Adieu, Sidney Sheldon

The master story-teller is gone! A shinning star dims irretrievably into the oblivion, the man born with a pen in his mouth bided the world farewell a few hours ago , this Tuesday night, from Los Angeles, California, to the great beyond.

At the ripe old and fulfilled age of 89, any thing could have happened, they said it was pneumonia, it could as well have been due to the traditional "brief illness". Sidney Sheldon through his incessantly flowing pen gave me courage and hope even from a tender age of ten, some 31 years ago. He sharpened my character and outlook when I was but a teenager. I doff my hat in salutation for this best-selling author and mentor. Thriving by the power of imagination, he held the entertainment world, spell-bound for over half of a century.

With an unparalleled achievement on STAGE, SCREEN, TV and even paperback novels, the world of entertainment owe him an eternal debt.

Long before the advent of Telenovelas, he paved the way for attention-grabbing and mind-gripping, 1,500-page, robust novels, that were never boring or tiresome until you get to the end. Thank you Sidney!

Some of his best-selling evergreen novels include: "Bloodline", "Rage of Angels", "The Other Side of Midnight", "Master of the Game" and "If Tomorrow Comes". He was once quoted as saying that, he liked to write about women who were "talented and capable."

Countless number of his works became the precursor of what we call telenovelas today. Telemovie mini serials were carved out of his many novels and many popular Hollywood actors today, rose to fame and stardom as a result of his good script-writing and story-lines which they acted. He was a movie producer of many works.

At a tender age 10, he had begun his budding writing career, selling his first major work- a poem for $10 and by age 17, hardworking Sidney had become a Script editor for Universal Studios, on a weekly wage of $22 and was able to still squeeze out extra time in the night seasons, to write his first novel whose rights he sold for $250 dollars cash.

His greatest possession in life was his pen and notepad. Legend was told about when fire gutted his home in California years back, he left all his prestigious awards OSCAR, EMMYS and TONYS and went for his pen and notepad, before running out of the house. A World War II hero of the American Air Force. He has sold over 300 million copies of his novels, translated in over 50 languages.