The Other Side of Me

The Other Side of Me Page 16

Eddie Cantor had starred in half a dozen movies and was arguably one of the most popular comedians in the country. He had appeared on Broadway for Florenz Ziegfeld, and Whoopee! and Roman Scandals had made him a star in the movies. He had his own radio show and it was a huge success.

I met Eddie in his large, sprawling house on Roxbury, in Beverly Hills. He was a short, dynamic man who never stopped moving. As he talked, he paced. As he listened, he paced. I almost had the feeling that while we were sitting at lunch, Eddie was mentally pacing.

"I don't know if they explained it to you, Sidney, but here's the situation: RKO has turned down three scripts that my boys prepared." "His boys" were his radio writers. "I'm running out of time. I need a script the studio will approve in the next three months or the deal is off. Do you think you can come up with a blockbuster story for me?"

"I'd like to try."

"Good. You're going to have to work your ass off to get the script in on time. But when you finish the first draft and the studio approves it, then you'll have all the time in the world to polish the dialogue, tighten it up, do whatever you want with it. It will be all yours."

"That sounds fair," I said.

"Meanwhile, we're under a deadline. We're going to have to work eight days a week."

I thought about the pressure of the Broadway shows I had done. "I'm used to that."

The telephone rang and he picked it up. "This is Eddie Cantor."

And to this day, I have never heard a man say his own name with such pride.

We went to work. We discussed the framework of an idea I had, to star Eddie and Joan Davis. He liked it, and I began to write. I usually worked at his house, starting early in the morning and leaving about seven o'clock in the evening, including Saturdays and Sundays.

The evenings were mine and I relaxed. I met a very attractive girl who seemed to like me and we began to have dinners together. The problem was that she could see me only every other evening.

I was curious. "What do you do on the evenings I don't see you?" I asked.

"I'm seeing someone else, Sidney. I like you both very much, but I have to make up my mind."

Who's the other man?

"His name is Jose Iturbi. He wants to marry me."

Jose Iturbi was a famous pianist-conductor who gave concerts all over the world, and he had guest-starred in musicals at MGM, Paramount, and Fox. There was no way I could compete with a famous man like Iturbi.

She said to me, "Jose told me that you're a Coca-Cola."

I blinked. "I'm a what?"

"A Coca-Cola. He said there are millions of you and only one of him."

I never saw her again.

Three days before Eddie Cantor's contract with RKO would have expired, I delivered my screenplay. Sammy Weisbord sent it to RKO, and the following day it was approved. Now I could take my time and polish the dialogue and tighten the script. There were a lot of things I wanted to do with it that I had not been able to do because of the time pressure.

Sammy Weisbord called me. "Sidney, I'm afraid you're off the picture."

I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly. "What?"

"Cantor is bringing in his radio writers to do the polish."

I thought of all the long days and weekends I had worked. You're going to have to work your ass off to get the script in on time. But when you finish the first draft and the studio approves it, then you'll have all the time in the world to polish the dialogue, tighten it up, do whatever you want with it. It will be all yours . . .

Welcome to Hollywood.

On September 2, 1945, the Japanese formally surrendered. Richard was on his way home. I could not wait to see him.

On Christmas Eve, Richard's ship finally docked in San Francisco. We had dinner his first night in Los Angeles. He looked thinner and physically fit. I was eager to hear all that had happened to him. I knew where he had been. New Guinea, Morotai, Leyte, Luzon . . .

"What was it like?"

My brother looked at me a long time. "Let's never discuss this again."

"Fair enough. Do you know what you're going to do now?"

"Marty Leeb offered me a job. I'm going to take it. I'll get to spend more time with Mom."

I was delighted. I knew he and Marty would get along well.

Sam Weisbord called the next day. "You have two offers for Suddenly It's Spring."

"That's great," I said excitedly. "Who are they from?"

"One is from Walter Wanger." He had produced many prestigious movies, including Stagecoach, Foreign Correspondent, and The Long Voyage Home.

"And the other one?"

"David Selznick."

My heart stopped for a moment. "David Selznick?"

"He loves your treatment. Dore Schary is going to co-produce for him. Wanger is offering forty thousand dollars. Selznick is offering thirty-five thousand dollars and each offer includes your writing the screenplay."

I wasn't concerned about the money. The idea of working with Selznick was thrilling. Besides, hadn't he started me in the business? It would be good to get together with my fellow reader again.

"Take the Selznick offer."

The following morning I met with David Selznick and Dore Schary. Selznick was a tall, imposing figure, seated behind a huge desk in an ornate, beautifully furnished office. Dore Schary was dark and trim with a visible intelligence. We shook hands.

Selznick said, "Sit down, Sheldon, I'm glad to meet you."

