Marilyn Monroe

by Michelle Morgan

  Marilyn was reluctant to return to the summerhouse in Amagansett, and when she did go back, something was very different. Gone was the happy girl who greeted the locals, and in her place was a nervous young woman who would not speak to other customers in the Post Office, and was rumoured to drink a lot. Even her relationship with Miller’s family became strained when his mother came to visit the couple, only to find Marilyn distant and suspicious of her; she cut short her visit and returned to New York.

  Local farmer John Damiecki remembered one episode that occurred after the Millers’ return to Amagansett: ‘I would be in my potato fields when Marilyn would ride her horse through the field. She was never in any hurry and I would have to stop work in order to let her through. One time Marilyn was riding through the field and she was drunk and fell off the horse. My brother and I had to catch the horse and Arthur Miller walked it back to the house. He came back and invited us up to the house and when we got there he said, “Marilyn, John is here,” but she paid no attention – she was out of it by then.’

  There were reports too that Marilyn had tried to overdose either in the Amagansett home or at her 57th Street apartment; luckily Miller was there to prevent the incident becoming fatal, but the emotional scars were everywhere apparent.

  After spending the rest of the summer in Amagansett, the Millers returned to their 57th Street apartment and tried hard to pick up the pieces after the miscarriage and overdose. ‘I’m almost well again,’ Marilyn told reporter Bob Thomas. ‘I don’t have all my energy back but it’s returning bit by bit.’ The couple also met architect Frank Lloyd Wright who was known for his ‘organic architecture’, and commissioned him to design a huge family home on the land connected to their Roxbury house: ‘He’ll go with us the next time he’s in town. We’ll need a house with plenty of room. We have two children [Jane and Bobby Miller] and there’ll be plenty more.’

  The plans drawn up by ninety-year-old Wright are a wonder to behold. Drawing inspiration from a home he had designed in 1949, he drew up blueprints for a huge house which included a large domed living room, library, luggage room, storeroom, gallery, dining room, kitchen, breakfast room, conservatory, card room, dressing room, outdoor swimming pool, servants quarters, guest rooms, costume room, children’s room, sewing room, dressing room and much more. The unique feature was the domed living room that had three tiers, each slightly lower than the other, with a large crystal chandelier, glass walls and a movie screen. Showing that babies were still very much on the agenda, the home also came with ramps instead of stairs, and a large nursery.

  When she told reporter Radie Harris about the house, she seemed bright and happy, but in the end the plans were dropped and the Millers instead continued to remodel the existing farmhouse, adding a garage and studio for Miller, and also building a nursery. ‘We do long so much for a child, but that will come I’m sure,’ she later said. ‘I look at our house, and I know that it has been home for other families, back through all those years. And it’s as if some of their happiness has stayed there even after they went away, and I can feel it around me.’ The history of the home and its previous owners was something Marilyn was intrigued by, and when she found an autograph book in the attic with the signature of General Grant in it, she was intrigued and enjoyed the thrill of wondering if it was authentic.

  Meanwhile, she was buoyed to hear that her mother, Gladys Baker Eley, was showing relatively good progress at Rockhaven Sanitarium. News came that not only did she take part in a Christmas bazaar at the home, but had also presided over the refreshments stand, arranging cookies and sandwiches on a tray and showing off a candy wreath that she had made herself. Inez Melson, Marilyn’s former business manager and Gladys’ guardian, also sent Marilyn a Christmas gift of four table mats, which were made by her mother on the Rockhaven loom, and reported that not only was she the only resident to use it, but she was now working on a rug for her room.

  Marilyn was glad hear that her mother was showing improvement, though she knew their relationship could never be a close one, no matter how well she became. Marilyn would continue to pay for her mother’s treatment (although on several occasions the payments were extremely late in coming), but would never see her again. ‘Marilyn purposely stayed away because her mother would become very upset,’ Melson later said.

