Customer Reviews

The Other Side of Me

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have read every book Sidney Sheldon has written to date and, although his recent novels are not as good as his earlier ones, he is still my favorite storyteller. I was lucky to get an advance reader's copy of his autobiography before the publication date and have already finished reading it. If you like his novels, then you will definitely enjoy reading this book. The only reason I didn't give the book five stars is that he included very little information about his career as a novel writer. The bulk of the book is about the challenges he faced early in his career as a screenplay and musical writer for which he is less known. I guess this is why he called the book 'The Other Side of Me.' In addition, I felt that he could have expanded more on his encounters with really famous people (Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, etc.). He only wrote two lines about each of them and yet he dedicated a lot of pages to people we have never heard of. Lastly, there was almost nothing about Sidney Sheldon today - his domestic life, his daily activities, his writing routine, his book signing tours, etc. Despite all this, he tells his life story as engagingly as he tells his fictional stories and reading this book was great fun.

I had always seen the name "Sidney Sheldon" but never bothered to read any of his novels. I honestly had thought the books were about a mix of cheap romance and mystery novels because their covers looked that way. It's clear now that I had totally misjudged a book by its cover. Sheldon's autobiography, however, looked dignified as I pushed my cart at our local grocery store, Wegmans. Sheldon's face looks a lot like my grandfather's. So I picked it up and flipped to the first page. The first sentence demanded my attention. So I bought the book. I'm not a fast reader but this book turned out to be an exception. I took one breath and 150 pages flew right into my head, another breath and 200 pages. The last 50 or so pages I wanted to read slowly so it didn't finish. But, alas, it did. Or in a way it's the beginning really. Because I've already loaded up on most of Sheldon's books and the first book I will read is "The Other Side of Midnight".

One of the reviewers here laments that Sheldon doesn't go much in detail about novels he has written. But I suspect much of his novels have been influenced by what had transpired in his life. Sheldon didn't start writing novels until he was in his 50s! Yet his books are the most translated works in literature according to the Guinness Book of Records.

The pace of his book felt like going through one of his manic periods. The timeline keeps accelerating and accelerating, and the closer you get to the current era, the more and more he would just skim through things. He provides great detail about his parents and his early years, but he zips right through the 1970s in a couple of pages, covers his book career in barely that much, and covers most everything since 1979 in a quick epilogue. I felt strangely unsatisfied when I was finished reading it, and I wonder if he may have felt the same about the last quarter-century.

I give it three stars because the story is very compelling into the 1960's - but it's a shame he didn't give the rest of his professional life since then the same depth of coverage.

Hope I'm still doing as good when I'm 88! This memoir by the author of so many wonderful books and movies (and TV shows) came as quite a surprise. I guess in the back of my head I had always suspected that Sidney Sheldon had a background on Broadway and Hollywood, but this reveals that he knew everybody and he knew them all intimately, the bad and the beautiful, and he relates incidents that occurred sixty years ago with the immediacy of a Quentin Tarantino melodrama. For sheer disaster, Sheldon provides a blow by blow account of the sinking of his ill-fated 1944 musical DREAM WITH MUSIC, in which everything that could possibly go wrong did, and on opening night with the critics all watching. I'd love to see it, that's for sure.

There's also portraits of all the stars, some of them more nasty than others. Those of you who disliked Harry Cohn, king creep of Columbis Studios, won't like him any better after hearing what he did to poor Donna Reed in this book, in Sidney's hearing! However Zsa Zsa Gabor, who I never really cared for, comes off as pretty gemutlich in Sidney's version of the way she introduced him to the woman, Jorja Curtright, who would become his wife and the mother of his children. His growing love for Jorja, and the birth of their children, is well told. When one of their daughters has a terrifying childhood illness, the story gains real momentum and you will be in tears by the time it is over and done with.

Despite having suffered from debilitating depression all of his life, he has been lucky in many ways. However someone should have offered to buy him the services of a fact checker, for from time to time his memory slips up and he places incidents in the wrong time frames. For example, he details the story of how the one and only Elvis Presley came to the set of one of the movies he wrote (and directed). He has this happening on the set of DREAM WIFE with Cary Grant (1953). I think that's a bit too early for Elvis. Maybe it happened but if so, it was probably later on in Elvis' career.

