Edward Sheldon

Edward Sheldon

Edward Sheldon in 1914
Born (1886-02-04)February 4, 1886
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died April 1, 1946(1946-04-01) (aged 60) (lymphatic cancer)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation playwright
Nationality American

Edward Brewster (Ned) Sheldon (Chicago, Illinois, February 4, 1886 – April 1, 1946, New York City) was an American dramatist. His plays include Salvation Nell (1908) and Romance (1913), which was made into a motion picture with Greta Garbo.

After becoming ill at age 29 with crippling rheumatoid arthritis, which eventually claimed his sight (around 1930), Sheldon became a source of emotional and creative support for his many friends, including such luminaries of the literary and theatrical world as Minnie Maddern Fiske (he wrote Salvation Nell for her), Julia Marlowe, John Barrymore, Thornton Wilder, Alexander Woollcott, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Ruth Gordon, Helen Hayes and many others. While in hospital his advice was received by those in the theatrical profession as gospel.

In May 1915 Sheldon narrowly missed sailing on the Lusitania's infamous last voyage. He had been asked by theater impresario Charles Frohman to accompany him to England. A Harvard classmate of Sheldon's was getting married on May 11 and asked Sheldon to be best man. Sheldon then declined Frohman's offer.

A 1936 lawsuit against Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for copyright infringement claimed that the script MGM used for the 1932 motion picture Letty Lynton plagiarized material from the play Dishonored Lady by Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes. The film is still unavailable today because of this lawsuit.

His life is detailed in The Man Who Lived Twice by Eric Wollencott Barnes. In this biography Barnes states that Sheldon was in love all his adult life with Doris Keane, the actress who starred in Romance in 1913.

Minnie Maddern Fiske and Frederick Perry in The High Road (1912)

Works

References

    External links

    This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/29/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.