Chapter 15
Dorothy Kilgallen was a bright, creative woman with a nice sense of humor. She was a joy to collaborate with.
Having first found fame as a crime reporter, Dorothy went on to become a powerful Broadway and Hollywood columnist. She later returned to her top-notch investigative reporting and was crucial in helping to secure a new trial for Dr. Sam Shepard, whose murder case was the basis for the popular TV series The Fugitive.
While Dorothy and Ben worked on Dream with Music, Guy Bolton and I finished the libretto of Jackpot. Vinton Freedley decided to send the show on tour before its Broadway opening, and it turned out to be a long and profitable run. Along with Allan Jones and Nanette Fabray, the show now starred Jerry Lester and Betty Garrett.
On January 13, 1944, at the Alvin Theatre, Jackpot opened on Broadway. Most of the critics loved it.
The Herald Tribune: "Jackpot dances along at a smart pace, an elegant production. "
The Mirror: "Jackpot has pleasing-to-the-ear songs and a bang up cast. Nanette Fabray is a delight. Jerry Lester and Benny Baker are top-flight laugh provokers. "
The New York Post: "Another hit from the Freedley factory. "
Ben and I had another triumph. We went to Sardi's to celebrate. It was a month before my twenty-seventh birthday.
We all knew that our biggest hit was coming up.
It was obvious to everyone from the beginning that Dream with Music was destined to be a gigantic success. Unlike Vinton Freedley, Richard Kollmar was sparing no expense to create one of the most elaborate productions Broadway would ever see. Stewart Chaney designed the intricate sets, Miles White created the beautiful period costumes. George Balanchine was the choreographer. The production contained a flying carpet on which Ronald Graham, our leading man, would make his entrance. A treadmill circled the entire stage, and the sets included a Baghdad palace, a bazaar, and a colorful game preserve with dancing animals.
Ben and I stayed on the same working schedule. I wrote with Dorothy Kilgallen during the day, in her beautiful penthouse apartment, and Ben and I worked at night in my hotel room, when he could get away from Fort Dix.
One evening when Ben and I were writing, I dropped a pen and as I bent down to pick it up, my disc slipped out, and I fell to the floor in agony, unable to move. Ben called for an ambulance and I spent the next three days in a hospital. Bad timing. We had a lot of work to do.
When I got out of the hospital, we started again, and finished the libretto.
Dorothy, Ben, and I sat in the theater watching the rehearsals, which were breathtaking. On the stage was a dazzling array of colorful costumes, beautiful backgrounds, and the exquisite dancing of Vera Zorina.
The romantic scenes between Vera Zorina and Ronald Graham, our leading man, played well. Richard Kollmar watched the dress rehearsal and said, "We're ready. "
Natalie and Marty had come to New York for opening night. We all sat near the front of the theater, in the house seats. The theater had filled quickly. Through some mysterious alchemy, theatergoers always know when they are about to see the opening of a hit show. There is an excited, knowing buzz in the audience. Ben and I looked across at each other and smiled. Three hits in a row.
The orchestra began the overture, filling the theater with the bright, melodic music of Clay Warnick and Edward Eager. The show had begun.
Stewart Chaney had arranged for an enormous silk pink bow to be sewn on the outside of the house curtain.
The overture was over and the house curtain began to rise. We could feel the anticipation of the audience. The curtain was halfway up, when the beautiful pink bow caught on a beam, loudly ripped off, and slammed into the orchestra pit. The audience gasped. What none of us knew at that moment was that that was going to be the best thing to happen that evening.
Dream with Music consisted of two acts and thirteen scenes, and the first scene opened with a dozen beautifully costumed African-American showgirls, nude from the waist up, gaily walking on the huge treadmill. But moments after the scene began, the treadmill started to speed up, and the girls began tumbling to the stage floor, one by one. The audience looked on, unbelievingly.
That was just the beginning. Things were about to get worse.
Vera Zorina, one of the most acclaimed ballerinas in the world, who had danced at the rehearsal perfectly, began her ballet, and halfway through it, in the middle of a jete, she slipped and fell, sprawled out on the stage floor. The audience was watching in horror. Ben and I were sinking in our seats. But the fates had not finished with us.
Two scenes later, Vera Zorina and Ronald Graham, in gorgeous period costumes, came out and walked to center stage, to play their love scene, in soft moonlight, with beautiful forest scenery behind them. They began speaking the tender words that Dorothy and Ben and I had written. The scene was going well and the audience was listening intently.
Suddenly, every light in the theater blacked out. The audience and the actors were plunged into total darkness. Zorina and Graham stood on the stage, not sure what to do. They began haltingly trying to continue with the dialogue, and then stopped in confusion, wondering whether to go ahead, or wait for the lights to come back on.
