He sat there, looking at me, without a word. Then, after a few moments, he surprised me by saying, “Right.”
Wrong.
The trouble began before we even started shooting.
Cary walked onto the soundstage one morning and stopped before one of the sets.
He shook his head. “If I had known it was going to look like this, I never would have agreed to do the picture.”
When I cut three unnecessary lines from the script, Cary said, “If I had known you were going to cut those lines, I would never have agreed to do this picture.”
He saw the wardrobe he was to wear. “If I had known they expected me to wear this, I never would have agreed to do this picture.”
The night before we began to shoot, Deborah Kerr called me.
“Sidney, I just want to tell you that Cary said the two of us should gang up on you. I told him I won’t do it.”
“Thank you, Deborah.”
What have I gotten myself into?
When shooting started the next morning, Cary flubbed his first scene.
I said, “Cut—” and Cary turned on me.
“Don’t ever say ‘cut’ when I’m in the middle of a scene.”
Everyone on the soundstage could hear him. The harassment went on that way, and in the late afternoon, I said to my assistant director, “This is the last scene. I’m quitting.”
“You can’t quit. Give it a chance. Cary will calm down.”
Cary did, but every day he managed, in little ways, to try to test me.
In a scene between Cary and Deborah, she was explaining to Cary that they could not have dinner together because she had to go to the Middle East on State Department business. Deborah started to say her lines to Cary, and she began to laugh.
“Cut,” I said. “Let’s try it again.”
The camera began to roll.
“I’m sorry I can’t have dinner with you,” Deborah said. “I have to go to—” She began to burst into laughter again.
“Cut.”
I walked up to the two of them. “What’s the problem?”
Cary said, innocently, “No problem.”
“All right,” I told him. “Do the scene with me.”
We began the scene. I said, “I’m sorry I can’t have dinner with you but—”
Cary was looking at me with such overpowering intensity that I began to laugh.
“Cary,” I said, “don’t do that. Let’s get this scene.”
He nodded. “All right.”
From then on, that scene went well.
We finished the day’s shooting and I was happy with the result. Deborah was enormously talented and she and Cary were wonderful together.
Cary was married to a young actress named Betsy Drake, with whom he had done a movie. Every evening, after each day’s shooting, as Cary and I left the soundstage, Jorja and Betsy would be waiting outside for us. Cary would take Jorja’s arm and begin complaining about what I had done that day. I would take Betsy’s arm and complain about Cary’s behavior.
One day, while shooting a scene with Walter Pidgeon, Cary moved his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx.
“Cut! Cary, what are you doing?”
He was all innocence. “I’m doing the scene.”
“Do it without your eyebrows.”
“Right.”
“Action.”
The scene started again and so did the eyebrows. It was so ridiculous that it broke me up. I was behind the camera. I did not want to spoil the scene, so I bit my hand to keep from laughing aloud. I had made no sound, but in the middle of the scene, Cary, whose back was to me, turned and said, “Sidney, if you’re going to laugh like that, I can’t do the scene.”
Cary and I reached a kind of détente. The fact was that we liked each other too much to carry on a feud.
One day, Elvis Presley came on the set to watch us shooting. He was at the height of his popularity and I had no idea what to expect. He turned out to be extraordinarily polite and modest. It was “Mr. Sheldon” and “Yes, sir” and “No, sir.” Everyone was very taken with him.
What happened to him later on in his life was dreadful. He was on drugs, and ruined his voice, and grew fat and unattractive.
When he died, some cynic said, “Good career move.”
When we finished shooting, Cary and I had lunch.
Cary said, “Sidney, anytime you want to direct me in another movie, just tell me. I don’t even have to read the script.”
This was enormously flattering coming from a star who was eagerly sought after by every studio.
Dore and the rest of the executives saw the finished picture and were ecstatic.
Dore said to me, “I have great news. Radio City Music Hall has accepted the picture.”
I was thrilled. It was a director’s dream to get into the prestigious Radio City Music Hall, and I had done it with the first picture I directed.
“I’m proud of you,” Dore said. “You did a great job.”
Eddie Mannix spoke up. “Gentlemen, we have a hit on our hands.”
Howard Strickling, head of publicity, agreed. “This calls for a big publicity campaign.”
Dore smiled. “Let’s get started.”
The elevator was at the top floor. Nothing could go wrong.
CHAPTER 23
At a dinner party one evening, I was seated next to Groucho Marx.
I nodded and said, “I’m Sidney Sheldon.”
He turned and glared at me. “No.” He went back to his shrimp cocktail.
I was puzzled. “No, what?”
“You’re a fraud. I know Sidney Sheldon. He’s handsomer and taller than you, and he’s a great juggler. Can you juggle?”