He stopped me. ‘You don’t have to wait,’ he said. ‘I’ll look these over when I get a chance. Why don’t you come back tomorrow?’
I gave him my best professional songwriter’s nod. ‘Right.’ I would have to wait another twenty-four hours for my future to begin.
At four-twenty I was back in my uniform at the RKO Jefferson. The manager had been right about the balcony. There was a lot of giggling going on up there. A young man and woman were seated in the last row. As I started toward them he moved away from her and she hastily pulled down her short dress. I walked away and did not go upstairs again. To hell with the manager. Let them have their fun.
The following morning I was at the Harms office at eight o’clock, in case Mr. Tasker came in early. He arrived at nine and opened the door.
‘Good morning, Sheldon.’
I tried to judge from his tone whether he had liked my songs. Was it just a casual ‘good morning’ or did I detect a note of excitement in his voice?
We stepped inside the office.
‘Did you have a chance to listen to my songs, Mr. Tasker?’
He nodded. ‘They’re very nice.’
My face lit up. I waited to hear what else he was going to say. He was silent.
‘Which one did you like best?’ I prodded.
‘Unfortunately they’re not what we’re looking for just now.’
That was the most depressing sentence I had ever heard in my life.
‘But surely some of them—’ I began.
He reached behind his desk, took out my envelope and handed it to me. ‘I’ll always be glad to listen when you’ve got something new.’
And that was the end of the interview. But it’s not an end, I thought. It’s just the beginning.
I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon going around to the offices of the other publishers in the building.
‘Have you ever had a song published?’
‘No, sir, but I—’
‘We don’t take on new songwriters. Come back when you’ve had something published.’
How was I going to get a song published if publishers wouldn’t publish any of my songs until I had a song published? In the weeks that followed, when I was not at the theater I spent my time in my room, writing.
At the theater, I loved watching the wonderful movies we showed there. I saw The Great Ziegfeld, San Francisco, My Man Godfrey, and Shall We Dance? with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They transported me to another world, a world of glamour and excitement, elegance and wealth.
My money was running out. I received a check from Natalie for twenty dollars and I sent it back. I knew that without the additional income I had been earning, and Otto not working, life would be even more difficult for them. I wondered whether I was being selfish in thinking of myself when they needed help.
When my new batch of songs was ready, I took them to the same publishers. They looked at them, and gave me the same infuriating answer: ‘Come back when you’ve had something published.’
In one lobby, a wave of depression hit me. Everything seemed hopeless. I did not intend to spend my life as an usher, and no one was interested in my songs.
This is an excerpt from a letter to my parents, dated November 2, 1936:
I want all of you to be as happy as possible. My happiness is an elusive balloon, waiting for me to grab it, floating from side to side with the wind, across oceans, big green meadows, trees and brooks, rustic pastoral scenes and rain-swept sidewalks. First high, barely visible, far out of reach, then low, almost within reach, blown here and there by the vagaries of a playful wind, a wind one moment heartless and sadistic, the next gently compassionate. The wind of fate, and in it rests our lives.
One morning, in the lobby of the YMCA, I saw a young man about my age sitting on a couch, furiously writing. He was humming a melody, and seemed to be writing a lyric. I walked up to him, curious.
‘Are you a songwriter?’ I asked.
He looked up. ‘Yes.’
‘So am I. Sidney Sheldon.’
He held out a hand. ‘Sidney Rosenthal.’
That was the beginning of a long friendship. We spent the whole morning talking and it was as though we were soul mates.
When I went to work the following day, the theater manager called me into his office. ‘Our barker is sick. I want you to get into his uniform and take his place until he gets back. You’ll work days. All you have to do is walk up and down in front of the theater and say, ‘‘Immediate seating. No waiting for seats.’’ The job pays more.’
I was thrilled—not because of the promotion, but because of the raise. I would send the extra money home.
‘How much does it pay?’
‘Fifteen-forty a week.’
A dollar a week raise.
When I put on the uniform, I looked like a general in the Russian army. I had nothing against my job as a barker, but could not stand the boredom of saying, ‘Immediate seating—no waiting for seats,’ over and over and over. I decided to dramatize it.
I began to yell, in a stentorian voice, ‘An exciting double feature—The Texas Rangers and The Man Who Lived Twice. How does a man live twice, ladies and gentlemen? Come in and find out. You’ll have an afternoon you will never forget. Absolutely no waiting for seats. Hurry, before we’re sold out!’
The real barker never did show up and I kept the job. The only difference from before was that I now worked mornings and early afternoons. I still had time to go see all the music publishers who were uninterested in my songs. Sidney Rosenthal and I wrote a few songs together. They received a lot of praise and no contracts.
At the end of the week I would usually find myself with only ten cents in my pocket. I had to get from the theater to the Brill Building, and I had to decide whether to have a hot dog for five cents and a Coca-Cola for five cents and walk the thirty-five blocks, or have a hot dog, no Coke, and take the subway uptown for a nickel. I got used to alternating the routine.
A few days after I started working as a barker, business at the theater began to pick up.
I was out in front of the theater, yelling, ‘You won’t want to miss Conquest, with Greta Garbo and Charles Boyer. And there’s another treat for you—Nothing Sacred, with Carole Lombard and Fredric March. These are the world’s greatest lovers, who will teach you how to be great lovers. And admission is only thirty-five cents. Two lessons in love for thirty-five cents. It’s the bargain of the century. Hurry, hurry, hurry, get your tickets now!’
And the customers came.
With the next films, I had even more fun. ‘Come and see the most fantastic double bill in the history of show business—Night Must Fall, with Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell. Keep your overcoats on because you’re going to get cold chills. And with it, as an extra treat, is the new Tarzan picture,’ at which point I gave a loud Tarzan yell, and I watched people from a block away turning around to see what was happening, and coming back toward the theater and buying tickets. The manager was standing outside, watching me.
At the end of the following week, a stranger walked up to me.
‘Where is the son of a bitch from Chicago?’
I did not like his tone. ‘Why?’
‘The manager of the RKO Theater chain told all the barkers we all have to come and watch the bastard and do what he does.’