MASTER OF HIS GAME

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740043-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: February 19, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740043-6
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His Game
Author Sidney Sheldon,
Hammering Out the Hits
By Sarah Booth Conroy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Three words about Sidney. Sheldon's new book.
were all CBS Television needed to hand over $1
million for the mini-series rights.
The three words were "female con artist."..
The book is "If Tomorrow Comes," currently
topping The New York Times and The Washing-.
torn Post best-seller lists.
"I wouldn't let CBS.see the book itself until it
was published," said Sheldon. Then, in the middle
of a weekly executive meeting,"the door opened
and in walked four' tuxedoed men, with violins
playing `The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' fol-
lowed by two girls in evening. dresses, bearing
,silver trays with copies of my manuscript on it,
and behind them girls strewing rosebuds...
"My agent said he figured CBS deserved some
fanfare for their million."
In his checked sports coat,.sincere tie, white
hair and black-rimmed glasses,: Sheldon, at 67, is
the very image of a best-selling:California author.
in a sitcom..Look twice to be convinced that .he
isn't being played by Cary. Grant one of his best
friends. In town recently to interview former
WASHINGTON POST
19 February 1985
CIA chief Richard Helms, as well as several am-
bassadors, senators an foreign service types, all
for his next book. he talked over a cup of coffee
in his posh Regent Hotel suite.
"I don't send my books to the publisher's of-
fice," said Sheldon, whose devious mind has
brought him millions. "Many publishing houses
have spies who mimeograph manuscripts. They.
make a deal with studios, because the studios are
eager to see those manuscripts first if it's a hot
author." Rather, his publisher; William Morrow
head Larry Hughes, flies out with his editor to
'Sheldon's house-in Holmby Hills, Calif., or to the
rented castle in Italy or the flat in London. The
house guests are sequestered until they finish
reading the book and make an offer.
Sheldon hasn't always been so. hard to get. In
1970 he finished his first novel, "The Naked
Face," and asked author Irving Wallace for the
name of an agent. "Hill Black, the agent, would
call me and say, `Well, Knopf turned it down.
Simon and Schuster turned it down.' . . . Finally,
after 10 turndowns, he sold it to Morrow. Mor-
row paid me $1,000. They didn't know I would
have paid them.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740043-6