The Other Side of Me

The Other Side of Me Page 32

At the start of the second season, Jeannie went to color. I was hiring other writers to help me carry some of the load, but I was dissatisfied with many of the scripts they turned in. A lot of writers believed the best approach was to pile fantasy on fantasy. They wanted Barbara to meet a Martian or some other fantasy character. I felt that the success of the show depended on a bedrock of reality: the incongruity of putting Jeannie in ordinary, everyday situations.

As an example, I wrote a script with the following premise: Tony was away at work, and a man from the IRS came to his house and was greeted by Jeannie. To impress her visitor, Jeannie blinked in wall-to-wall genuine Rembrandts, Picassos, Monets, and Renoirs.

"See," she told a stunned tax investigator, "my master is very rich."

Tony had to get out of it.

In another sequence, Tony was having Dr. Bellows over for dinner. Jeannie thought the house was too small, so she blinked in an enormous ballroom, an ornate dining room, a huge garden, and a large swimming pool. Tony has to explain the transformation to Dr. Bellows.

From February 1966 to April of the following year, I wrote thirty-eight consecutive scripts under my own name. In Hollywood, screen credits are the criteria by which a writer exists. Everyone fights to get a credit because that leads to the next job. I had a problem. I felt that I was getting too many credits. My screen credits on Jeannie read: "A Sidney Sheldon Production . . . Created by Sidney Sheldon . . . Produced by Sidney Sheldon . . . Written by Sidney Sheldon . . . Copyright by Sidney Sheldon." It felt to me like an ego trip. I called the Writers Guild and told them I was going to start writing for the show under three different pseudonyms: Christopher Golato, Allan Devon, and Mark Rowane. From then on, my doppelgangers wrote many of the scripts, and I had one fewer credit.

After the first year of Jeannie, Gene Nelson had other offers and decided to leave the show. I knew I was going to miss him. I used a variety of directors, most often Claudio Guzman and Hal Cooper.

And the show went on.

Sammy Davis, Jr., was over at our house one night for dinner.

"Sammy, have you ever watched I Dream of Jeannie?"

"All the time. I love it."

"Would you be interested in doing an episode?"

"I'm in," he said. "Call my agent."

The next morning, I called his agent. "Sammy wants to do I Dream of Jeannie," I said. "Can we set it up?"

"Sure. How much are you paying?"

"A thousand dollars. That's all we pay our guest stars."

I heard a snort. "You must be kidding. Sammy tips his manicurist that much. Forget it."

"Call Sammy."

One hour later, the phone rang. "When do you want him?"

Sammy did the show and was wonderful.

We also used Michael Ansara, Barbara's husband, in the show as the Blue Djinn.

Groucho Marx called me. "It's too bad you don't have an eye for talent. I know a guy who would be great for the show. He's young and handsome and brilliant."

"Who did you have in mind, Groucho?" I asked.

"Who else? Me."

"Why didn't I think of that?"

A week later I wrote an episode for Groucho called "The Greatest Invention in the World." As usual, he was dazzling.

One night, when Mary was in a play at school, Jorja and I were going to see her. I asked Groucho if he would like to come with us, and to my surprise, he said yes.

After the show, Mary had some of her classmates back to our house. They were fascinated by Groucho. One of my fondest memories is of Groucho Marx sitting in a chair in our den, with the boys and girls sitting in a circle on the floor, listening to him talk to them about show business.

The first year of Jeannie had been very successful and the merchandising was tremendous. There were Jeannie dolls and Jeannie bottles. Jeannie even had her own magazine, The Blink. The fan mail was enormous, but nearly all of it went to Barbara Eden. Larry could barely conceal his anger.

Jeannie was going fairly smoothly, but I was constantly putting out fires. Meanwhile, there were big emotional problems on the set of The Patty Duke Show. Patty had reached the point where she refused to let the Rosses control her. There was constant friction among the three of them.

One evening, they had a heated argument and Patty moved out of the house and found an apartment. Harry Falk flew to California and he and Patty were married. That was the end of the Rosses' power over Patty.

But on the set, the conflicts continued, and it finally got so bad that at the end of the year, even though the ratings were satisfactory, the network decided to cancel the show.

In 1967, during the second season of Jeannie, I was nominated for an Emmy. At the awards ceremony, I met Charles Schulz, who was also nominated for writing Charlie Brown. I was a big fan of his and his friend, Charlie Brown. Charles and I started talking, and he turned out to be a warm and wonderful pixie. He said that he was a fan of Jeannie.

I mentioned to Charles that I had a favorite Peanuts cartoon, where Snoopy is at his typewriter, typing: His was a story that had to be told. There is a panel of Snoopy vainly thinking. Then he types, Well, maybe not, and throws the paper away.

Shortly after the Emmys, a package arrived from Charles. It was the original strip, signed to me. I still have it hanging in my office.

Incidentally, neither of us won that year.

