Well, now we had one. Dangerous Holiday.
A few months earlier, I had met Ray Crossett, who was in charge of the literary department at the Leland Hayward Agency, one of the top talent agencies in Hollywood. For some reason, Crossett had faith in me and had promised that one day he would represent me.
I telephoned Ray to tell him the good news about Ted Richmond.
“Ben and I just sold our first story,” I said. “Dangerous Holiday.”
“To whom?”
“PRC.”
“What’s a PRC?”
That set me back. Ray Crossett, one of the top agents in the business, had never even heard of PRC.
“It’s a studio called Producers Releasing Corporation. A producer there named Ted Richmond offered us five hundred dollars, including the screenplay we have to write.”
“Did you make a deal?”
“Well, we said we’d let him know, but—”
“I’ll call you back,” Ray said, and he hung up.
Two hours later, Ray was on the phone. “I just sold your story to Paramount. They’ll pay you a thousand dollars and you don’t have to write the screenplay.”
My first reaction was shock, but I knew what had happened. Every studio had a synopsis of every story submitted to it. When Ray called Paramount and told them Dangerous Holiday was being bought by another studio, they rose to the bait.
“Ray,” I said, “that’s—that’s great—but we can’t accept it.”
“What are you talking about? It’s twice the money and a major studio.”
“I can’t do it. I feel obligated to Ted Richmond and—”
“Look. Call him and tell him what happened. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
But I was sure that Ted Richmond would not understand.
I called his office. His secretary said, “Mr. Richmond is in the cutting room. He can’t be disturbed.”
“Will you have him call me? It’s very important.”
“I’ll give him the message.”
One hour later I called again.
“I need to talk to Mr. Richmond. It’s urgent.”
“I’m sorry. He can’t be disturbed. I gave him your message.”
I tried three times that afternoon and finally gave up.
I called Ray Crossett. “Richmond won’t return my calls. Go ahead and make the deal with Paramount.”
“I made it four hours ago.”
When Ben came in, I brought him up-to-date.
He was excited. “That’s fantastic,” he said. “Paramount is an important studio. But what do we tell Ted Richmond?”
Good question. What were we going to tell Ted Richmond?
That evening, I called Ted’s home and he answered the telephone.
Because I felt guilty, I went on the offensive. “I called you a half a dozen times today. Why didn’t you call me back?”
“I’m sorry. I was in the cutting room and—”
“Well, you should have called. Because of you, Ben and I almost lost a deal.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Paramount just bought Dangerous Holiday. They made an offer, and when we couldn’t reach you, we finally sold it to them.”
“But I’ve already put it on our schedule and we—”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said reassuringly. “You’re in luck. Ben and I have a story for you that’s much more exciting than Dangerous Holiday. It’s called South of Panama. It’s a drama, with a love story, suspense, and a lot of action. It’s one of the best things we’ve ever written.”
There was a moment of silence. “All right,” he said. “Meet me and Alex at the Pig & Whistle at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
Alex was the executive head of PRC.
“I’ll be there,” I said. I replaced the receiver and turned to Ben. “We’ll skip dinner. We’ve got to come up with a plot that has a love story, suspense, and a lot of action. We have until seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
Ben and I worked all night, tossing ideas back and forth, finding a plot, adding and deleting characters. It was getting more and more exhausting. We finished South of Panama at five in the morning.
“We did it!” Ben said. “You show it to them this morning.”
I agreed. I set my alarm for seven o’clock. I would get two hours sleep before the meeting.
When the alarm clock awakened me, I got up and groggily read our story. It was terrible. I hated the plot, the characters, and the dialogue. But I still had to go to the meeting and face Alex and Ted.