‘Not without an appointment,’ he said firmly. He went back to his report.
Apparently the studio did not need a gate.
I spent the next two weeks making the rounds of all the studios. Unlike New York, Los Angeles was widely spread out. It was not a city for walking. Streetcars ran down the center of Santa Monica Boulevard and buses were on all the main streets. I soon became familiar with their routes and schedules.
While every studio looked different, the guards were all the same. In fact, I began to feel that they were all the same man.
I want to be a writer.
Who do I see?
Do you have an appointment?
No.
You don’t see anybody.
Hollywood was a cabaret, and I was hungry. But I was outside looking in, and all the doors were locked.
I was running out of my short supply of funds, but worse than that, I was running out of time.
When I was not haunting the studios, I was in my room, working on stories on my old battered portable typewriter.
One day, Gracie made an unwelcome announcement. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but from now on there will be no more breakfasts.’
No one had to ask why. Most of us were behind in our rent and she could no longer afford to keep carrying us.
I woke up the next morning, starving and broke. I had no money for breakfast. I was trying to work on a story, but could not concentrate. I was too hungry. Finally, I gave up. I went into the kitchen. Gracie was there, cleaning the stove.
She saw me and turned around. ‘Yes, Sidney?’
I was stammering. ‘Gracie, I—I know the new rule about—about no breakfast, but I was wondering if—if I could just have a bite to eat this morning. I’m sure that in the next few days—’
She looked at me and said, sharply, ‘Why don’t you go back to your room?’
I felt crushed. I walked back to my room and sat in front of my typewriter, humiliated that I had embarrassed both of us. I tried to go back to the story, but it was no use. All I could think of was that I was hungry and broke and desperate.
Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the door. I walked over and opened it. Gracie stood there, holding a tray, and on it was a large glass of orange juice, a steaming pot of coffee, and a plate of bacon and eggs with toast. ‘Eat it while it’s hot,’ she said.
That may have been the best meal I ever had. Certainly the most memorable.
When I returned to the boarding house one afternoon, after another futile day making the rounds of the studios, there was a letter from Otto. In it was a bus ticket to Chicago. It was the most depressing piece of paper I had ever seen. His note read: We will expect you home next week. Love, Dad.
I had four days left and nowhere else to go. The gods must have been laughing.
That evening, as Gracie’s group and I sat around the living room, chatting, one of them said, ‘My sister just got a job as a reader at MGM.’
‘A reader? What does that mean?’ I asked.
‘All the studios have them,’ he explained. ‘They synopsize stories for producers, which saves them the trouble of reading a lot of trash. If the producer likes the synopsis, he’ll take a look at the full book or play. Some studios have staffs of readers. Some use outside readers.’
My mind was racing. I had just read Steinbeck’s masterpiece, Of Mice and Men, and—
Thirty minutes later I was skimming through the book and typing a synopsis of it.
By noon the next day I had made enough copies on a borrowed mimeograph machine to send to half a dozen studios. I figured that it would take a day or two to deliver them all and I should hear about the third day.
When the third day came, the only mail I received was from my brother, Richard, asking when I was going to send for him. The fourth day brought a letter from Natalie.
The next day was Thursday, and my bus ticket was for Sunday. One more dream had died. I told Gracie that I would be leaving Sunday morning. She looked at me with sad, wise eyes. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked.
I gave her a hug. ‘You’ve been wonderful. Things haven’t worked out as I hoped they would.’
‘Never stop dreaming,’ she told me.
But I had stopped.
Early the following morning, the telephone rang. One of the actors ran over to it and grabbed it. He picked up the receiver and in his best actor voice said, ‘Good morning. Can I help you?…Who?’
The tone of his voice changed. ‘David Selznick’s office?’
The room went completely silent. David Selznick was the most prestigious producer in Hollywood. He had produced A Star is Born, Dinner at Eight, A Tale of Two Cities, Viva Villa!, David Copperfield, and dozens of other movies.
The actor said, ‘Yes, he’s here.’
We were literally holding our breaths. Who was he?
He turned to me. ‘It’s for you, Sheldon.’
I may have broken the boarding house record, racing to the phone.
‘Hello?’
A woman’s high voice said, ‘Is this Sidney Sheldon?’
I sensed instantly that I was not speaking to David Selznick himself. ‘Yes.’
‘This is Anna, David Selznick’s secretary. Mr. Selznick has a novel that he wants synopsized. The problem is that none of our readers are available.’
Is available, I thought automatically. But who was I to correct someone who was about to launch my career?
‘And Mr. Selznick needs the synopsis by six o’clock this evening. It’s a four-hundred-page novel. Our synopses usually run about thirty pages with a two-page summary and a one-paragraph comment. But it must be delivered by six o’clock this evening. Can you do it?’
There was no possible way I could get to the Selznick Studios, read a 400-page novel, find a decent typewriter somewhere, write a thirty-page synopsis and get it done by six o’clock.
I said, ‘Of course I can.’
‘Good. You can pick up the book at our studio in Culver City.’
‘I’m on my way.’ I replaced the receiver. Selznick International Studios. I looked at my watch. It was nine-thirty in the morning. Culver City was an hour and a half away. There were a few other problems. I had no transportation. I am a hunt and peck typist,
