In Remembrance: Sidney Sheldon

     Sidney Sheldon, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who went on to become a successful novelist, has passed away on January 30, 2007 in Rancho Mirage, CA. He was 89.

     Born Sidney Schechtel on February 11, 1917 in Chicago, Sheldon was the only one in his poor and undereducated family to ever complete high school. Although he had won a scholarship to Northwestern University, he was forced to drop out midway through his freshman year due to the Depression. He worked a variety of odd jobs including theatre usher and shoe salesman. He briefly lived in New York City where he dabbled at songwriting before heading to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting.

     Arriving in Los Angeles, Sheldon managed to get a job at Universal Studios as a reader, analyzing scripts for producers. At his boarding house, Sheldon met another young writer, Ben Roberts. The two soon began collaborating on screenplays for such B movies as South Of Panama, Gambling Daughters (both 1941) and Fly-By-Night (1942). However, Sheldon put his burgeoning screenwriting career on hold with the outbreak of World War II and enlisted in the Armey Air Forces. He would be discharged only a few months later for medical reasons.

     Sheldon and Roberts next collaborated on several stage productions the first of which was a revival of the musical The Merry Widow which ran on Broadway for nine weeks in 1943. They also wrote the books for the productions Jackpot and Dream With Music.

     Returning to Hollywood Sheldon scripted the comedy The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer (1947) which would star Cary Grant, Judy Garland and Myrna Loy. The film would prove popular with both audiences and Oscar voters as they awarded Sheldon the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1948. Sheldon would go on to work on the screenplays for such musicals as Easter Parade (1948), The Barkleys Of Broadway (1949) and Annie Get Your Gun (1950). In addition to musicals, he almost exclusively wrote comedies including such films as Three Guys Named Mike (1951), Just This Once (1952), You’re Never To Young (1955) and Pardners (1956).

     Sheldon also made two attempts at directing- the first, the romantic comedy Dream Wife (1953) starred Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr while the second was the bio-pic The Buster Keaton Story (1957).

     In the early 1970s, Sheldon found his greatest success when he turned his attention to writing novels. His 18 novels would ultimately sell over 300 million copies and be translated into 51 languages. Many of them would be turned into popular television miniseries or made-for-television movies. He also created the television series I Dream Of Jeanie and Hart To Hart.