The Other Side of Me

Chapter 22

Now that I was a producer, literary material started coming into my office - plays, screenplays, and original stories. But there was nothing that excited me. I was resolved that the first picture I produced would be something I could be proud of. Three weeks after I had been made a producer, Dore Schary's secretary called me. "Mr. Schary would like to see you in his office."
"Tell him I'll be right there."
Ten minutes later, I was facing Dore.
He hesitated a moment, and then said, "Harry Cohn called."
"Oh?"
"He asked for permission to negotiate a deal with you to become head of production at Columbia."
I was stunned. "I had no idea he was - "
"I talked to Mr. Mayer and we decided that we would say no. There are two reasons. First of all, we're very happy with what you're doing here. Secondly, we feel Harry Cohn would destroy you. He's a very difficult man to work with. I called Cohn back and told him our decision." He looked at me expectantly. "It's up to you."
I had a lot to think about. Running a major studio was the most prestigious job in Hollywood. On the other hand, Schary and Mayer were probably right about my working for Cohn. I remembered the scene in Cohn's office. Harry, I have Donna Reed on the line. Tony's regiment is being sent overseas and Donna wants to be with him in San Francisco until he leaves.
She can't go.
Did I want to spend my days working for a man like that? I made a decision. I said, "I'm happy here, Dore."
He smiled. "Good. We don't want to lose you."
When I got back to my office, Harris Katleman, an agent at MCA, the top agency in Hollywood, was waiting for me. "I hear that Harry Cohn wants you to run Columbia."
News travels fast, I thought. "That's right. Dore just told me."
"Our agency would like to represent you, Sidney. We can make a hell of a deal for you and - "
I shook my head. "I appreciate it, Harris, but I've decided not to accept his offer."
He looked surprised. "I've never heard of anyone turning down a chance to run a studio."
"You have now."
He stood there, trying to think of something to say. There was nothing.
I could not help but wonder what my life would have been like if I had accepted Harry Cohn's offer, and I was thinking about how far I had come. I thought about the guard at the entrance to Columbia Studios. I want to be a writer. Who do I see?
Do you have an appointment?
No, but -
Then you don't see anybody.
There must be someone I -
Not without an appointment . . .
Harry Cohn wants you to run Columbia.
Shortly after my conversation with Dore, I was having lunch in the studio commissary, when I saw Zsa Zsa Gabor at a nearby table, with a lovely-looking young brunette. I had met Zsa Zsa several months earlier and I found her amusing. She and her sisters, Eva and Magda, were already Hollywood legends, famous for being famous. They had come from Hungary and quickly established themselves in Hollywood as eccentric, talented women. At the moment, it was Zsa Zsa's companion I was interested in. When I finished lunch, I went over to Zsa Zsa's table.
"Darling - " That was her usual greeting to everyone, including strangers.
"Hi, Zsa Zsa." We did the Hollywood air kiss.
She turned to the young woman with her. "I would like you to meet Jorja Curtright. She's a wonderful actress. This is Sidney Sheldon."
Jorja nodded. "Hello."
"Sit down, darling."
I sat. I turned to Jorja. "So, you're an actress. What have you done?"
She said, vaguely, "Different things."
I was taken aback by her response. Actresses usually could not wait to tell producers their credits.
I looked at her more closely. There was something magnetic about her. She was a beauty, with classical features and deep, intelligent brown eyes, filled with promise. Her voice was husky and distinctive.
"Why don't you two come up to my office when you're through with lunch?" I suggested.
"We'd love to, darling."
Jorja said nothing.
On the way to my office, I stopped to see Jerry Davis, my close friend who was a writer on the lot.
"Jerry, I just met the woman I'm going to marry."
"Who is she? I'd like to meet her."
"Oh, no, not yet. I don't need the competition."
Fifteen minutes later, Zsa Zsa and Jorja came to my office.
"Please, sit down," I said.
We chatted idly for a few minutes. Finally, I said to Jorja, "If you're not seeing anyone, why don't we have dinner one night?" I picked up a pen. "What's your phone number?"
"I'm afraid I'm very busy," Jorja said.
Zsa Zsa looked at Jorja in horror. "Don't be a fool, darling. Sidney's a producer."
"I'm sorry," Jorja said, "I'm not interested in - "
Zsa Zsa spoke up and gave me Jorja's telephone number. Jorja glared at her, obviously upset.
