“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.
“Congratulations!”
“Thanks,” I managed.
George Murphy said, “Mr. Sheldon, in the interests of science and posterity, would you mind telling us where you got this original idea?”
How could I not have prepared something? Anything?
I was staring at him. “Er—well—when I was back in New York, they had a lot of—you know—bobby-soxers around, and watching them gave me the idea that there might be a picture in it. So, I—I put it together.”
I could not believe the asininity of what I was saying. I felt like a complete fool. I finally pulled myself together long enough to thank the cast and Irving Reis. I thought about Dore Schary and whether I should mention his name. He had behaved disgracefully and I was angry with him. On the other hand, he had co-produced the movie.
“. . . and Dore Schary,” I added. I accepted my Oscar and stumbled off the stage.
When I got back to my seat, Dona said, “That’s so wonderful. How do you feel?”
How did I feel? I felt more depressed than I had ever felt in my life. I felt as though I had stolen something from people who deserved it more than I did. I felt like a phony.
The awards went on, but from that moment, what was happening on the stage became a blur. Ronald Colman was holding an Oscar and talking about A Double Life. Loretta Young was thanking everyone for The Farmer’s Daughter. Everything seemed to go on forever. I could not wait to get out of there. On what should have been the happiest night of my life, I was suicidal. I have to see a psychiatrist, I thought. Something is wrong with me.
The psychiatrist’s name was Dr. Judd Marmer. He had been recommended to me by friends who had consulted him. I knew that he had many patients in show business.
Dr. Marmer was a large, earnest man, with silver-gray hair and probing, blue eyes.
“Mr. Sheldon, what can I do for you?”
I thought of how I had run away from the meeting with the psychologist at Northwestern University.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“Why did you come to see me?”
“I have a problem and I don’t know what it is. I have a job I like at MGM. I’m making a lot of money. I won an Oscar a few days ago and—” I shrugged. “I’m just not happy. I’m depressed. I fought hard to get there, and I succeeded and . . . there’s no ‘there.’”
“I see. Do you get depressed often?”
“Sometimes,” I said, “but everyone does. I’m probably wasting your time.”
“I have plenty of time. Tell me about some of the things that have depressed you in the past.”
I thought about all the times when I should have felt happy, and instead felt miserable, and all the times when I should have been depressed and was happy.
“Well, when I was in New York, a songwriter named Max Rich . . .” I talked and he listened.
“Have you ever felt suicidal?”
The sleeping pills from Afremow’s drugstore . . . You can’t stop me, because if you stop me now I’ll do it tomorrow . . .
“Yes.”
“Do you feel a loss of self-esteem?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a feeling of worthlessness?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel that you don’t deserve your success?”
He was reading my mind. “Yes.”
“Do you have feelings of inadequacy and guilt?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse me.” He leaned forward and pressed a button on the intercom. “Miss Cooper, tell my next patient that there will be a delay.”
I felt a cold chill.
Dr. Marmer turned to look at me. “Mr. Sheldon, you’re suffering from manic depression.”
I hated the sound of it. “What exactly does that mean?”
“It’s a brain deviation that involves episodes of serious mania and depression, where moods swing from euphoria to despair. It feels as though there’s a thin screen between you and the world. So, in a sense, you’re an outsider looking in.”