The Other Side of Me

The Other Side of Me Page 18

In September of 1947, there began one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. A thunderbolt was about to strike Hollywood with a vengeance.

America's alliance with Russia had ended and a Red Scare swept the U.S. An ambitious senator named Joseph McCarthy sensed an opportunity to make himself important. One day, he announced that there were communists in the Army.

"How many?" he was asked.

"Hundreds."

McCarthy's answer created a furor and he was on the covers of magazines and on the front pages of newspapers everywhere.

His next announcement was that he had discovered communists in the Navy and defense industries, and each time he gave an interview to the press, the numbers kept changing - always growing.

An investigative committee was formed by J. Parnell Thomas and a small group of congressmen. It was called HUAC - the House Un-American Activities Committee. The committee first targeted a group of Hollywood screenwriters, accusing them of being members of the Communist Party and inserting communist propaganda into their screenplays. Witnesses were subpoenaed to appear for hearings before the committee, in Washington.

As McCarthy's fame increased, he became more reckless. Innocent people who were being accused of being communists lost their jobs, with no chance to defend themselves. Defense industries and other businesses were investigated by the committee, but Hollywood had the highest profile, and the committee took advantage of it.

The writers, producers, and directors called to testify had three choices: They could admit they were communists and name names; they could deny they were communists; or they could refuse to testify and face imprisonment. The committee was ruthless. They insisted that if any of the people brought before them admitted they were communists, they must then name fellow communists.

Ten accused writers who refused to answer the committee's questions were sent to jail. In addition, 324 people were blacklisted in the industry, and hundreds of innocent lives were destroyed.

In Hollywood, the studio heads held a secret meeting to decide how to put the best face on what was happening. They made an announcement that they would not employ anyone who was in the Communist Party. This was the beginning of a ten-year blacklist.

Dore Schary, who was running RKO studios, boldly declared that he would quit before firing a writer accused of being a communist. Shortly after that, when the committee named a writer working at RKO, Schary fired him. The members of the Screenwriters Guild were outraged. Schary asked for a chance to explain his position to the writers. The guild auditorium was packed.

"I want to remind all of you," Schary said, "that I'm a writer, too. That's how I got started. I know a lot of you expected me to resign as head of RKO when they forced me to fire one of my writers. The reason I didn't was that I felt that staying on as head of the studio, I can do more to protect you."

And that was when he lost his audience. His self-serving speech brought boos and hisses, and the meeting abruptly ended.

One morning in the midst of all of this, Marvin Schenck, a studio executive who was a relative of Nicholas Schenck, called me into his office. No one was sure exactly what Marvin Schenck's job was, but there was a rumor that he was getting paid three thousand dollars a week to look out his window and raise the alarm if he saw a glacier moving toward the studio.

Marvin was in his late forties, a small balding man, with the charisma of an undertaker.

"Sit down, Sidney."

I sat.

He looked at me and said, accusingly, "Did you vote for Albert Maltz at the Writers Guild meeting last night?"

We had had a meeting the night before to elect a new board of directors. It was a closed meeting, but I was so startled by the question that I didn't think to ask him how he knew how I had voted.

"Yes, I did," I said.

"Why did you vote for Maltz?"

"I just read a novel of his, The Journey of Simon McKeever. It's a beautifully written book and we need good writers like him on the guild's board."

"Who told you to vote for him?"

I was getting angry. "No one told me to vote for him. I told you why I voted for him."

"Someone must have told you to vote for him."

My voice was raised. "Marvin - I just told you I voted for him because he's a damned good writer."

He studied a sheet of paper in front of him and then looked up. "Have you been going around the studio the last few weeks, raising money for the children of the Hollywood Ten?"

That was when I lost it. What he was saying was true. I had started with my own contribution and then had gone around the studio raising more money to take care of the children whose fathers had been jailed.

I don't lose my temper often, but when I do, it erupts.

"I'm guilty, Marvin. I shouldn't have done that. Let the damned kids starve. If their fathers are in prison, the kids don't deserve to eat. Let them all die!" I was screaming.