In September of 1967, I received an alarming phone call from Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Otto had had a major heart attack. Outside his hospital room, the doctor told me that there was very little chance that Otto could live. I went inside and stood at his bed. He was pale and I sensed that his vitality had gone. I was wrong.

He motioned for me to come closer, and when I leaned over him, he said, "I gave Richard my car. I could have sold it to him."

Those were his last words to me.

During the fourth season of Jeannie, the show that followed us was an enormous hit. It was a one-hour show called Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. I called Mort Werner, the head of NBC, and suggested that for one night, we combine the two shows. I would write a Jeannie script, using the Laugh-In characters, and immediately after that, I would have the Jeannie cast appear on Laugh-In. Mort thought it was a good idea.

At one time there was a lot of speculation going on in Hollywood about Barbara Eden being forbidden to show her navel. There were half a dozen different theories, but what really happened was the following:

I wrote a script called "The Biggest Star in Hollywood." Judy Carne, Arte Johnson, Gary Owens, and George Schlatter (Laugh-In's executive producer) appeared in my script interacting with the Jeannie characters.

Then George Schlatter showed me the script that the Laugh-In show writers had prepared for our cast. The opening scene had Barbara Eden in her Jeannie costume slowly coming down the stairs with a spotlight shining on her navel. I told George that I thought that was in bad taste and I refused to let the cast of Jeannie go on Laugh-In.

So, what we finally ended up with was the Laugh-In group in our show, but none of our cast in their show.

I Dream of Jeannie was completing its fourth year, ready to go into its fifth. We had not received our official pickup for the fifth year. I received a call from Mort Werner.

"I think Jeannie and Tony should be married."

I was taken aback. "That would destroy the show, Mort. The fun of Jeannie is the sexual tension between Jeannie and her master. Once you marry them, that's gone. You have nothing to work with."

"I want them to get married."

"Mort, that doesn't make sense. If they - "

"Do you want the show picked up for a fifth year?"

There was a long silence. I was being blackmailed, but it was his network. "Can we discuss this?"

"No."

"I'll get them married."

"Good. You'll be on the air next year."

When the cast heard the news, they were horrified.

"Businesspeople shouldn't be allowed to make creative decisions," Larry said.

The entire cast called Mort Werner, but it was no use. He thought he was smarter than any of them. He knew what was good for the show.

For the fifth year of Jeannie, I wrote a wedding scene.

We filmed the wedding at Cape Kennedy and a lot of the Air Force brass attended. I tried to make the script as interesting as possible, but with their marriage the relationship had changed and much of the fun went out of the show. At the end of the fifth year, I Dream of Jeannie was canceled. Mort Werner had taken a hit show and destroyed it.

We had produced a hundred thirty-nine episodes. In its sixth year, Jeannie went into syndication. That was in 1971. And it played in syndication for five years.

Today, forty years after Jeannie first aired, it has been revived and is playing all over the world, still bringing laughter to millions of viewers. In color. Columbia is planning to make a movie of it.

During the time I was producing Jeannie, I got an idea that I thought was exciting. It was about a psychiatrist whom someone was trying to murder. What intrigued me was that as far as he knew, he had no enemies. But if he was a good psychiatrist, he would have to figure out who was trying to kill him and why.

The problem with the idea was that I felt it was too introspective. You had to get into the psychiatrist's head to see how he solved what was happening. I decided it would be impossible to do in the dramatic form. It would have to be a novel where his inner thoughts could be explained to the reader. But I knew I was not capable of writing a novel, so I dropped the idea.

Groucho called me to tell me that a play about the Marx Brothers and their mother, called Minnie's Boys, was opening on Broadway, at the Imperial Theatre. He asked if Jorja and I would fly back east with him to see the show. Though I was busy producing at the time, I said yes. We flew to New York, saw the show - which was well done - and attended the cast party afterward.

The next morning, we went to the airport to catch a plane home. There was an air traffic controllers' strike. Our plane started to taxi and the pilot's voice came on the loudspeaker to announce that there would be a one-hour delay because of the strike. We taxied back to the gate, and two hours later, the pilot came on the loudspeaker again, to announce that there would be a three-hour delay.

Groucho rang the stewardess.

"Can I help you, Mr. Marx?"

"Yes. Is there a minister on board?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Some of the men are getting horny."

The great poet T. S. Eliot was putatively anti-Semitic. Groucho had a framed picture of Eliot on one of the walls of his home.

When I asked him about it, he said, "Eliot wrote to me, asking for an autographed picture. I sent a photograph to him and he sent it back to me. He wanted one with my cigar in it."

Eliot respected Groucho so much that, in his will, he had written a request that Groucho preside over his memorial, which Groucho did.

Shecky Greene was another one of the comedians we'd see at Groucho's famous dinner parties. I once asked Shecky the difference between a comic and a comedian.

He said, "A comic opens funny doors. A comedian opens doors funny."