I thought maybe I could see Mr. Selznick -

No, Mr. Selznick is a busy man.

"I liked your story. It's excellent. I hope your screenplay turns out as good as your original treatment."

Dore said, "I'm sure it will be."

Selznick studied me a moment. "I heard you had another offer from Wanger. I'm glad you came to me. I talked to your agent. We'll pay you thirty-five thousand for the original and the screenplay."

I flashed back to Selznick's secretary handing me an envelope. There's ten dollars in there.

I started to work that morning. I was given an office at the RKO studios, where we were going to make Suddenly It's Spring. RKO was an important studio. They were currently shooting It's a Wonderful Life, The Farmer's Daughter, and Dick Tracy. In the commissary I saw James Stewart, Robert Mitchum, and Loretta Young, and because I had seen them so often in movies, I felt as though they were old friends. But I didn't have enough courage to speak to any of them.

I was enjoying writing the screenplay. The story involved a playboy, a young girl, and her sister, a judge. The man I had had in mind when I wrote the treatment was Cary Grant, but he was always so busy that I was sure it would be impossible to get him.

I thought the screenplay was coming along well. Knowing Selznick's penchant for hiring writer after writer on the same project, I was flattered that he had not tried to replace me. And then one day, I came across a memo from Selznick to Dore Schary:

Why don't we fire Sheldon and bring another writer in?

To Dore's credit, he had never mentioned that to me, and apparently found a way around Selznick's request.

My moods were still fluctuating. I would go from periods of elation to periods of despondence, with no transition. At the Brown Derby restaurant one evening, a friend was seated with a young woman. He waved me over.

"Sidney, I want you to meet Jane Harding."

Jane was from New York. She was amusing and intelligent, with a restless vitality. I was taken with her immediately. We started dating, and within two months, we were married.

There was no time for a honeymoon. The studio was starting to cast Suddenly It's Spring and Dore urged me to get my rewrites finished quickly.

Regretfully, in less than a month, Jane and I realized we had made a mistake. Our interests and personalities were totally opposite. We spent the next nine months trying in vain to make the marriage work. When we finally decided it was impossible, we agreed to a divorce. The pain was devastating. The day we got the divorce, I went out and got drunk for the first time in my life.

If things were disastrous at home, they were going very well at the studio. I had finished the script.

David Selznick called me to his office. "We sent your script to Cary Grant."

"Oh? What - what did he say?"

Selznick paused dramatically. "He's crazy about it. He's going to do it."

I was thrilled. "That's fantastic!"

"We've also signed Shirley Temple and Myrna Loy."

It was a perfect cast.

"Irving Reis is going to be the director, and Cary Grant wants to meet you."

Cary Grant was always everybody's first choice for a comedy. There was no second choice. If you could not get Cary, you dropped down several levels.

I liked Cary immediately. Besides being incredibly handsome, he was intelligent, with a quick, inquiring mind. Unlike some of the stars I worked with later, Cary had absolutely no sense of vanity about himself.

Cary was born Archibald Alexander Leach into a lower-middle-class family, in Bristol, England. He had started in the circus as a stilt walker in Coney Island and broke into vaudeville as a bit player.

When Archie Leach was nine, his mother was sent to a mental institution. They told Cary that his mother had gone to a seaside resort. He did not see her again until he was in his late twenties.

Cary Grant was a legend - suave and sophisticated and smooth.

"Everyone wants to be Cary Grant," he once said. "Even I want to be Cary Grant."

When I met Shirley Temple, she was an eighteen-year-old grown-up, and she was a delight. As a child, she had been the biggest star in the motion picture world, her pictures grossing hundreds of millions of dollars. In spite of her fame, she had turned into a normal, attractive young woman.

The cast was rounded out by Myrna Loy, a skilled actress. Myrna had starred in The Thin Man series, The Best Years of Our Lives, Arrowsmith, and dozens of other movies.

I was thrilled with the cast. We were almost ready to make the movie.

Cary and I were having lunch in the studio commissary a week before Suddenly It's Spring was to start. He said, "We're having a problem finding a second male lead. We've tested half a dozen people and no one is right. You know who would be perfect for the role?"

I was curious. "Who?"

"You. Would you be interested in testing with me?"

I looked at him in surprise. Did I want to be an actor? I had never thought about it. But why not? I could be a writer/movie star. Noel Coward and a few others had done it.

"Are you interested, Sidney?"

"Yes." I knew how simple acting was. I had written the original story, the screenplay, and the test scene, so I knew every word. All I had to do was say the lines. Anyone could do that.

Cary got up and telephoned Dore Schary, and when Cary and I finished lunch, we walked back to the set. The test scene was with just Cary and me. It was a simple scene, with only a dozen or so lines.

