went into my room and closed the door.
I saw the bus ticket on the table next to my bed. It was the symbol of failure. It meant goi
ng back to the checkrooms and the drugstore and parking cars and the life I thought I had escaped from. I had reached a dead end. I picked up the bus ticket and it was all I could do to keep from tearing it in half. How could I turn this failure into a success? There has to be a way. There has to be a way.
And then it came to me. I called home. Natalie answered the phone. "Hello, darling. We can't wait to see you. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I have some good news. I just did a synopsis for David Selznick. "
"Really? That's wonderful! Was he nice?"
"Yes. Couldn't have been nicer. And this is only the beginning. The gates here have opened, Natalie. Everything is going to be great. I just need a few more days. "
She did not hesitate. "All right, darling. Let us know when you're coming home. "
I'm not coming home.
The following morning, I went to the bus station and cashed in the ticket Otto had sent me. I spent the rest of the day writing letters to the literary departments of all the major studios.
The letters read, in part:
At his personal request, I have just finished a synopsis of a novel for David O. Selznick, and I'm now free to do other synopses . . .
The telephone calls began coming in two days later. Twentieth-Century-Fox called first, then Paramount. Fox needed a book synopsized and Paramount wanted me to synopsize a play. Each synopsis paid five or ten dollars, depending on the length.
Since each studio had its own staff of readers, the only time they called in outside readers was when they were overburdened. I could do only one novel a day. It took me that long to get to a studio to pick it up, return to Gracie's boardinghouse, read the book, type a synopsis, and take it back to the studio. I averaged two or three calls a week. I didn't have Sydney in my life anymore.
To augment my meager income, I telephoned a man I had never met. Vera Fine had mentioned him on the drive to California. His name was Gordon Mitchell. He was head of the Technical Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I called and mentioned Vera Fine's name, and told him I was looking for a job. He was very cordial. "As a matter of fact, I have something here that you can do. "
I was thrilled. I would be working for the esteemed Academy.
The following day, I met him in his office.
"It's perfect timing," he said. "You'll be working evenings here, watching films in our projection room. "
"Great," I said. "What's the job?"
"Watching films in our projection room. "
I was staring at him. He went on to explain.
"The Academy is testing different film preservatives. We've coated different sections of the film with different chemicals. Your job is to sit in the projection room and keep a record of the number of times each film is run. " He added, apologetically, "I'm afraid it only pays three dollars a day. "
"I'll take it. "
The first movie I saw over and over was The Man Who Lived Twice, and I was soon able to quote every line. I spent my evenings watching the same films and my days waiting for the telephone to ring.
On the fateful date of December 12, 1938, I received a call from Universal Studios. I had just done a few synopses for them.
"Sidney Sheldon?"
"Yes. "
"Could you come in to the studio this morning?"
Another three dollars.
"Yes. "
"Go to Mr. Townsend's office. "
Al Townsend was the story editor at Universal. When I arrived at the studio, I was ushered into his office.
"I've read the synopses you've done for us. They're very good. "
"Thank you. "
"We need a staff reader here. Would you like the job?"
I wondered if he would be offended if I kissed him. "Yes, sir," I said.
"It pays seventeen dollars a week. We work six days a week. Your hours will be from nine to six. You'll start Monday. "
I called Sydney at her office to break the news to her and invite her to dinner.
An unfamiliar voice answered the phone. "Yes?"
"I would like to speak to Sydney Singer. "
"She's not here. "
"When will she be back?"
"She's not coming back. "
"What - ? Who is this?"
"This is Dorothy Arzner. "
"Oh. Do you have her forwarding address, Miss Arzner?"
"She didn't leave one. "
I never saw Sydney again, but I have never forgotten the debt I owe her.
Universal was a studio that made B pictures. It had been founded by Carl "Papa" Laemmle in 1912, and it was noted for its thriftiness. A few years earlier the studio had called the agent of a top western star and said they wanted to hire him to work on a low-budget movie.
The agent laughed. "You can't afford him. He makes a thousand dollars a day. "
"That's all right," the studio executive assured him. "We'll pay him. "
The movie was about a masked bandit. The first day of production the director shot endless close-ups of the star in various locations, and at the end of the day they told him that he was finished. What they did after that was to substitute a minor actor who wore a mask throughout the picture.
On Monday morning, when I walked through the gates onto a studio lot for the first time, I was filled with a sense of wonder. I walked past the facades of western towns and Victorian houses, San Francisco streets and New York streets, and felt the magic.