  1958 started in much the same vein as 1957: weekdays in New York and most weekends and holidays in the country. It was around this time that a young artist by the name of Tom Tierney (who would later go on to write the successful Marilyn Monroe Paper Dolls book) met Marilyn and Arthur whilst living in a loft on First Avenue, New York: ‘My neighbors on the top floor were Jack Hamilton and Charles Schneider. One was the movie editor for Look magazine and the other the movie editor for Life. They had made their loft into a very elegant apartment with a wonderful view. After a few weeks I noticed that on each Saturday they seemed to be throwing a party and I asked [my friend] Shirley about it. She told me that actually they were holding interviews for actors and movie stars who wanted to be featured in their particular magazines.’

  Eventually Tom was asked if he’d like to help out at the interview parties and as such he occasionally worked as a greeter, making sure everyone coming into the apartment was comfortable and had drinks. One day there was a knock at the door, which Tom went to answer. He remembered: ‘There stood Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller! Marilyn was a very quiet girl and Miller did all the talking, holding court for all and sundry. They came on several occasions so that I finally felt comfortable chatting with them, especially Marilyn.

  ‘One day, in the middle of the week, I had cleaned up my studio and was carrying a couple of large paper bags full of crumpled paper, pencil shavings, and other debris down the stairs to put in the garbage cans in front of the building, when I was suddenly face to face with Marilyn coming up. Because my arms were full she couldn’t get past me and she sweetly said, “Here Honey, let me help carry your packages down for you.” I am probably the only fellow in the world who ever let Marilyn Monroe carry out his garbage! She was definitely a sweetheart . . . and I’ll never forget our brief acquaintance.’

  But while Marilyn was happy to potter around New York, she was also beginning to think about work too. ‘My Marilyn Monroe Productions company is all set to start things going in a big way,’ she later said, and she wondered whether she should do a remake of the Marlene Dietrich movie, Blue Angel. In the end though the decision was made for her when she read a brief outline of a movie entitled Some Like it Hot, which Billy Wilder was in the process of writing. He was writing the screenplay with Marilyn in mind, and told her that if she liked it, he would finish it for her. ‘So I read it, and I loved it,’ she later said, and agreed to do the film without even reading the rest of the script.

  Her instincts were right. Some Like It Hot was to be a box-office smash and all-time great. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis shone in the parts of Daphne and Josephine, male musicians disguised as women in order to escape the unwanted attentions of the Mafia, while Marilyn had never been funnier, her innocence of character gelling with the roughness of Josephine and Daphne perfectly. (However, Marilyn herself was slightly disappointed in the outcome of the movie. In an unidentified interview in 1960, she declared that she thought the film was ‘all right’ but would have cut it differently, insisting that, ‘I thought I did some of the scenes better than the ones that were kept in.’)

  While Marilyn made plans to fly to Los Angeles to make Some Like It Hot, Miller stayed at home to hear if his 1957 guilty verdict would be overturned. When Marilyn left for California, he wrote her a loving letter to say how ‘entirely alive’ and at home he felt with her, and expressed the joy she gave him, describing her as his dear baby girl and comrade. Without her he felt lonely, he said, and wrote that if they ever had children together, he would know what to do and how to be with them. Many people have declared that the Miller marriage was over as soon as Marilyn discovered his notebook during The Prince and the Showgirl, b
ut in actual fact, all evidence (including Miller’s letter) seems to show that the two were very much in love during this time period, and trying hard to make their marriage a success.

  In early August, whilst staying at Roxbury, Miller received news that his name had been cleared on the grounds that he had not been adequately informed of the reasons why he was answering questions before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He celebrated with workmen at the Roxbury home, who had been keeping a case of beer and bottle of whisky for just that occasion; then jetted off to reunite with Marilyn in California. She was thrilled by the result and called for Miller’s lawyer, Joe Rauh, to run for President, while even Fox’s Spyros Skouras (or ‘The Spiral Staircase’ as Miller called him) sent a letter of congratulations and admitted he had been wrong to try and convince him to name names.

