“Benny, I have to tell you—he has an offer to do another movie. They’re willing to pay him the two-fifty.”
Thau said, stubbornly, “Fine. Let them pay him. We’ll get someone else.”
And so it was that instead of starring in Jumbo, Richard Burton signed to do Cleopatra, met and fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor, and together they created an exciting new chapter in Hollywood romantic gossip. My theory is that if Thau had paid the extra fifty thousand dollars, Richard Burton would have done Jumbo and married Martha Raye.
We signed Stephen Boyd for the male lead and the picture was ready to roll. The cast was brilliant. Doris Day was perfect for the part of Kitty Wonder. Stephen Boyd was excellent and Martha Raye was a delight. But my favorite was Jimmy Durante.
Durante had started as a piano player. He had opened a nightclub and formed an act with two other performers, Jackson and Clayton. An insight into Durante was that when he decided to go solo, he kept his former partners on his payroll. He loved to tell stories about the past and I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone.
My screenplay was approved, and production began. Everything went smoothly during the shooting. When the picture was released, Jumbo was nominated for the Writers Guild Award as the best-written American Musical of the Year.
My agent, Sam Weisbord, called me.
“Sidney, we just sold Patty Duke to ABC.”
I certainly knew that name. At the age of twelve, Patty Duke had gotten the role of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, had taken Broadway by storm, and when the movie was made, had received an Oscar.
Sam continued. “We already have a time slot. Wednesday nights at eight. We’re calling the program The Patty Duke Show. Everything is all set. But we have a problem.”
“I don’t understand. If everything is all set, what’s your problem?”
“We don’t have a show.”
They had sold it on Patty Duke’s name alone.
“We want you to create a show.”
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” I said, “the answer is no.”
In the early sixties, people who worked in motion pictures looked down on those who labored in television. When television was in its infancy, the networks had gone to the studios. “We have a great new form of distribution,” they said, “but we don’t know how to create entertainment. Why don’t we become partners?”
The answer was simple. The studios had their own means of distribution. They were called theaters, and most of the studios owned their own chains. They were not about to get involved with an upstart technology that they considered a passing fad. The studios were so anti-television that they would not even permit their stars to be televised going to a movie premiere.
I had been conditioned by that attitude, and I remembered my experience with Desi, so it was natural for me to say, “Sorry, Sammy. I don’t do television.”
There was a pause. “All right. I understand. But as a courtesy, would you have lunch with Patty?”
I saw no harm in that. As a matter of fact, I was curious to meet her.
We arranged to have lunch at the Brown Derby. Patty was accompanied by four agents from the William Morris office. She was then sixteen years old, smaller than I had expected, and very vulnerable. She sat next to me in our booth.
“I’m very happy to meet you, Mr. Sheldon.”
“I’m happy to meet you, Miss Duke.”
We talked during lunch and her shyness seemed to disappear, but her vulnerability remained. She held my hand during lunch, and it became obvious to me that she was hungry for love.
Patty had had a terrible background. It was like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. Her mother was psychotic. Her father was a drunk who abandoned the family. At age seven, Patty had moved in with her manager, John Ross, and his wife, Ethel, who were living in an upstairs cold-water flat. Patty had never had a family.
Before The Patty Duke Show, John Ross was a struggling, small-time manager. His clientele had consisted of minor character actors. Among them was a young actor named Ray Duke.