“Sure.”
He handed me his card. “Have him give me a call.”
“I will,” I promised.
I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to twelve. Horace Heidt would still be playing. I got into Otto’s car and drove very slowly to the Drake Hotel. When I arrived, I made my way to the ballroom where Horace Heidt was conducting his orchestra.
As I walked in, the maître d’ asked, “Do you have a reservation?”
“No. I’m here to see Mr. Heidt.”
“You can wait there.” He pointed to an empty table against a back wall.
I waited fifteen minutes, and when Horace Heidt stepped off the bandstand, I intercepted him. “Mr. Heidt, my name is Sidney Sheldon. I have a song here that—”
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t have time to—”
“But Harms wants to—”
He started to walk away.
“Harms wants to publish it,” I called after him, “but they want someone like you behind it.”
He stopped and walked back to me. “Let me see it.”
I handed him the sheet music.
He studied it, as if he was hearing it in his mind. “That’s a nice song.”
“Would you be interested?” I asked.
He looked up. “Yes. I’ll want fifty percent of it.”
I would have given him a hundred percent. “Great!” I handed him the card that Brent had given me.
“I’ll have an orchestration made. Come back and see me tomorrow.”
The following night, when I returned to the Drake Hotel, I heard my song being played by Horace Heidt and his orchestra, and it sounded even better than Phil Levant’s arrangement. I sat down and waited until Heidt was free. He came over to the table where I was seated.
“Did you talk to Mr. Brent?” I asked.
“Yes. We’re making a deal.”
I smiled. My first song was going to be published.
The next evening, Brent came to see me at the Bismarck checkroom.
“Is everything set?” I asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“But—”
“Heidt is asking for a five-thousand-dollar advance, and we never give that much on a new song.”
I was stunned. When I finished work, I drove back to the Drake Hotel to see Horace Heidt again.
“Mr. Heidt, I don’t care about the advance,” I told him. “I just want to get my first song published.”
“We’re going to get it published,” he assured me. “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to publish it myself. I’m leaving for New York next week. The song will get a lot of airtime.”
Besides his nightly broadcast, Horace Heidt hosted a popular weekly show called Horace Heidt and His Alemite Brigadiers.
“My Silent Self” would be broadcast from New York, and be heard often all over the country.
During the next few weeks, I managed to listen to Horace’s broadcasts, and he was right. “My Silent Self” did get a lot of airtime, both on his nightly broadcasts, and on the Alemite program. He used my song, but he never had it published.
I was not discouraged. If I could write one song that a major publisher wanted, I could write a dozen. And that is exactly what I did. I spent all my spare time at the piano, composing songs. I felt that twelve songs would be a good number to mail to New York. I could not afford to go to New York in person because I needed to keep my jobs, to help the family.
Natalie would listen to my songs and be beside herself with excitement.
“Darling, they’re better than Irving Berlin’s. Much better. When are you going to take them to New York?”
I shook my head. “Natalie, I can’t go to New York. I have three jobs here. If I—”
“You have to go,” she said firmly. “They’re not even going to listen to songs that come in the mail. You have to go, personally.”
“We can’t afford it,” I said. “If—”
“Darling, this is your big chance. You can’t afford not to take it.”
I had no idea that she was living vicariously through me.
We had a family discussion that night. Otto finally reluctantly agreed that I should go to New York. I would get a job there until my songs started selling.