Al Townsend explained my duties to me. My job was to read the dozens and dozens of screenplays that had been written for silent movies and to try to weed out the ones that might be worth making into talkies. Nearly all of the screenplays were hopeless. I remember one memorable line describing a villain:
He had a bag of gold in his eyes.
During Papa Laemmle's regime, Universal was an easygoing, shirt-sleeved kind of studio. There was no feeling of pressure. It was like a large family.
I was now receiving a weekly paycheck and I was able to pay Gracie regularly. I reported to the studio six days a week and never got over the thrill of walking onto the studio lot where dreams were created every day. I knew that this was just the beginning. I had come to Universal as a reader, but I would start working again on original stories and sell them to the studio. I wrote to Natalie and Otto to tell them how well things were going. I had a permanent job in Hollywood.
One month later, Papa Laemmle sold Universal and along with everyone else, I was fired.
I did not dare tell Natalie or Otto what had happened because they would insist that I return to Chicago. I knew that my future was here. I would have to find another job - any job - until I could get back into a studio.
I looked through the want ads. One item caught my eye:
Hotel switchboard operator wanted.
No experience necessary. $20 a week. Brant Hotel.
The Brant Hotel was a chic hotel off Hollywood Boulevard. When I arrived there, the lobby was deserted except for the hotel manager.
"I'm here about the switchboard operator job," I said.
He studied me a moment. "Our telephone operator just quit. We need someone right away. Have you ever run a switchboard?"
"No, sir. "
"There's really not much to it. "
He took me behind a desk, where there was a large, complicated-looking switchboard.
"Sit down," he said.
I sat down. The switchboard consisted of two rows of vertical plugs and about thirty holes to plug them into, each hole connected to a numbered room.
"You see these plugs?"
"Yes, sir. "
"They're in twos, one above the other. The lower one is called the sister plug. When the board lights up, you put the front plug into that hole. The caller will tell you the room he wants and then you take the sister plug and plug it into that room number, and you move this button to ring the room. That's
all there is to it. "
I nodded. "That's easy. "
"I'll give you a week's trial. You'll work nights. "
"No problem," I said.
"How soon can you start?"
"I've started. "
The manager had been right. Running a switchboard was easy. It became almost automatic. When a light flashed, I would put in a plug from the first row. "Mr. Klemann, please. "
I would look at the roster of guests. Mr. Klemann was in Room 231. I put the sister plug into the hole for Room 231 and pushed the button that rang the room. It was as simple as that.
I had a feeling that operating a switchboard was just a beginning. I could move up to night manager, and then perhaps general manager, and since the hotel was part of a chain, there was no telling how high I could go, and I would write a screenplay about the hotel business with the knowledge of an insider, sell it to a studio, and be back where I wanted to be.
Two nights after I had started, at three o'clock in the morning, one of the guests rang the switchboard. "I want you to get a number for me in New York. "
He gave me the number.
I pulled out the room plug and dialed the New York number.
After half a dozen rings, a woman answered. "Hello. "
"I have a call for you," I said. "Just a moment, please. "
I picked up the key that plugged into the guest rooms and stared at the switchboard. I had no idea which guest had placed the call. I looked at the holes in the switchboard, hoping for inspiration. I knew generally what area of the board the caller was in. I began ringing all the rooms in that section, hoping to find the right one. I awakened a dozen guests.
"I have the New York call for you. "
"I don't know anyone in New York. "
"I have the New York call for you. "
"Are you out of your mind? It's three o'clock in the morning!"
"I have the New York call for you. "
"Not me, you idiot!"
When the hotel manager arrived in the morning, I said, "A funny thing happened last night. I - "
"I heard, and I don't think it's funny. You're fired. "
I obviously was not destined to manage a hotel chain. It was time to move on.
There was an ad for a part-time driving instructor and I took the job. Most of the students were scary. Red lights meant nothing to them and they all seemed confused about the difference between the brake and the accelerator. They were nervous, blind, or bent on suicide. Every time I went to work, I felt I was putting my life on the line.
I kept my sanity by doing outside reading for various studios, when their own readers were busy. One of the studios I had written synopses for was Twentieth-Century-Fox. The story editor was James Fisher, a bright young New Yorker.
Late one afternoon, he telephoned me. "Are you free tomorrow?"
"Yes. " Another three dollars.
"I'll see you at ten o'clock. "
"Right. " Maybe it would be a big book. Ten dollars. My funds were running low again.
When I got to his office, Fisher was waiting for me. "How would you like a staff job here?" he asked.
I could hardly get the words out. "I - I'd love it. "
"You're hired. Twenty-three dollars a week. "
I was back in show business.
The Other Side of Me Page 9