I got so many similar letters that when I did the miniseries, I let him live.
Women have told me that they had become lawyers because of Jennifer Parker, the heroine of Rage of Angels.
My novels are sold in one hundred eight countries and have been translated into fifty-one languages. In 1997, the Guinness Book of World Records listed me as the Most Translated Author in the World. I have sold over three hundred million books. If there is one reason for the success of my books, I believe it’s because my characters are very real to me and, therefore, real to my readers. Foreign readers identify with my books because love and hate and jealousy are universal emotions that everyone understands.
When I became a novelist, one of the things that struck me was how much more respect a novelist gets than a screenwriter working in Hollywood. Jack Warner said, “What are writers but schmucks with typewriters?” A sentiment shared by most studio heads.
One day when I was writing Easter Parade, I was in Arthur Freed’s office when his insurance agent came in. We were talking when the secretary announced that the dailies were ready to be seen. Freed turned to his insurance agent and said, “Let’s go look at the dailies.”
The two men got up and walked out of the room, leaving me sitting there, alone, while they went to watch a picture I had written.
Not much respect.
I enjoy traveling around the world doing research for my novels and I have fun doing it. In Athens, I was researching The Other Side of Midnight. Jorja was with me. We passed a police station and I said, “Let’s go in.”
We went inside. There was a policeman behind the desk. He said, “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Can someone here tell me how to blow up a car?”
Thirty seconds later we were locked in a room. Jorja was panicky. “Tell them who you are,” she said.
“Don’t worry. There’s plenty of time.”
The door opened and four policemen with guns came in. “You want to blow up a car? Why?”
“I’m Sidney Sheldon and I’m doing research.”
Fortunately, they knew who I was, and they told me how to blow up a car.
In South Africa, I was doing research for my novel called Master of the Game, which is about diamonds. I got in touch with DeBeers and asked whether I could go into one of their diamond mines. They gave me permission and I had the rare experience of exploring a diamond mine.
An executive of DeBeers told me about one of their mines that was a beach with diamonds lying on the surface, in full view, protected by the ocean on one side, and a patrolled gate on the other. I felt challenged, and figured out a way for one of my characters to get inside and steal the diamonds.
For If Tomorrow Comes, I checked on the security of the Prado Museum in Madrid. I was told it was impregnable, but one of my characters figured out a way to steal a valuable painting from there.
In Windmills of the Gods, I went to Romania, which was one of my locales in the book. Ceausescu was alive at the time, and there was a paranoid feeling in the city. I went to the American embassy and I was in the office of the American ambassador when I said, “I would like to ask you a question.”
He got to his feet. “Come with me.” He took me down the hall into a room guarded by Marines twenty-four hours a day and said, “What do you want to know?”
“Do you think my room is bugged?” I asked.
“Not only is your hotel room bugged, but if you go to a nightclub, they will bug you there.”
Three nights later, Jorja and I went to a nightclub. The maître d’ seated us. The air-conditioning was hitting us and we got up and moved. The maître d’ came running back and put us back at the first table. That was obviously the table that was bugged.
The next day I had lunch at the ambassador’s home and I said, “I would like to ask you a question.”