I've always been amazed by Sidney Sheldon's writing and how he
keeps cranking novels out--even at the age of 89 . . . what I did
not know too much about was the rest of his life.

I found much about it in listening to THE OTHER SIDE OF ME,
his entertaining memoir that traces his life from a suicide attempt
at the age of 17 to the writing of his first book in 1969 . . . he went
from being an RKO theater usher to a struggling songwriter, then
a top-flight Hollywood screenwriter in just a few short
years . . . thereafter, Sheldon he wrote and directed films and
created several classic TV shows, including I DREAM OF JEANNIE.

Along the way, he had to live with constant self-doubt and
depression, along with bipolar disorder . . . yet what most
impressed me about Sheldon was how he managed to
keep going in spite of many setbacks . .. as he notes,
"Careers in Hollywood are like elevators, up and down. The
trick is not to leave when down."

In addition, I liked the gossipy parts in the book--all pesented
in a way that was not mean-spirited . . . it was fun to learn more
about Cary Grant, Grouch Marx, Kirk Douglas, Judy Garland,
Patty Duke, and a whole host of other performers that Sheldon
worked with over the years

I also liked how Sheldon described these two pieces of advice given
to him by Harry Cohen, head of production at Columbia Pictures:

* Before I hire a producer, I always look at his golf score. If he has
a low score, I don't want him. I want producers who are only
interested in producing for me.

* Do you know when I hire an expensive director? When he's just
had a flop. His price comes down.

This the best memoir that I have ever read! I had never read a Sydney Sheldon book before, but when he died a few weeks ago, I was reading his obituary and I was shocked at his incredible life! He wrote screenplays for major movies, he wrote broadway plays, he created television shows and he wrote all of those best-selling books! I never knew that the same Sydney Sheldon that created "I Dream of Jeannie" was also the famous author. When I read that he had recently written his memoir, I rushed out to buy it. It is so well written and interesting. I could not put it down. The chapters are short and it reads like a mystery. I couldn't wait to read what happens next. His story is the American dream. He never, ever gives up, even though he suffered from manic depression. He has many setbacks but always bounced back. His story is so inspiring. I highly, highly recommend this fantastic and inspiring book! I just wish it was even longer, because I loved reading it!

I think I've read every one of his books since I discovered 'Rage of Angels'. I came to Amazon to go through his body of work and make sure I have everything. I had no idea he had an autobiographical book out. I will buy this because this man brought a lot of joy in my life through his books and I'm really sad that he's gone. lthough he just passed, he lived a long and fulfilled life so that must be celebrated. I know this book will be good so I give it 5 stars ahead of time.

After you finish this book, you will wish you had read it a couple years earlier so you could have had a chance to meet this great American. I have known for a long time that Sheldon was a great author but had no idea that he had lived the ultimate American Dream before he started writing so late in life. The book inspired me to read his fiction and he is now one of my favorite authors. In his fiction, you will see many of the characters from his life. This is a great rags to riches story!

For an author who wrote such exceptional novels, I found this to be quite boring. He spent WAY too much (2/3 of the book)on plays, screen plays, directing & producing. Not enough time on the writing of books, since that's what really made him famous( and rich). I would have liked to know more about the back story of his novels; where he got his ideas from, characters & places.

In the Afterword to "The Other Side of Me," Sidney Sheldon writes, "Of all the varied writing I have done over the years - motion pictures, theater, television, novels - I prefer writing novels."

That's a surprising statement from Sheldon given that he spends only the last ten pages of his 363-page memoir on his life as a book author - the career that really made him an international celebrity. Not even the film and TV adaptations on his books are mentioned in his memoir.

The offhand manner in which he treats his novel career, the way his title is a misleading play on his bestselling novel, "The Other Side of Midnight", and the fact that this book desperately needed an editor (published by Warner Books), are all reasons why I gave Sheldon's lightweight effort only two stars.

Sheldon is a genial, if repetitive, storyteller. His tales of coming of professional age during the golden days of the Hollywood and Broadway in the 40s and 50s and in television during the 60s, offer little insider insight on such an exciting era.

Sheldon's credits prove he is an original thinker and writer which makes this banal memoir so odd. It's a one-act treatment of a three-act life story. And that's a lousy way to drop the curtain on so prolific and accomplished a career.