Master of many media Sheldon dies aged 89.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

Sidney Sheldon, who enjoyed very successful careers in cinema, theatre, and later television before turning to fiction and becoming a spectacularly popular novelist, has died in Los Angeles following complications from pneumonia. He was 89.

Sheldon, who was born in Chicago in 1917, sold his first written work at the tender age of 10, securing $10 for a poem. After trying a variety of jobs during the Depression, he found his first Hollywood job as a script reader at the age of 17, while writing his own screenplays at night. He also enjoyed precocious success on another coast, in another medium, at one time having three musicals on …