  Meanwhile, shooting on Some Like It Hot had begun on a positive note at the Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood. Curtis and Lemmon had fun being coached by a German drag-queen and rehearsals were littered with jokes and laughter. The cast would often go to the Formosa restaurant for lunch, while Marilyn and ‘Josephine’ took trips to the ladies room together to see if Curtis would be recognized. The whole set had a light-hearted approach and discovering that Goldwyn Studios had banned smoking after the set of Porgy and Bess burned down, Wilder pinned a sign on the door that read, ‘Come on the Billy Wilder set and smoke your little hearts out. Some Like it Hot!’

  But before long, the problems began, as Marilyn was recovering from an ear infection, found it hard to adjust to working after a long absence, and missed her homes and her dog on the East Coast. ‘Will you return to New York after the picture?’ asked a reporter, to which she replied, ‘Just as fast as the airlines can take me. This is nice but it isn’t home.’ As an antidote to the loneliness for her dog, hairdresser Sydney Guilaroff presented her with two parakeets, from which she chose one – a male called Butch. Inez Melson described the bird as ‘peachy and frothy,’ and trained it for Marilyn while she worked.

  The problems on set followed a familiar pattern: lateness; drama coach interference; absences; and forgotten lines. ‘The whole thing is kukie,’ said Jack Lemmon. ‘We were called for the first shoot this morning, so we arrived at 7 a.m. Here it is noon and we still haven’t been in front of the cameras. They’ve been retaking Marilyn’s scene.’

  ‘Marilyn is frequently late, it’s true,’ said Billy Wilder. ‘But she does beautifully once she gets under way.’ It got to the point where Marilyn’s non-appearance on the set led her to be nicknamed ‘MM: Missing Monroe’ by the press, and once again reports started to circulate that she was pregnant. This time the rumours were right; she had became pregnant during the production, which led Miller to request Wilder to excuse her from early starts. However, the demand left Wilder completely bewildered since Marilyn never arrived until at least 11.30 a.m., long after everyone else had got there.

  The lateness was something that caused a great deal of tension between Marilyn and the cast and crew. ‘She doesn’t know we’re alive,’ commented one disgruntled crew member, while Lemmon later remembered that she would drive everyone crazy with her lateness, and would lock herself in the dressing room, refusing to come out until she was psychologically ready. Anyone knocking on her door before that moment was told to ‘Fuck off’ in no uncertain terms.

  But not everyone was annoyed by Marilyn’s lateness; for some it was also an advantage. Peggy McGuiggan was hired to portray a trumpet player in the ‘All Girls’ Band’, and thought Marilyn was ‘adorable; very, very charismatic. The first time I saw her, she was walking down the street, just coming from the hairdressers. She had rollers in her hair and was wearing slacks, but still all the attention was riveted on her; she looked spectacular. Marilyn was always late on the set, but that was an advantage to me because I was originally contracted for two weeks, but that went up to four months.’

  Perhaps the absences would not have been such a problem if Marilyn was able to work once she was on set, but often she found it impossible. During one famous incident, she had to walk into the room and ask, ‘Where’s that bourbon?’ but she stumbled on the lines so much that it required approximately seventy takes and, in the end, the lines had to be pasted into a drawer so she could read them. Added to that, Marilyn was so cut off from others on the set that rumours began to circulate that attempting friendship with her was a guaranteed way of losing your job. Despite that, Marilyn claimed she had never been happier and declared herself to be more thoughtful than ever.

  Reporter Peer J. Oppenheimer visited the set on one occasion, and discovered a rule in place that demanded female co-stars had to have their hair darker than Marilyn’s. When some of the girls rebelled against this rule and had their hair bleached, they were immediately sent back to the hairdresser. Remembered Oppenheimer: “I interviewed her several times [over the years], and gradually noticed a pronounced change in her. On the set of Some Like It Hot, I witnessed Billy Wilder and her co-stars becoming very agitated because Marilyn could never remember her lines. Billy always had to use her best take. But in the long run, no one held it against her.’

