Several years later I decided I wanted to do a black-tie show with sophisticated people in elegant backgrounds. I created Hart to Hart, and it went on the air in 1979, with Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg producing. We were fortunate in obtaining Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers as our stars. The show was a hit and ran for five years.
In the midst of my doing other projects, the idea about the psychiatrist kept coming back to me. I could not seem to get rid of it. It was as though the character was demanding to have a life. I had no confidence in my ability to write a novel, but in order to get the psychiatrist off my back, I decided I was going to write his story.
Mornings I dictated the novel to one of my secretaries. Afternoons I put on my producer's hat and worked on other projects.
The novel was finally finished and I had no idea what to do with it. I did not know any literary agents.
I called a dear friend of mine, the talented novelist Irving Wallace.
"Irving, I have a manuscript of a novel here. Who do I send it to?"
"Let me read it," he said.
I sent it to him and waited for his phone call saying, "Don't send it to anybody."
Instead, he called and said, "I think it's wonderful. Send it to my agent in New York. I'll tell him to expect it."
The novel was called The Naked Face and it was turned down by five book publishers. The sixth one to read it was Hillel Black, an editor at William Morrow.
My agent called. "William Morrow wants to publish your book. They'll give you a thousand-dollar advance."
I was filled with a sudden sense of excitement. I was going to have a book published. William Morrow did not know it, but I would have gladly paid them a thousand dollars.
"Great," I said.
Hillel wanted a few minor changes made and I quickly took care of them.
The novel was published in 1970. The day The Naked Face came out, I panicked. I was sure it was going to break every publishing record: that it was not going to sell one single copy. I was so certain of it that I hurried to a bookstore in Beverly Hills and bought one copy - a tradition that I have continued to this day.
It is customary when a book comes out for an author to travel around the country, publicizing it, making the public aware that the book is in stores. Authors appear on television shows, attend book parties, and go to literary lunches to publicize their books. I called Hillel Black.
"I just want you to know," I said, "that I'm willing to go on a book tour. I'll do all the television shows you can set up and - "
"Sidney, there is no point in sending you on a book tour."
"What are you talking about?"
"Outside of Hollywood, no one knows who you are. None of the shows will book you. Forget it."
But I did not forget it. I called a public relations man and explained the situation to him.
"Don't worry about it," he said. "I'll handle it."
He booked me on The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, The Merv Griffin Show, and The David Frost Show, as well as half a dozen others.
He also arranged for me to go to a literary luncheon at the storied Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, California. The procedure was for the authors to talk briefly about their books, have lunch, and then the people in attendance would buy the books, which were at the back of the room, and come up to the dais to have the author sign his or her book.
Next to me on the dais that day were Will and Ariel Durant, the popularizers of world history who spent a lifetime writing The Story of Civilization; Francis Gary Powers, who had written his book about his experiences of being shot down in a U-2; Gwen Davis, a well-known novelist; and Jack Smith, who wrote a popular column in the Los Angeles Times.
During lunch, each of us was introduced and we briefly talked about our book.
When lunch was over, members of the audience bought their books at the back of the room and then lined up in front of their favorite authors. There was a line in front of Will and Ariel Durant that ran clear to the back of the room. The line in front of Jack Smith was almost as long. Gary Powers had a long line, and so did Gwen Davis.
There was not one single person in line for my book. Red-faced, I took out a notebook, pretending to be busy writing. I wished there was some way I could have escaped. The lines for the other authors got longer and I sat there, writing gibberish.
After what seemed like forever, I heard a voice say, "Mr. Sheldon?"
I looked up. A little old lady was standing in front of me. She said, "What is your book called?"
I said, "The Naked Face."
She smiled and said, "All right. I'll buy one."
It was an act of mercy.
That was the only book I sold that day.
A few weeks later, I flew to New York and met with Larry Hughes, the president of William Morrow.
"I have good news," Larry said. "We've sold seventeen thousand copies of The Naked Face and already went into a second printing."
I looked at him for a long moment. "Mr. Hughes, I have a television show on the air that's watched by twenty million people every week. I'm really not thrilled with selling seventeen thousand copies of anything."
When the reviews of the book came out, I was pleasantly surprised. They were almost all favorable, and the topper was the New York Times review. The reviewer said, "The Naked Face is clearly the best first mystery of the year." And to top it all off, at the end of the year I received an Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination.
When I returned to Hollywood, I was still working on Nancy, but I could not stop thinking about writing another novel. The Naked Face had not been financially successful. In fact, I had spent more on publicity than the book had made. But there was a more important element involved in writing the novel. I had experienced a sense of creative freedom that I had never known before.
When one writes a screenplay or television show or a play for the theater, it is always a collaborative effort. Even if you write alone, you are working with a cast, a director, a producer, and musicians.
The novelist is free to create whatever he or she wants. There is no one to say:
"Let's change the scene to the mountains instead of the valley . . ."
"There are too many sets . . ."
"Let's cut out the words here and create the mood with music . . ."
The novelist is the cast, the producer, and the director. The novelist is free to create whole worlds, to go back in time or forward in time, to give his characters armies, servants, villas. There is no limit except the imagination.
I decided that I was going to write another novel, even though I had no expectations that it would be any more successful financially than The Naked Face. I needed an exciting idea, and I remembered a story of mine that Dore Schary had refused to buy at RKO, Orchids for Virginia. I decided that that was the story I wanted to tell. I turned the screenplay into an elaborately textured novel, and changed the title to The Other Side of Midnight.
The book was published a year later and it changed my life. It stayed on the New York Times best-seller listfor fifty-two weeks. The Other Side of Midnight became a phenomenon, an international runaway best-seller.
Bea Factor's prediction that I would become world-famous had finally come true.
