Edward Sheldon

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.

Edward Sheldon
Edward Sheldon in 1914
Born(1886-02-04)February 4, 1886
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedApril 1, 1946(1946-04-01) (aged 60) (lymphatic cancer)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupationplaywright
NationalityAmerican

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, notably Minnie Maddern Fiske (he wrote Salvation Nell for her), Julia Marlowe, John Barrymore (his closest friend and confidante), Thornton Wilder, Alexander Woollcott, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Ruth Gordon, Helen Hayes. 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. Before marrying the painter Willard Metcalf in 1911, Henrietta McCrea was in a sentimental relationship with Sheldon[1]

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

Works

References

  • Barnes, Eric. The Man Who Lived Twice. New York: Scribner, 1956. OCLC 458626002
  1. De Veer, Elizabeth; Boyle, Richard J. (1987). Sunlight and shadow: the life and art of Willard L. Metcalf. Abbeville Press. p. 100. ISBN 9780896597532. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
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