At that moment, out from the wings came the stage manager in rolled-up shirtsleeves, carrying a flashlight. He ran to the center of the stage and held the flashlight over the heads of the two lovers. It was so incongruous to see the contrast of the two beautifully costumed stars with the man in shirtsleeves holding a flashlight over their heads that the audience began to giggle. The actors bravely started to go on with the love scene. And suddenly every light in the theater blazed on.
That night was probably the most disastrous opening in the history of Broadway. There was no celebration at Sardi's. Natalie, Marty, Ben, and I went to a quiet restaurant, stoically waiting for the reviews.
A few of the critics tried to be kind.
"What conscientious fuse wouldn't blow itself out over the responsibility of lighting Dream with Music . . . "
"Energetic and eager. An extravaganza . . . "
"The season has produced no musical comedy prettier to look at than Dream with Music . . . "
But the major critics were hostile.
"She lived but the show died . . . "
"It's enough to make the judicious weep . . . "
"Pretty but awfully dull . . . "
"An immense, beautiful, ultra-expensive bore . . . "
Natalie looked at the reviews and declared, "They're mixed. "
The show closed after four weeks. But during its brief run, Ben Roberts and I had three plays on Broadway.
Shortly after the closing of Dream with Music, I received a strange telephone call. A man with a thick, Hungarian accent said, "My name is Ladislaus Bush-Fekete. George Haley suggested I call you. "
George Haley was a writer I knew in Hollywood. "What can I do for you, Mr. Bush-Fekete?"
"I would like to talk to you. Could we have lunch?"
"Yes. "
When I hung up the phone, I called George Haley. "What is a Ladislaus Bush-Fekete?" I asked.
He laughed. "He's a famous Hungarian playwright in Europe. He's had a lot of hits over there. "
"What does he want with me?"
"He has an idea for a play. He came to me but I'm busy, so I thought of you. He needs someone to work with who speaks good English. Anyway, it can't hurt you to meet with him. "
We had lunch at my hotel. Ladislaus Bush-Fekete was an affable man who was about five foot four and must have weighed three hundred pounds. With him was a pleasant, matronly-looking brunette.
"This is my wife, Marika. "
We shook hands. As we sat down, Bush-Fekete said, "We are playwrights. We have done many things in Europe. "
"I know. I talked to George Haley. "
"Marika and I have a fantastic idea for a play, and we would be very happy if you would write it with us. "
"What's the ide
a?" I asked cautiously.
"It's about a soldier who comes back from the war to a little hometown, to a fiance. The problem is the soldier has fallen in love with someone at the front. "
It did not sound very exciting to me. "I'm sorry," I said, "but I don't think - "
"The twist is that the soldier who comes back to the little hometown is a woman. "
"Oh. " The more I thought about that, the more the idea appealed to me.
"She has to choose between her fiance and the soldier she met. "
"Are you interested?" Marika asked.
"I'm interested. But I have a partner I work with. "
Ladislaus Bush-Fekete said, "That's fine, but his share will come out of your share. "
I nodded. "That's all right. "
I called Ben that evening and told him what was happening.
"I'm afraid you'll have to do without me," he said. "My CO is teed off that I've taken so much time away from the post. From now on, I'm trapped here. "
"Damn! I'll miss you. "
"Me, too, buddy. Good luck. "
Laci, as he asked me to call him, and Marika and I went to work. Marika's accent was not too bad, but Laci was difficult to understand. We called the play Star in the Window.
We finished the play in four months and my agent showed it to a producing team, Choate & Elkins, and they were eager to produce it. The director was Joseph Calleia. We began casting. Peggy Conklin, an excellent Broadway actress, was set as the female lead. We tested a lot of men, but we were having trouble finding the male lead. One day an agent sent over a young actor.
"Would you mind reading?" I asked him.
"Of course not. "
I handed him five pages of the script. He and Peggy Conklin began to read the scene. They had read about two minutes when I said to the actor, "Thank you very much. "
His chin went out and he said angrily, "Right. "
He shoved the pages back at me and started to walk off the stage.
"Wait a minute," I called. "You've got the part. "
He stopped, confused. "What?"
"That's right. "
He had caught the essence of the character instantly and I knew he would be perfect for the role.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Kirk Douglas. "
The rehearsals went well and Peggy Conklin and Kirk Douglas turned out to be a perfect combination. When the rehearsals were finished, we took the play out of town. Washington, D. C. , was our first stop, and the reviews fully justified our optimism.
"Star in the Window shines bright. "
"Peggy Conklin plays the lieutenant with a great deal of spirit and vitality. "
"Kirk Douglas is delightful as Sergeant Steve, always assured of himself and never missing a beat in his line of patter. "
"The audience last night found Star in the Window gay and amusing and gave it an enthusiastic round of applause that kept the curtain going up. "
I was delighted. After the debacle of Dream with Music, it would be wonderful to have another hit on Broadway. Before the New York opening, the producers had decided to change the title of the play to Alice in Arms.
