Early the next morning, I put a straight-back chair in the middle of my hotel room and sat down with a thick yellow pad and a pen, determined not to get up from the chair until I had a premise I liked. I discarded idea after idea until two hours later, when I came up with something that I thought could work.
I wrote a thirty-page outline and called it Suddenly It's Spring. I was ready for Hollywood.
On my way to Los Angeles, I stopped in Chicago to visit Natalie and Marty.
Natalie greeted me at the door with a hug and a kiss. "My writer."
I had not told her about the reviews for Alice in Arms, but somehow she knew about them. She put her finger right on the problem with the play.
"They never should have changed the title."
I spent the next few days in Chicago, visiting my aunts Fran, Emma, and Pauline, who had come in from Denver. It was wonderful to be with them and to see their pride in me. One would have thought that Dream with Music and Alice in Arms were the biggest hits on Broadway.
Finally, it was time to say my farewells, and I was on a plane back to Hollywood.
It seemed as if I had been away forever, but it had been only two years. So much had happened in that period of time. I had learned to fly and had been discharged from the Air Corps. I had written two Broadway hits and two Broadway flops.
With the war still raging, living space was scarce, but I had been lucky. One of the actresses in Jackpot kept a small apartment in Beverly Hills and she had agreed to rent it to me. The apartment was on Palm Drive and when I got there and started to put the key in the lock, the door was opened by a young, vibrant man. He looked at the key in my hand.
"Hello."
"Hello."
"Can I help you?"
"Who are you?"
"My name is Bill Orr."
"Sidney Sheldon."
His face lit up. "Ah, Helen told me you'd be coming here."
He opened the door wider and I stepped inside. It was a lovely little well-furnished apartment, with a bedroom, a small living room, a den, and a kitchenette.
"I hate to put you out," I said, "but I - "
"Don't worry. I was ready to leave anyway."
I found out why when I read the next morning's Los Angeles Times. Bill Orr was about to marry Jack Warner's daughter and would later become head of Warner Television.
My next stop was the boardinghouse on Carmen Street to visit Gracie. Nothing had changed except for the faces. There were new wannabes filling the rooms - tomorrow's stars and directors and cameramen, all waiting for the Phone Call.
Gracie had not changed at all. She still bustled around, mothering all her nestlings, dispensing soothing advice and commiserating with those who had given up and were leaving.
I got a big hug and an "I hear you're famous now." I was not sure whether I was famous or infamous.
"I'm working on it," I said.
We spent a couple of hours talking about old times, and finally I told her I had to go. I was seeing my agent.
I had signed with the William Morris Agency, one of the top agencies in Hollywood, and was being handled by Sam Weisbord, a short, dynamic agent with a constant tan, which I later learned was replenished from time to time in Hawaii. Sammy had started as an office boy at William Morris, and years later would work his way up to president.
Sammy introduced me to some of the other agents and to Johnny Hyde, who was the vice president of the agency.
"I've been hearing about you," Hyde said. "We're going to do some interesting things together."
At that moment, his secretary walked in.
"This is Dona Holloway."
She was lovely, tall and slim, with intelligent gray eyes and a warm smile. She held out her hand. "Hello, Mr. Sheldon. I'm glad you're going to be with us."
I was going to like this agency.
I said to Sammy and Johnny Hyde, "I wrote an original story that I brought with me."
"Fine," Sammy said. "How would you like to go to work right away?"
"I'd like that."
"One of our clients, Eddie Cantor, has a picture deal at RKO. The problem is he hasn't been able to come up with a script that the studio will approve. The deal runs out in three months and if we don't have a script that the studio okays by then, it's off. He'd like you to create something. A thousand dollars a week."
And I had only been back in Hollywood one day.
"Great."
"He wants to see you this afternoon."
I had no idea what I was in for.
Chapter 16
Eddie Cantor had starred in half a dozen movies and was arguably one of the most popular comedians in the country. He had appeared on Broadway for Florenz Ziegfeld, and Whoopee! and Roman Scandals had made him a star in the movies. He had his own radio show and it was a huge success.
I met Eddie in his large, sprawling house on Roxbury, in Beverly Hills. He was a short, dynamic man who never stopped moving. As he talked, he paced. As he listened, he paced. I almost had the feeling that while we were sitting at lunch, Eddie was mentally pacing.
"I don't know if they explained it to you, Sidney, but here's the situation: RKO has turned down three scripts that my boys prepared." "His boys" were his radio writers. "I'm running out of time. I need a script the studio will approve in the next three months or the deal is off. Do you think you can come up with a blockbuster story for me?"
"I'd like to try."
"Good. You're going to have to work your ass off to get the script in on time. But when you finish the first draft and the studio approves it, then you'll have all the time in the world to polish the dialogue, tighten it up, do whatever you want with it. It will be all yours."