"It's just a dinner," I said to Jorja. "I'll call you."
Jorja got up. "It was nice meeting you, Mr. Sheldon."
I could feel the chill in the room. I watched as the two of them left. This is not going to be easy, I thought.
I looked up Jorja Curtright's credits. They were formidable. She had appeared in television, motion pictures, and on Broadway. She had just starred as Stella on a road tour of the Broadway hit A Streetcar Named Desire. The reviewers were ecstatic.
The New York Times said, "As 'Stella,' Jorja Curtright is superb - energetic and decisive in her analysis of the part and glowing with warmth, pity and understanding."
She had also gotten great reviews for the movie Whistle Stop and a dozen important television shows.
I telephoned Jorja the next morning and invited her to dinner. She said, "I'm sorry, I'm busy."
I telephoned her for the next four days and got the same answer.
On the fifth day, I called and said, "I'm giving a dinner party Friday night. There are going to be a lot of important producers and directors here. I think it might be helpful for your career for you to meet them."
There was a long, long pause. "All right."
I had the feeling that she had accepted because the two of us were not going to be alone.
Now I had to begin putting together a dinner party with important producers and directors.
Somehow I managed to pull it off. A few of the producers and directors who were there had seen Jorja's work and were very flattering.
When the evening was over I said to Jorja, "Did you enjoy yourself tonight?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"I'll drive you home."
She shook her head. "I have my car. Thank you for a lovely evening." She started to head for the door.
"Wait a minute," I said. "Will you have dinner with me one night?"
She thought about it. "All right." There was a definite lack of enthusiasm in her answer.
I called her the following morning. "Are you free for dinner this evening?"
For the first time she said, "Yes."
"I'll pick you up, seven-thirty."
That was the beginning.
We had dinner at Chasen's. My experience was that when having a conversation with an actress, the talk usually consisted of: "So I said to the director . . ." and "I told the cameraman . . ." and "My leading man . . ." Dinner with an actress was all about show business. With Jorja, show business was not even mentioned. She talked about her family and friends. She had come from a small town - Mena, Arkansas - and still had her small-town roots. She was the antithesis of any actress I had ever met.
As we came to the end of the dinner, I said, "Jorja, why were you so reluctant to go out with me?"
She hesitated. "Do you want a straight answer?"
"Of course."
"You have the reputation of dating too many women. I don't intend to be just another one on your list."
I said, "You're not just another one. Why don't you give me a chance?"
She studied me a moment. "All right. We'll see."
I began seeing Jorja every evening. The more I saw of her, the more I knew that I was in love. She had a wonderful, wicked sense of humor, and we laughed a lot. We became closer and closer.
At the end of three months, I took her in my arms and said, "Let's get married."
We eloped to Vegas the next day.
I arranged for Natalie and Marty to come to Hollywood to meet Jorja, and they all got along beautifully. Natalie asked Jorja a hundred questions, then decided that she was thrilled for me.
I planned a honeymoon for us in Europe. I had bought a small house off Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills.
Otto and his wife, Ann, were living in Los Angeles, and when I told Otto the news about Jorja, he clapped me on the shoulder and said, "That's wonderful. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. As a wedding gift, I'm going to put siding on your house."
Otto's latest occupation was the siding business, putting aluminum siding on the outside of houses. It was a generous gift because siding was expensive.
"Great. Thanks."
I told Kenneth McKenna that I was taking three months off, and Jorja and I sailed to Europe. It was a dream honeymoon that included a tour of London, Paris, Rome, and one of my favorite places in the world - Venice. I had never been happier. The dark cloud was behind me.
Finally, it was time to return home. When we arrived back in Los Angeles, Otto was waiting for us. As we drove up to our house, he said, "I think you're going to love this."
He was right. The house looked beautiful, completely covered with shiny aluminum siding.
". . . And I'll tell you what I'm going to do," Otto added magnanimously. "I'm going to give you this at cost."
Jorja was doing a lot of television. She seemed to go from one top show to another.
One night, Jorja had a dream that she was making an impassioned speech to save the life of a man a crowd was about to lynch. She woke up in the middle of the dream and sat straight up in bed. She enjoyed her speech so much that she finished it, wide awake.
