The Other Side of Me by Sidney Sheldon

Author:Sidney Sheldon [SHELDON, SIDNEY]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780759567320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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.

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