Bermuda Triangle, Kaufman, Thalberg and Sheldon

There are tales about missing vessels, missing airplanes and ghost ships – enough to chill the souls of the faint hearted. And writings on the subject range from paranormal, voodoo and supernatural, UFO’s, a black hole somewhere in the Bahamas as well as time warp and third dimension theories.

Of all the strange happenings within the Bermuda Triangle Flight 19 has probably drawn more notoriety to the area than any other tragedy. Flight 19’s 14 men and five planes coupled with the 13-man crew and the PBM Mariner sent out to search for the others were all lost without a trace.

Those tragic losses immediately led to speculation into the paranormal possibilities of that fateful day. And the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle grew in proportion to the unanswered questions produced by subsequent investigations and hearings.

There is no doubt in my mind that prior to the hurricane warning system, started in 1945, the Bermuda Triangle got its share of unannounced hurricanes, that ripped through the area with no warning to inhabitants of the islands or ships at sea. Sea captains and crews new to the area were not capable of reading signs of looming danger such as sea swells, wind changes, cloud formations or barometric pressures, whereas the old seafaring skipper could generally read those markers and steer his ship out of harms way.

Of course when the warning system went into effect land bases as well as ships at sea were given warning bulletins advising of dangerous hurricanes their locations and movement directions. The system, while not perfect, at least, gives everyone a fighting chance to take evasive action of some kind.
(To be continued.)

Let’s go to the Movies:

George S. Kaufman was a member in good standing of the Algonquin Round Table, a great playwright and satirical wit. Kaufman once said, ‘Satire is a play that closes on Saturday night.’ Backstage during one of his plays written for and performed by the Marx Brothers Kaufman did a shhh and cupped his hand around his ear. ‘I think I just heard one of my lines.’

In 1935 MGM wanted Kaufman to come to Hollywood and work on a screenplay for the Marx Brothers. The request was met with a resounding no. The money was good, but Kaufman had another reason to avoid Hollywood. He’d been there several years before with a number of Algonquin Roundtable members and somehow got himself into the middle of a Hollywood scandal involving Mary Astor. And to avoiding answering a bench warrant Kaufman skipped town on the first eastbound train to New York.

However, Irving Thalberg, ‘the Boy Genius’ presiding over MGM at the time took charge of negotiations and when the dollar figure rose to a hundred thousand Kaufman accepted the deal and took the train west.
He was well received by MGM, setup in an office and given material on the proposed Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera.
But after several weeks and the front office had received no progress report Thalberg called Kaufman in for a meeting. Following regular amenities the producer asked a series of rapid-fire questions about A Night at the Opera. As creative head of MGM Thalberg was a busy man and he needed quick answers.
Kaufman sat and listened patiently. Finally he spoke. ‘Mr. Thalberg, I came here to write for the Marx Brothers, not to play twenty questions.’
‘I brought you here at a pretty fancy price just to answer those questions, Mr. Kaufman. How soon can I have an outline?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kaufman.
‘Monday?’
‘I told you, I don’t know.’
‘Wednesday?’
Kaufman took a long moment, and then pinched an ear lobe several times before answering. ‘Mr. Thalberg do you want it Wednesday or do you want it good.’
Kaufman won the round. He also became a great friend of the ‘Boy Genius,’

Writers Notebook:

More Sidney Sheldon on his approach to the novel.
‘I dictate the first draft of my novels to a secretary. When the first draft is typed – and it usually runs between one thousand and twelve hundred pages – I go back to page one and start a rewrite. Not a polish – a complete rewrite. I will often throw away a hundred pages at a time, get rid of a half dozen characters and add new ones. Along the way, I constantly refine and tighten. When I get to the end of the book again, I go back to page one. I repeat this process as many as a dozen times, spending anywhere from a year to a year and a half rewriting and finally polishing, until the manuscript is as good as I know how to make it.’ 
Sidney Sheldon

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter. Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

www.tombarnes39.com
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