Back at MGM, late in the spring of 1952, I found a project that I liked. It was called "Dream Wife," a short story written by Alfred Levitt.
The plot was about the battle of the sexes. A bachelor was engaged to a beautiful State Department official who was too busy with an oil crisis in the Middle East to have time to marry him. Fed up, he decides to marry a beautiful young princess he met in the Middle East. Because of the world oil crisis, complications begin.
I brought an aspiring young writer, Herbert Baker, in to work with me on the screenplay. The writing went well. I had Cary Grant in mind as the leading man, but I knew how busy his schedule was.
When I was involved in a project, I became so absorbed that time had no meaning for me. One evening, I was working late at the studio when I got an idea for a scene that excited me. I picked up the telephone and phoned Herbert Baker.
"Get over here right away," I said. "I have an idea you're going to love." I hung up and I kept working.
An hour later, Herbert Baker still had not arrived. I decided to call him again. As I reached for the phone, I looked at my watch.
It was four o'clock in the morning.
When the Dream Wife screenplay was finally finished, I was ready to start casting.
"Who do you want?" the casting department asked.
I did not even hesitate. "My dream cast would be Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr."
"We'll see what we can do."
The screenplay was sent to Cary and I got an answer five days later. "Cary loves the script. He'll do it."
I was thrilled.
"He gave us a list of directors he'll work with, I'll start checking them out."
The bad news came the next day. "All of Cary's choices are busy directing other movies. Why don't you talk to him?"
I arranged to have lunch with Cary.
"Cary, we have a problem. The directors you want are not available. What do you want us to do?"
He thought it over. "I know who should direct this picture."
I was relieved. "Who?"
"You."
Me? I shook my head. "Cary, I've never directed before."
"I know how your mind works. I want you to direct it."
This was obviously going to be a fantastic year for me. How high could an elevator go?
I went to see Dore Schary.
"Cary wants me to direct Dream Wife."
Dore Schary nodded. "He called me. If that's what he wants, fine. You're the director."
It was like a miracle to me. A few short years ago I had been an usher, watching these glamorous, unreachable stars on the screen. And now I was writing for them, producing, directing them, touching their lives as they had once touched mine.
I was ecstatic. I was joining the roster of all of the talented directors who had worked with Cary - Alfred Hitchcock in Suspicion and Notorious, George Cukor in Holiday and The Philadelphia Story, Leo McCarey in The Awful Truth and Once Upon a Honeymoon, and Howard Hawks in Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday.
I got up to leave.
"Wait a minute, Sidney," Dore said. "This would make you the writer, director, and producer. You really don't need all those credits."
I turned to look at him. "What did you have in mind?"
"Why don't I put my name on as producer," he said.
It made no difference to me. I nodded. "No problem."
It was a decision that would almost destroy my career.
We began casting. Walter Pidgeon was signed to the cast, but we were having trouble finding the Middle East princess. I had heard about an actress named Betta St. John, who was in London, starring in South Pacific.
I flew over there to make a test of her. She was perfect for the part and I signed her for the movie. When I returned to the studio, there was a message that Harry Cohn had called. I returned the call.
"Sheldon, I understand that you're going to direct a picture with Cary Grant."
"That's right."
"Be careful."
"What do you mean?"
"Cary Grant is a killer. He likes to run things. Why do you think he picked you to direct the movie?"
"Because he thinks I - "
"He's setting you up. He figures that with an inexperienced director, he can get away with murder. Remember this, Sheldon. There can only be one director on a picture. Tell him that."
I had no intention of telling him that. "Thanks, Harry."
Cary was coming to the house for lunch the following day. I thought about what I was going to say to him.
I want to thank you for being such a good friend . . . I want to thank you for your faith in me . . . I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity like this . . . I'm counting on you to give me all the help you can. I know you won't let me make a fool of myself . . . Working with you is going to be wonderful . . .
Cary walked in, smiling.
"I understand you found our princess in London," he said.
"That's right. She'll be great."
Cary sat down, and I heard myself saying, "I have to talk to you, Cary. There can only be one director on a picture. I want us to be clear on that before we begin. Agreed?"
I had had no intention of saying any of that to one of the biggest stars in the world, who was also my friend. At times, without any warning, you will lose control of your words and actions. Cary could have had me fired from the movie in about ten seconds.
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 detente. 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.