Sidney Sheldon (February 11, 1917 – January 30, 2007) was an Academy Award-winning American writer. His TV works spanned a 20-year period during which he created The Patty Duke Show (1963–66), I Dream of Jeannie (1965–70) and Hart to Hart (1979–84), but he became most famous after he turned 50 and began writing best-selling novels such as Master of the Game (1982), The Other Side of Midnight (1973) and Rage of Angels (1980). He is the sixth best selling writer of all time.

Early life[link]

Sheldon was born Sidney Schechtel in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, of Russian Jewish ancestry, were Ascher "Otto" Schechtel (1894–1967), manager of a jewelry store, and Natalie Marcus. At 10, Sidney made his first sale, $5 for a poem. During the Depression, he worked at a variety of jobs, and after graduating from Denver East High School, he attended Northwestern University and contributed short plays to drama groups. He is the author of 18 novels (which have sold over 300 million copies), over 200 television scripts, 25 major motion pictures and 6 Broadway plays.

Career[link]

In 1937 Sheldon moved to Hollywood, California, where he reviewed scripts and collaborated on a number of B movies.^[1] Sheldon enlisted in the military during World War II as a pilot in the War Training Service, a branch of the Army Air Corps,^[1] His unit was disbanded before he saw any action. Returning to civilian life, he moved to New York City where he began writing musicals for the Broadway stage while continuing to write screenplays for both MGM Studios and Paramount Pictures. He earned a reputation as a prolific writer; for example, at one time he had three musicals on Broadway: a rewritten The Merry Widow, Jackpot, and Dream with Music.^[2] His success on Broadway brought him back to Hollywood where his first assignment was The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay of 1947.

When television became the new popular medium, he decided to try his hand in it. "I suppose I needed money," he remembered. "I met Patty Duke one day at lunch. So I produced The Patty Duke Show, and I did something nobody else in TV ever did. For seven years, I wrote almost every single episode of the series."^[2]

Sheldon created, produced and wrote I Dream of Jeannie in his co-production capacity with Screen Gems. He wrote all but two dozen scripts in five years, sometimes using three pseudonyms (Mark Rowane, Allan Devon, Christopher Golato) while simultaneously writing scripts for The Patty Duke Show. He also used the same pseudonyms in writing all seventeen episodes of Nancy. He later admitted that he did this because he felt his name was appearing too often in the credits as creator, producer, copyright owner and writer of these series. He also wrote for the series Hart to Hart.

Production for I Dream of Jeannie ended in 1970 after five seasons. It was "During the last year of I Dream of Jeannie, I decided to try a novel," he said in 1982. "Each morning from 9 until noon, I had a secretary at the studio take all calls. I mean every single call. I wrote each morning — or rather, dictated — and then I faced the TV business."^[2]

In 1969, Sheldon wrote his first novel, The Naked Face, which earned him a nomination for the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category of Best First Novel. His next novel, The Other Side of Midnight, climbed to #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list as did several ensuing novels, a number of which were also made into motion pictures or TV miniseries. His novels often featured determined women who persevere in a tough world run by hostile men.^[2] The novels contained a lot of suspense and devices to keep the reader turning the page:^[2]

Most of his readers were women.^[2] Asked why this was the case he said: "I like to write about women who are talented and capable, but most important, retain their femininity. Women have tremendous power — their femininity, because men can't do without it."^[2] Books were Sheldon's favorite medium. "I love writing books," he commented. "Movies are a collaborative medium, and everyone is second-guessing you. When you do a novel you're on your own. It's a freedom that doesn't exist in any other medium."^[2]

Personal life[link]

Sheldon was married for 30 years to Jorja Curtright, a stage and film actress who later became an interior designer. She appeared in a Season One episode of I Dream of Jeannie. She died of a heart attack in 1985.

He married Alexandra Kostoff, a former child actress and an advertising executive of Bulgarian origin,^[3] in Las Vegas in 1989. His daughter, Mary Sheldon, became a novelist as well.

He struggled with bipolar disorder for years; he contemplated suicide at 17 (talked out of it by his father, who discovered him), as detailed in his autobiography published in 2005, The Other Side of Me.

Death[link]

A resident of Palm Springs, California,^[4] Sheldon died on January 30, 2007 from complications arising from pneumonia at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California.^[1][5] His remains were cremated, the ashes interred in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.

Awards[link]

Sheldon won an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay (1947) for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a Tony Award (1959) for his musical Redhead, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on I Dream of Jeannie, an NBC sitcom. Sheldon had a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars dedicated to him in 1994.^[6]

Bibliography[link]

Novels[link]

• The Naked Face (1970)
• The Other Side of Midnight (1973)
• A Stranger in the Mirror (1976)
• Bloodline (1977)
• Rage of Angels (1980)
• Master of the Game (1982)
• If Tomorrow Comes (1985)
• Windmills of the Gods (1987)
• The Sands of Time (1988)
• Memories of Midnight (1990)
• The Doomsday Conspiracy (1991)
• The Stars Shine Down (1992)
• Nothing Lasts Forever (1994)
• Morning, Noon and Night (1995)
• The Best Laid Plans (1997)
• Tell Me Your Dreams (1998)
• The Sky Is Falling (2001)
• Are You Afraid of the Dark? (2004)

Novels - extrapolation by other authors[link]

• Sidney Sheldon's Mistress of the Game by Tilly Bagshawe (2009)
• Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness by Tilly Bagshawe (2010)
• Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark by Tilly Bagshawe

Autobiography[link]

• The Other Side of Me (2005)

Broadway Plays[link]

• The Merry Widow
• Alice in Arms
• Redhead
• Roman Candle
• Gomes (London)

Films[link]

• The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
• Three Guys Named Mike
• Annie Get Your Gun
• Dream Wife
• You're Never Too Young
• Anything Goes
• Billy Rose's Jumbo
• Bloodline

Television[link]

• The Patty Duke Show
• I Dream of Jeannie
• Nancy
• Hart to Hart
• If Tomorrow Comes (miniseries, based on his book)

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Sidney Sheldon: Meet Sidney Sheldon (Former official site)". HachetteBookGroupUSA.com (Internet Archive). Archived from the original on January 5, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070105141616/http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/sidneysheldon/meet_ss.html. Retrieved January 5, 2007. 
• Archive of American Television interview
• "Sidney Sheldon: Meet Sidney Sheldon (Official tribute)". HachetteBookGroupUSA.com (Internet Archive). Archived from the original on December 10, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071210005900/http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/sidneysheldon/meet_ss.html. Retrieved December 10, 2007. 
• "Sidney Sheldon: Timeline". HachetteBookGroupUSA.com (Internet Archive). Archived from the original on December 10, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071210220728/http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/sidneysheldon/timeline.html. Retrieved December 10, 2007. 
• Sidney Sheldon at the Internet Movie Database
• Sidney Sheldon at the Internet Broadway Database
• 1987 audio interview with Sidney Sheldon at Wired for Books.org by Don Swaim
• Two Sidney Sheldon Interviews on Sidewalks Entertainment
• Sheldon's death obituary at NYTimes.com
• Sidney Sheldon at Find a Grave