"Calm down," he said. "Calm down. I want you to go home and try to remember who told you to vote for Albert Maltz. I'll see you in the morning."

I stormed out of the office. I felt violated. The indignity of what was happening was lacerating.

I got no sleep that night. I tossed and turned and finally came to a decision. At nine o'clock in the morning, I went back into Marvin Schenck's office.

"I quit," I said. "You can tear up my contract. I don't want to work at this studio anymore." I started toward the door.

"Wait a minute. Don't be hasty. I talked to New York this morning. They said if you'll sign a statement that you're not a communist and have never been a member of the Communist Party, this whole thing will be forgotten." He handed me a piece of paper. "Will you sign this?"

I looked at it and started to calm down. "Yes," I said, "because I'm not a communist and I've never been a communist."

It was a humiliating experience, but nothing compared to what so many innocent people went through during that time.

I will never forget the dozens of talented friends of mine who would never work in Hollywood again.

In February of 1948, the Academy Award nominations were announced. I was one of five nominees, for writing the original screenplay of The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. I started to receive congratulations from my fellow workers, my agent, and friends, but I knew something they did not know: I had no chance of winning the Oscar.

The pictures I was up against were extremely popular. They included Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux, A Double Life, Body and Soul, and the powerful foreign picture Shoeshine. Just being a nominee was honor enough. I wondered which one of them would win.

I got a call from Dona Holloway, congratulating me on my nomination. Dona and I had become good friends. We often went to the theater together, or a concert, and she was always interesting company.

The morning of the Oscars, Dona telephoned. She had recently left William Morris and had gone to Columbia Studios as Harry Cohn's personal assistant, and I felt that Cohn was lucky to have her.

"Getting ready to go to the Oscars?" Dona asked.

"I'm not going."

She sounded shocked. "What are you talking about?"

"Dona, I don't have a chance of winning. Why should I sit there and be embarrassed?"

"If everyone felt the way you do," she said, "there wouldn't be anyone there to receive an Oscar. You have to go. What do you say?"

I thought about it. Why not be a good sport and applaud the winner? "Will you go with me?"

"You bet I will. I want to see you up on that stage."

The Twentieth Annual Academy Awards were held at the Shrine Auditorium. The awards were not televised then, but they were carried by two hundred ABC radio stations and the Armed Forces Radio Network. The auditorium was packed. Dona and I took our seats.

"Are you nervous?" Dona asked.

The answer was no. This was not my evening. This evening belonged to one of the other writers who would get an Oscar. I was a spectator. I had no reason to be nervous.

The ceremonies began. The winners began stepping up to the stage to receive their Oscars and I sat back, relaxed, enjoying it.

Finally, they came to the award for best original screenplay. George Murphy, an actor who had starred in many movie musicals, announced, "The nominees are . . . Abraham Polonsky, for Body and Soul . . . Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, A Double Life . . . Sidney Sheldon, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer . . . Charles Chaplin, Monsieur Verdoux . . . and Sergio Amidei, Adolfo Franci, Cesare Giulio Viola, and Cesare Zavattini for Shoeshine.

George Murphy opened the envelope. "And the winner is . . . Sidney Sheldon, for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer!"

I sat frozen in my seat. Any nominee with half a brain would have prepared a just-in-case speech. I had prepared nothing. Nothing.

George Murphy called my name again, "Sidney Sheldon."

Dona was prodding me. "Get up there!"

I got up in a daze and stumbled toward the stage, while the audience applauded. I walked up the steps and George Murphy shook my hand.

"Congratulations!"

"Thanks," I managed.

George Murphy said, "Mr. Sheldon, in the interests of science and posterity, would you mind telling us where you got this original idea?"

How could I not have prepared something? Anything?

I was staring at him. "Er - well - when I was back in New York, they had a lot of - you know - bobby-soxers around, and watching them gave me the idea that there might be a picture in it. So, I - I put it together."