As I looked at Cary, I wondered what stardom was going to be like for me, because I knew that co-starring in a movie with Cary Grant was going to change my life. I would be getting offers and proposals to star in other movies. I would be internationally famous. From now on, I would have no privacy and no leisure. My life would belong to the public. But I was prepared to make the sacrifice.

We had reached the soundstage. Irving Reis said, "Quiet on the set, everybody."

Everyone was suddenly still, watching us.

Irving Reis said, "Camera." He turned to us. "Action."

Cary gave me my cue. I stared at him for a long, long moment while he waited for me to speak. I looked up at what seemed to be millions of people staring down from the catwalk, and suddenly I was back at school, with my play, standing on the stage, laughing hysterically. I panicked and, without a word, I turned and fled from the soundstage.

That was the end of my acting career. Now that the burden of stardom was no longer weighing me down, I could go back to work on my screenplay.

Dore hired Rudy Vallee to replace me and Suddenly It's Spring began shooting. Everyone seemed pleased with the way it was going.

One day David Selznick called me into his office. "I want you to do something for me."

"Certainly, David."

"It's National Brotherhood Week. Every year a different studio makes a short film about bringing all religions together."

I knew about it. When the short film was over, the lights would come on in the theaters and ushers would walk up and down the aisles, collecting money for the charity.

"We're doing it this year. I want you to write it."

"No problem."

"We have half a dozen stars lined up. You'll write about two minutes for each one."

"I'll get to work on it."

The next day I brought in a two-page script I had written for Van Johnson, who was to be photographed first. Selznick read it. "Good. Take it to Van. He's in a bungalow on the back lot."

I carried the two pages over to Van Johnson's bungalow. When he saw me, he opened the door, and I introduced myself. At that time Van Johnson was one of the biggest stars at MGM.

"Here are your pages," I said. "We're ready to shoot as soon as you are."

"Thank you." He added, ruefully, "I had a terrible dream last night."

"What was that?"

"I dreamt that this big star coming over from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer learned his lines, and then they kept changing them, and he panicked. The dream woke me up."

I laughed. "Don't worry. These are your lines."

He smiled and glanced down at the pages. "I'll be ready in a few minutes."

I went back to Selznick's office.

"It's all set," I said.

"I have an idea," Selznick replied. "I want you to change Van's lines."

"David, I just left him. He was nervous. He had a nightmare about his lines being changed."

"To hell with him. Here's what I want." And he gave me a new direction for the scene. I hurried back to my office, rewrote it, and showed it to Selznick.

"Good," he said. "That's it."

I hurried back to Van Johnson's bungalow. He opened the door.

"I'm ready."

"Van, there's been a slight change. Mr. Selznick thought this would be better." I handed him the new pages. He turned pale.

"Sidney, I wasn't joking about my dream. I really - "

"Van, it's only two pages. It's a cinch."

He took a deep breath. "All right."

I went back to David Selznick's office.

"I have another idea," he said. "It would be better if we took this angle with Van . . ."

I was horrified. "David, he's already panicky. We can't keep changing his lines."

"He's an actor, isn't he? Let him learn them."

He told me what he wanted. Reluctantly, I went back to my office and rewrote the scene.

The hardest part was facing Van Johnson again.

I walked up to his bungalow. He started to say something, then looked at my face. "You didn't . . ."

"Van, it's only two pages. This is the last time."

"God damn it. What are you doing to me?"

I finally got him calmed down. "Come over to the set when you're ready," I told him.

I did not go back to David Selznick's office. The rest of Van's segment went smoothly.

Richard telephoned the next day.

"Bro?"

It was great to hear his voice. "How are you doing, Richard?"

"Whatever I've been doing, I have to do for two now. I'm getting married."

I was thrilled. "That's great news! Do I know her?"

"Yes. Joan Stearns." Joan and Richard had gone to school together in Chicago.

"When is the wedding?"

"In three weeks."

"Damn! I have to be out of the country, shooting a segment for this project I'm doing for National Brotherhood Week."

"You'll meet her when you come back. We'll come for a visit."

As promised, Richard and his lovely, upbeat wife arrived in Los Angeles a month later. It was obvious that they were very much in love. We spent a delightful week together, until it was time for them to return to Chicago.

The next morning, when I arrived at my office, my secretary said, "Mr. Selznick would like to see you."

He was waiting for me. "Sidney, I have some news for you."

"What's that?"

"I'm changing the name of the picture. We're not going to call it Suddenly It's Spring."

I was listening. "What are you going to call it?"

"The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer."

I looked at him a moment, thinking he was joking. He was serious.

"David, no one is going to pay money to see a picture called The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer."

Fortunately, it turned out that I was wrong.