  Off the set Marilyn took some time to visit Aunt Enid and Uncle Sam Knebelkamp, whom she hadn’t seen for many years. As James Glaeg, friend of neighbour Catherine Larson, later recalled: ‘When Marilyn first became an international celebrity, she began very deliberately to ignore the Knebelkamps. This hurt their feelings and they confided to Catherine their misgivings that perhaps Marilyn had not completely forgiven them for not having provided her with a home at some certain time [when the Goddard family were moving to West Virginia in 1942]. Marilyn didn’t call for a long time, and Enid was very sad about it.’

  This was sad and completely misguided, of course, since she had been very close to the family for many years after 1942. The truth is that since Aunt Grace’s death, Marilyn had cut ties with most if not all of her foster family, although she was always unwilling to discuss her reasons why.

  Shortly after she had renewed her friendship with Aunt Enid, James Glaeg and his friend Robert Larson visited the Knebelkamp family and heard first-hand about the feelings they still held for their foster-niece: ‘Bob [Larson] asked if she had been hearing from Marilyn lately. Enid answered that she had called recently. “She’s pregnant now, you know,” Enid said. I mentioned then that I was a fan of Marilyn, and Sam, who had so far said little, now said, “She’s a good girl,” almost painfully. As though conscious of falling away from that male pose which isn’t supposed to think of Marilyn Monroe in terms of goodness. They said nothing more about her, but later Sam remarked that show business was a good business to stay out of. No doubt Marilyn’s experiences had given him this conviction.’

  ‘They were glad [she had visited],’ recalled Sam and Enid’s granddaughter, Jo Olmstead. ‘They really did care about her and the main reason they never wanted to talk to anyone in the media about her was that they did not want Norma Jeane to feel hurt or betrayed.’

  After her family ties were renewed, the Some Like It Hot production moved to the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, where Marilyn seemed happier than she had in Los Angeles: her husband was on set; she believed the sea air would be good for the baby; and her fans cheered her on whilst she was filming on the beach. But her continued happiness was not to be; she became frustrated with the number of photographers, and once screamed, ‘No pictures, no pictures,’ at a bemused onlooker.

  Frequently scenes were disturbed by the sound of jets from a nearby Navy base and fans were disturbed to see Marilyn being carried from the set in the arms of her husband on several occasions. More drama occurred when, after filming a love scene on 14 September, she was driven by Miller to the Cedars of Lebanon hospital, where she was treated for exhaustion, although some believe the episode was the result of another drug overdose.

  The film had originally been slated to shoot in three months, but at this point in time it was clear to everyone that this would not be the case: on 18 Oc
tober it was reported that once again Marilyn was absent from the set, and although she persistently claimed to be ‘just tired’, everyone knew she was pregnant.

  Finally, Some Like It Hot wrapped towards the middle of November, but Marilyn’s problems were far from over. On 10 November she had collapsed on set, and cast members remembered her expressing concern that she was losing her baby. She was taken to her hotel room and there she remained for several days before finally being allowed to fly back to New York for medical tests. On doctors’ orders she was forced to rest and cancel any publicity appearances, but it was all in vain; on 17 December it was confirmed that Marilyn had lost the baby and was truly devastated. (It has been widely reported since that Marilyn miscarried on 17 December, but actually this was the date it was confirmed, not when it happened. Indeed, Marilyn’s press representative told reporters that doctors determined earlier that week that she had miscarried, but they did not say exactly when.)

  During this time, one of the gynaecologists responsible for Marilyn was Dr Oscar Steinberg, who adored her on sight and did everything he could to comfort her. His daughter, Vanessa Steinberg, remembered him talking about Marilyn with great respect, but the same cannot be said of his feelings for Arthur Miller, who he felt was rude and dismissive of Marilyn’s problems. ‘He treated her like an inferior,’ he was later to tell his daughter.

  On 22 December Life magazine published an article with text by Arthur Miller and photos by Richard Avedon, which depicted Marilyn in the guise of various film stars including Jean Harlow, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich and Lillian Russell. Marilyn and Avedon took a great deal of care and attention to recreate the sets and make-up, and the result was that she became completely absorbed in the roles she was playing. Perhaps inspired by this project, Marilyn later made plans to play Jean Harlow in a movie, but as with many of her proposed projects, it unfortunately did not come to fruition.