The play opened on Broadway January 31, 1945. Everything went smoothly. After the opening night curtain came down, we all went to Sardi's to celebrate the reviews. The New York Times was the first one we saw: "A plague on the house. The dialogue is so wooden it could splinter. "
Daily News: "A mistake. "
Herald Tribune: "Shopworn. "
PM: "Harmless but halting. "
And these were the most positive reviews.
I locked myself in my hotel room for the next three days, refusing to answer the telephone. I kept going over the reviews in my mind, again and again. The dialogue is so wooden it could splinter . . . shopworn . . . a mistake . . .
The critics were right. I was not good enough to write for Broadway. My successes had been the result of dumb luck.
Whatever was going to happen, I knew that I could not spend the rest of my life in a hotel room feeling sorry for myself. I decided to return to Hollywood. I would write an original treatment, try to sell it, and write the screenplay. The problem was that I had no story ideas. In the past they had come easily to me, but now my mind was too distressed to concentrate. I had never tried to force an idea before, but I was desperate to come up with a project.
Early the next morning, I put a straight-back chair in the middle of my hotel room and sat down with a thick yellow pad and a pen, determined not to get up from the chair until I had a premise I liked. I discarded idea after idea until two hours later, when I came up with something that I thought could work.
I wrote a thirty-page outline and called it Suddenly It's Spring. I was ready for Hollywood.
On my way to Los Angeles, I stopped in Chicago to visit Natalie and Marty.
Natalie greeted me at the door with a hug and a kiss. "My writer. "
I had not told her about the reviews for Alice in Arms, but somehow she knew about them. She put her finger right on the problem with the play.
"They never should have changed the title. "
I spent the next few days in Chicago, visiting my aunts Fran, Emma, and Pauline, who had come in from Denver. It was wonderful to be with them and to see their pride in me. One would have thought that Dream with Music and Alice in Arms were the biggest hits on Broadway.
Finally, it was time to say my farewells, and I was on a plane back to Hollywood.
It seemed as if I had been away forever, but it had been only two years. So much had happened in that period of time. I had learned to fly and had been discharged from the Air Corps. I had written two Broadway hits and two Broadway flops.
With the war still raging, living space was scarce, but I had been lucky. One of the actresses in Jackpot kept a small apartment in Beverly Hills and she had agreed to rent it to me. The apartment was on Palm Drive and when I got there and started to put the key in the lock, the door was opened by a young, vibrant man. He looked at the key in my hand.
"Hello. "
"Hello. "
"Can I help you?"
"Who are you?"
"My name is Bill Orr. "
"Sidney Sheldon. "
His face lit up. "Ah, Helen told me you'd be coming here. "
He opened the door wider and I stepped inside. It was a lovely little well-furnished apartment, with a bedroom, a small living room, a den, and a kitchenette.
"I hate to put you out," I said, "but I - "
"Don't worry. I was ready to leave anyway. "
I found out why when I read the next morning's Los Angeles Times. Bill Orr was about to marry Jack Warner's daughter and would later become head of Warner Television.
My next stop was the boardinghouse on Carmen Street to visit Gracie. Nothing had changed except for the faces. There were new wannabes filling the rooms - tomorrow's stars and directors and cameramen, all waiting for the Phone Call.
Gracie had not changed at all. She still bustled around, mothering all her nestlings, dispensing soothing advice and commiserating with those who had given up and were leaving.
I got a big hug and an "I hear you're famous now. " I was not sure whether I was famous or infamous.
"I'm working on it," I said.
We spent a couple of hours talking about old times, and finally I told her I had to go. I was seeing my agent.
I had signed with the William Morris Agency, one of the top agencies in Hollywood, and was being handled by Sam Weisbord, a short, dynamic agent with a constant tan, which I later learned was replenished from time to time in Hawaii. Sammy had started as an office boy at William Morris, and years later would work his way up to president.
Sammy introduced me to some of the other agents and to Johnny Hyde, who was the vice president of the agency.
"I've been hearing about you," Hyde said. "We're going to do some interesting thi
ngs together. "
At that moment, his secretary walked in.
"This is Dona Holloway. "
She was lovely, tall and slim, with intelligent gray eyes and a warm smile. She held out her hand. "Hello, Mr. Sheldon. I'm glad you're going to be with us. "
I was going to like this agency.
I said to Sammy and Johnny Hyde, "I wrote an original story that I brought with me. "
"Fine," Sammy said. "How would you like to go to work right away?"
"I'd like that. "
"One of our clients, Eddie Cantor, has a picture deal at RKO. The problem is he hasn't been able to come up with a script that the studio will approve. The deal runs out in three months and if we don't have a script that the studio okays by then, it's off. He'd like you to create something. A thousand dollars a week. "
And I had only been back in Hollywood one day.
"Great. "
"He wants to see you this afternoon. "
I had no idea what I was in for.