The Novelist ‘Is the Star’

Author Sidney Sheldon has won an Oscar, a Tony and an Edgar Allan Poe Award, among other honors, during his prolific writing career. He is even listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most translated author, with books in 180 countries in 51 languages.

Born in Chicago, Sheldon, 83, has had a distinguished career in film, television, theater and fiction writing, with 200 TV scripts, 25 motion picture scripts, six Broadway plays and 17 novels. He received the Oscar for best original screenplay in 1937 for “The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer,” and in 1959 he helped write the Broadway musical “Redhead,” which earned four Tony awards.

His television credits include the creation of “The Patty Duke Show” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” His novels have sold more than 300 million copies.

Sheldon, whose latest novel, “The Sky is Falling,” hits bookstores in September, is married to Alexandra Kostoff, a former child actress and, more recently, an advertising executive. They live in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles. They also have residences in London and Palm Springs. His daughter, Mary, is also a writer.

Q. What do you make of the popularity of the Harry Potter books among children?

A: It’s one of the best things that has ever happened to literature because it’s getting children excited to read instead of playing computer games and doing other things like staying on the Internet. It’s so important for them to be able to read. A few years ago, I was the national spokesperson for the Coalition for Literacy and I did a lot of research. There are more than 70 million adults in this country who can neither read nor write. Now, for the children today, if they learn to read in kindergarten, that is too late. They have to be taught at home before they start school. They have to be taught a lot of literature. These are the people who in 30, 40, 50 years will be running our country, and they are so ill-equipped. We’re behind Cuba in literacy, we are behind about 30 other countries, which is a disgrace, so when something like Harry Potter comes along, it’s thrilling because it’s going to start the children reading, and when they are done with Harry Potter, they will start reading other books. The important thing is they are learning a lot of literature.

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Q: How did reading play a role in your success as a writer?

A: My mother was an avid reader. She taught a lot of literature to me, I used to hang out in the libraries all the time and I love to read. So it started for me real early and I am grateful for that. I cannot explain [if anyone played a role in his decision to write] because no one in my family was a writer and I do not know where the love for that came from. I sold my first poem when I was 10 years old to a children’s magazine, and I have been writing since I was 10. I wrote a lot of short stories, sent them to magazines and had them all come back.

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Q: What roles do television, movies, video games and Internet play in literacy among children? Are they distractions or do they help?

A: Both, I think. It opens the world to them, so that their sphere of knowledge is increased, but there is both good and bad on the Internet. It has first of all changed our lives and we will never go back to what we’ve had before, but secondly it is only the beginning. I cannot imagine what the world is going to be like in five years, with all the companies that are combining and merging. My theory is that, in seven years and three months, there is only going to be one company in the world. If you want a telephone you call that company, if you want an ambulance, if you want a building, if you want a haircut, there is going to be only one number to call. That’s the way the mergers are going. Remember, you heard it here first.

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Q: What is the difference for you in writing for movies, radio and books? Which do you prefer and why?

A: Each one is completely different. The advantage of writing for television is that you get an idea, execute it and get to watch it in maybe eight weeks. If you are lucky and the series sells, you get to watch it every week, if you want to, for years and then it goes into reruns. “Jeannie,” for instance, has been in reruns for something like 40 years: It just goes on. So that’s fun.

When you do a movie, the advantage is that you can have large sets, you can go around the world, you can have big, big stars who are very talented and you get big productions. That’s fun. I’ve done a lot of movies and they are very enjoyable. I love everything that I’ve done, in terms of the medium.

When you do theater, that’s a totally different thing because in one night--in two hours--a show you’ve done is either going to make you wealthy or you wasted two or three years writing it, because the author gets nothing in advance.

But best of all, I think, are books, because in a book your imagination has no limits. There is no budget to worry about, you can have as many characters as you want, you can give them all yachts. And villains--you can kill them off or save them. . . . It’s remarkable to write a novel, because the author is the star. He’s the musician who creates the music with his words. He’s the director. . . . It’s a one-man show. All the others are collaborative, which could be wonderful, but it’s more satisfying writing alone.

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Q: Does it matter what a young person reads?

A: Well, I think critics have different standards if they like a book. But a boy or girl finds it interesting and there is nothing in it that is obscene, there is no reason why they shouldn’t read that book. It’s just important for them to love reading. They may read some bad books, but they are also going to get to some of the good books.

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Q: Regarding reading, what differences do you see in the attitudes in other countries in contrast to the United States?

A: Other countries are way ahead of us. Germany reads more than we do, Russia reads about five times what we do. It’s amazing: Other countries are very, very literate. Here, we kind of dismiss it and that has to change.

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Q: How bad is the problem of illiteracy now in the U.S.? Or is it a matter of a lot of people who know how to read but who have become couch potatoes?

A: I think people who learn to read early and have a love of literature never stop reading, never become lazy about books, and they are always excited about books. It’s the people who never had that love instilled in them who watch television instead and don’t care about reading. I get letters from readers telling me that they have never read a book before, but someone gave them one of my books and they read it and they got hooked on reading and then I encourage them to read other writers. But you really have to learn how to love it really early in life.

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Q. Does writing a novel come easily to you, or is it always a struggle?

A: I wouldn’t say it comes easy because I do at least 10 drafts. Of the new book coming out, “The Sky is Falling,” I’ve done at least a dozen drafts and my publisher doesn’t see it until I think it is ready for publication. So I work very hard on it.

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Q: Is suspense something you like to use to keep people reading?

A: It’s very hard for me to find a book that I can’t put down. A lot of us, as we are going to sleep, we look ahead and we see that there are 10 more pages or two more pages until the end of the chapter. So we get to the end of the chapter, we close the book and go to sleep. I like to write books where, when you get to the end of the chapter, you have to turn one more page. When I hear from people that I kept them up all night, I know I’ve succeeded.