Shecky was one of the top nightclub acts around the country. What was interesting about him was that he had no act. No two shows of his were ever the same. He would walk out onto the stage and ad-lib for a hysterical forty-five minutes.

One night, when we were at one of Shecky's shows at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Shecky told the audience, "Frank Sinatra saved my life. When I walked out the stage door onto the parking lot, three hoodlums started beating me up. After a while, Frank said, 'Okay. That's enough.'"

After the show, we went backstage to Shecky's dressing room.

I was puzzled. "What was all that about Sinatra?"

"Well, I go on before Frank. A few nights ago, I made some jokes about Frank's family. After the show, Frank said, 'Don't do that again, Shecky.' Well, you know me. I don't like anyone telling me what to do. So the next show, I told some more jokes about Frank's family. When I finished the show, I went out to the parking lot and these three hoodlums started to work me over.

"Finally, Frank said, 'That's enough.' And they disappeared."

I first met Frank in 1953, when he was down and out, before he made his comeback. His studio contract had run out, his record deal was canceled, and no one wanted to book him for personal appearances. But with his talent, he quickly got his career back.

Frank Sinatra lived by his own rules. Actually, there were several Frank Sinatras and you never knew which one you were going to get. He could be a warm and generous friend, and he could be a bad enemy.

Sinatra was engaged to Juliet Prowse, a talented dancer and actress, and when she mentioned the engagement to a reporter, Sinatra called it off.

When lyricist Sammy Cahn flew to Los Angeles and checked into the Beverly Hills Hotel, Sinatra had Sammy's luggage moved to the Sinatra home. During an interview, Sammy Cahn mentioned Sinatra and soon after found that his luggage had been moved back to the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Frank had never met George C. Scott, but he admired his work, and when Scott had a heart attack, Frank arranged for medical care and took care of all the bills. Frank was also generous in contributing to charity.

Sinatra had married and divorced Ava Gardner, but he never completely got over her.

Carl Cohn, the manager of the Sands Hotel, and I were in Frank's apartment, getting ready to go out to dinner to celebrate Frank's birthday. Ava was in Africa, shooting Mogambo.

Frank made no move to leave.

Finally, I said, "Frank, it's ten o'clock. Carl and I are starving. What are we waiting for?"

"I was just hoping that Ava would call and wish me a happy birthday."

Every Thursday night for years, a group of us who called ourselves "The Eagles" would gather at our home for dinner and a few hours of interesting conversation. Each week it was the same group, along with their wives. Sid Caesar, Steve Allen, Shecky Greene, Carl Reiner, and Milton Berle. Through the years, we had the pleasure of watching all their careers skyrocket. These were the giants of comedy, and as decades passed, I realized they were all getting less young. Soon their voices would be lost, as though they had never existed. But I had an idea.

I thought of a way to preserve the image of the incredible talent and at the same time aid colleges with their financial problems. I had been involved in education, and had served as national spokesperson for the Coalition for Literacy, so what I had in mind seemed like an exciting plan.

I broached my idea to the group at dinner one evening.

"Friends," I said, "I would like to put a show together with all of you on the future of comedy. I would be the interlocutor. We would travel to colleges around the country, sell tickets for our show, and donate all the money to the colleges. How many of you would like to get involved?"

The hands started to go up. Sid Caesar . . . Steve Allen . . . Shecky Greene . . . Carl Reiner . . .

"That's great," I said. "Let me make some arrangements."

I decided to do our first show in Hollywood, as a test, and the city of Beverly Hills was delighted to have us. The first-ever "Future of Comedy" panel discussion was held on July 17, 2000, at the Writers Guild Theater in front of an overflow crowd.

Our reception was wonderful, and I could see that my idea would work. Sid, Steve, Shecky, Carl, and I had a ball, and so did the audience. The laughs were nonstop. The panel members kept interrupting one another with one-liners. We were really on to something, and we were all looking forward to our new adventure together.

But shortly after that evening, fate stepped in, and everything began to fall apart. Steve Allen died, Sid Caesar was not able to travel long distances, Shecky Greene had some emotional problems, and Carl Reiner became heavily involved with movies. It was not meant to be.

But I will never forget the generosity of my friends.

In 1970, I created another television show. I called it Nancy. It was a story of the sophisticated young daughter of the president of the United States who, while on a vacation at a ranch, met and fell in love with a young veterinarian. They married. And the scripts were based on the disparities between the two lifestyles.

I cast the leads with three very good actors: Celeste Holm, Renne Jarrett, and John Fink. The pilot was shown to NBC and they bought it.

The show was a sweet, romantic comedy and the cast brought it to life beautifully. The network canceled it after seventeen episodes. At the time it was canceled, the Nielsen ratings ranked Nancy as number seventeen, which is more than strong enough to keep a show on the air. I have no idea whether the White House was displeased by the show or whether any political pressure was ever brought to bear, but I know that the cancellation was a big surprise to all of us.