I could not believe the asininity of what I was saying. I felt like a complete fool. I finally pulled myself together long enough to thank the cast and Irving Reis. I thought about Dore Schary and whether I should mention his name. He had behaved disgracefully and I was angry with him. On the other hand, he had co-produced the movie.

". . . and Dore Schary," I added. I accepted my Oscar and stumbled off the stage.

When I got back to my seat, Dona said, "That's so wonderful. How do you feel?"

How did I feel? I felt more depressed than I had ever felt in my life. I felt as though I had stolen something from people who deserved it more than I did. I felt like a phony.

The awards went on, but from that moment, what was happening on the stage became a blur. Ronald Colman was holding an Oscar and talking about A Double Life. Loretta Young was thanking everyone for The Farmer's Daughter. Everything seemed to go on forever. I could not wait to get out of there. On what should have been the happiest night of my life, I was suicidal. I have to see a psychiatrist, I thought. Something is wrong with me.

The psychiatrist's name was Dr. Judd Marmer. He had been recommended to me by friends who had consulted him. I knew that he had many patients in show business.

Dr. Marmer was a large, earnest man, with silver-gray hair and probing, blue eyes.

"Mr. Sheldon, what can I do for you?"

I thought of how I had run away from the meeting with the psychologist at Northwestern University.

"I don't know," I said honestly.

"Why did you come to see me?"

"I have a problem and I don't know what it is. I have a job I like at MGM. I'm making a lot of money. I won an Oscar a few days ago and - " I shrugged. "I'm just not happy. I'm depressed. I fought hard to get there, and I succeeded and . . . there's no 'there.'"

"I see. Do you get depressed often?"

"Sometimes," I said, "but everyone does. I'm probably wasting your time."

"I have plenty of time. Tell me about some of the things that have depressed you in the past."

I thought about all the times when I should have felt happy, and instead felt miserable, and all the times when I should have been depressed and was happy.

"Well, when I was in New York, a songwriter named Max Rich . . ." I talked and he listened.

"Have you ever felt suicidal?"

The sleeping pills from Afremow's drugstore . . . You can't stop me, because if you stop me now I'll do it tomorrow . . .

"Yes."

"Do you feel a loss of self-esteem?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a feeling of worthlessness?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel that you don't deserve your success?"

He was reading my mind. "Yes."

"Do you have feelings of inadequacy and guilt?"

"Yes."

"Excuse me." He leaned forward and pressed a button on the intercom. "Miss Cooper, tell my next patient that there will be a delay."

I felt a cold chill.

Dr. Marmer turned to look at me. "Mr. Sheldon, you're suffering from manic depression."

I hated the sound of it. "What exactly does that mean?"

"It's a brain deviation that involves episodes of serious mania and depression, where moods swing from euphoria to despair. It feels as though there's a thin screen between you and the world. So, in a sense, you're an outsider looking in."

My mouth was dry. "How serious is it?" I asked.

"Manic-depressive illness can have a devastating effect on people. At least two million Americans suffer from it, one in ten families. For some reason, it seems to strike artistic people. Vincent Van Gogh had it, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, to name a few."

That made me feel no better. That was their problem.

"How long will it take to cure it?" I asked.

There was a long pause. "There is no cure."

I started to panic. "What?"

"The best we can do is to try to control it with drugs." He hesitated. "The problem is that sometimes there are bad side effects. Approximately one in five people who are manic-depressive eventually commit suicide. Twenty to fifty percent attempt suicide at least once. It's a major contributing factor in thirty thousand suicides a year."

I sat there, listening, feeling suddenly sick.

"There will be times when, with no warning, you will lose control of your words and your actions."

I was finding it hard to breathe.

Dr. Marmer continued. "There are various forms of the disorder. Some people can go weeks, months, or years with no extreme ups and downs. They have periods of normal moods. That type is classified as 'euthymia.' I believe that's the form you have. Unfortunately, as I said, there is no cure."

Now at least what was happening to me had a name. He gave me a prescription and I left his office, shaken. And then I thought, He doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm fine. I'm fine.