A Stranger in the Mirror By Sidney Sheldon
If you would seek to find yourself
Look not in a mirror
For there is but a shadow there,
A stranger…
—SILENIUS, Odes to Truth
A Stranger in the Mirror By Sidney Sheldon
If you would seek to find yourself
Look not in a mirror
For there is but a shadow there,
A stranger…
—SILENIUS, Odes to Truth
Contents
Epigraph
Note to the Reader
Prologue
On a Saturday morning in November in 1969, a series…
Book One
1
In 1919, Detroit, Michigan, was the single most successful industrial…
2
In 1939, New York City was a mecca for the…
3
On Labor Day, the summer season in the Catskills was…
4
Vaudeville had flourished in America from 1881 until its final…
5
In the beginning, Toby Temple’s war was a nightmare.
6
Hollywood, California, in 1946, was the film capital of the…
7
When Sam Winters returned from the war his job at…
8
Toby Temple had tried to reach Sam Winters half a…
9
Actors West was divided into two sections: the Showcase group,…
10
“I’ve gotten you a booking in Las Vegas,” Clifton Lawrence…
11
The wedding, a gala event, was held in the ballroom…
12
There were days when Sam Winters felt as though he…
13
In a strange way, it was Millie who was responsible…
14
August 14, 1952, was Josephine Czinski’s thirteenth birthday. She was…
15
It was one of Sam Winters’s good days. The rushes…
16
In the early 1950’s, Toby Temple’s success was growing. He…
17
At seventeen, Josephine Czinski was the most beautiful girl in…
18
The dusty Greyhound Odessa-El Paso-San Bernardino-Los Angeles bus pulled into…
Book Two
19
Toby Temple became a superstar because of the unlikely juxtaposition…
20
Hollywood was more exciting than Jill Castle had ever dreamed.
21
It was a heady time for Toby Temple. He was…
22
It was November, 1963, and the autumn sunshine had given…
23
They had lied. Time was not a friend that healed…
24
Jill sat in front of her dressing table and studied…
25
Eddie Berrigan, the casting director for Toby’s show, was a…
26
It was the most tremendous role in Jill’s life.
27
Clifton Lawrence was in trouble. In a way, he supposed,…
28
It was a storybook honeymoon. Toby and Jill flew in…
Book Three
29
There is a smell to failure. It is a stench…
30
Jill Castle Temple was the most exciting thing to hit…
31
When they finally allowed Jill into Toby’s hospital room in…
32
Europe was a succession of triumphs.
33
Three nurses attended Toby around the clock in shifts. They…
34
When Dr. Kaplan finished his examination of Toby, he went to…
35
Toby Temple’s death made newspaper headlines all over the world.
36
The funeral was standing room only. It was held at…
37
David’s private jet plane flew Jill to New York, where…
Acknowledgments
Other Books by Sidney Sheldon
Copyright
About the Publisher
NOTE TO THE READER
The art of making others laugh is surely a wondrous gift from the gods. I affectionately dedicate this book to the comedians, the men and women who have that gift and share it with us. And to one of them in particular: my daughter’s godfather, Groucho.
PROLOGUE
On a Saturday morning in November in 1969, a series of bizarre and inexplicable events occurred aboard the fifty-five-thousand-ton luxury liner S.S. Bretagne as it was preparing to sail from the Port of New York to Le Havre.
Claude Dessard, chief purser of the Bretagne, a capa-able and meticulous man, ran, as he was fond of saying, a “tight ship.” In the fifteen years Dessard had served aboard the Bretagne, he had never encountered a situation he had not been able to deal with efficiently and discreetly. Considering that the S.S. Bretagne was a French ship, this was high tribute, indeed. However, on this particular day it was as though a thousand devils were conspiring against him. It was of small consolation to his sensitive Gallic pride that the intensive investigations conducted afterward by the American and French branches of Interpol and the steamship line’s own security forces failed to turn up a single plausible explanation for the extraordinary happenings of that day.