Sidney Sheldon
Sidney Sheldon was an influential American writer, born to a Jewish family in Chicago, who experienced a tumultuous early life marked by frequent relocations and personal struggles, including a battle with depression. His family background included a mother who immigrated from Russia and a tight-knit family that played a significant role in his upbringing. After graduating from high school, Sheldon moved to California, where he quickly found work in the film industry, leading to an illustrious career in screenwriting that earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer."
Over the decades, Sheldon transitioned from screenwriting to become a bestselling novelist, publishing his first novel, "The Naked Face," in 1970, which garnered critical acclaim. His subsequent works, including "The Other Side of Midnight," solidified his reputation, with all eighteen of his novels achieving bestseller status, collectively selling over 300 million copies. Sheldon's contributions also included television series creation and Broadway plays, and he received numerous accolades throughout his career. He remained a prominent figure in popular culture until his death in 2007, with his legacy continued by authors such as Tilly Bagshawe. Sheldon’s diverse body of work reflects a prolific career that has left an indelible mark on both literature and film.
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Subject Terms
Sidney Sheldon
Novelist, producer, and screenwriter
- Born: February 11, 1917
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Died: January 30, 2007
- Place of death: Rancho Mirage, California
A versatile writer, Sheldon won numerous awards for his film and television scripts. In his fifties, Sheldon became a best-selling novelist and had more than three hundred million books in print at the time of his death.
Early Life
Sidney Sheldon (SIHD-nee SHEHL-duhn) was the first child of Otto Schechtel and Natalie Marcus, whom he called by their first names. His mother was born in Russia but moved to America when she was ten years old with her mother to escape persecution of Jews. Her two brothers and two sisters became an integral part of Sheldon’s life. Sheldon’s father grew up in Chicago. His brother and five sisters were also involved in Sheldon’s life. Sheldon’s younger brother Richard was born in 1925, when Sidney was eight years old.
The Shechtel family moved often because Sheldon’s father changed jobs on a regular basis. By the time Sheldon was seventeen, he had lived in eight cities and attended eight elementary schools and three high schools. The family was the most secure in Denver, Colorado, during the early 1930’s, but, in 1933, they moved back to Chicago, where Sheldon graduated from Senn High School. He struggled with depression throughout his life and even attempted suicide when he was seventeen. His father walked in as Sheldon was getting ready to swallow a handful of sleeping pills and talked Sheldon into looking toward the future. Shortly afterward, Sheldon left Chicago for California. Sheldon began his own family on March 28, 1951, when he married actor Jorja Curtright. The two had one daughter, Mary Rowane Sheldon, on October 14, 1955. Several years after Jorja’s death of a heart attack, Sheldon married Alexandra Kostoff.
Life’s Work
Within three weeks of his arrival in California, the ambitious young writer had a job writing a script synopsis for David Selznick at Selznick International Studios. This first job led to other part-time work as a script reader for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Twentieth Century Fox and eventually to a short-term staff reader position for Universal and later Twentieth Century Fox. During his first years in California, Sheldon also helped create the Screen Readers Guild in an effort to help staff readers earn a living wage.
Collaborating with Ben Jones, Sheldon sold his first screenplay, Fly-by-Night (1942), originally named Dangerous Holiday, to Paramount. The two wrote and sold a number of additional scripts, including South of Panama, Borrowed Hero, Dangerous Lady, and Gambling Daughters (all produced in 1941).
Sheldon’s big break came with The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Shirley Temple. The film was given the Box Office Blue Ribbon Award, and Sheldon won theAcademy Award for the Best Original Screenplay. MGM hired him, and he remained there for twelve years, continuing to write hit films, such as Easter Parade (1948), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), and Dream Wife (1953). He also began directing. He moved to Paramount next, adding such hits as Pardners (1956), You’re Never Too Young (1955), Anything Goes (1956), and The Buster Keaton Story (1957), among many others. After his discharge from the Air Force after World War II, Sheldon also wrote several Broadway plays, later winning aTony Award for Redhead in 1959.
His first television credits were with The Patty Duke Show (1963-1966) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970). Years later he created a series for Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, Hart to Hart (1979-1984).
Sheldon began writing novels in 1970 with The Naked Face, which was given the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel, even though it had, ironically, been rejected by five publishers before being accepted by William Morrow. The Other Side of Midnight followed in 1973, and sixteen additional novels were published in the years until his death from pneumonia in 2007. Many of the novels were turned into films, showing on the big screen and in television miniseries.
Significance
Sheldon’s writing career spanned seventy-three years and included screenplays, television scripts, plays, and novels. His credits include poetry and song lyrics, seven Broadway plays, twenty-five screenplays, six producing credits for both film and television, two directing credits, creation of four television series, eighteen novels, one memoir, nine children’s books, three films based on his novels, and eight television films and miniseries based on his novels. All eighteen of his novels were on the best-seller lists, and more than three hundred million copies were printed during his lifetime. He also won numerous awards for screenwriting, directing, and producing and for his novels. Novelist Tilly Bagshawe continued Sheldon’s legacy with the novels Mistress of the Game (2009), a sequel to Sheldon’s Master of the Game (1982), and Sidney Sheldon’s After the Darkness (2010), a tribute to Sheldon’s work, which Bagshawe closely studied with the approval of his wife and daughter.
Bibliography
Bagley, Christopher. “The Bard of Beverly Hills: He May Have Written for Stage, Screen, and Television, but Sidney Sheldon Is Happiest on the Best-Seller List.” W (September, 2004): 416. This article provides a basic overview of Sheldon’s novel writing and also touches on his television and film career.
Plough, Katherine Plake. American Arts and Crafts from the Collection of Alexandra and Sidney Sheldon. Palm Springs, Calif.: Palm Springs Desert Museum, 1993. This small book shares insight into the love of art shared by Sheldon and his second wife.
Sheldon, Sidney. The Other Side of Me: A Memoir. New York: Warner Books, 2005. This autobiography provides an interesting look into Sheldon’s personal and professional life. His writing style is simple and conversational.