Marilyn Monroe

by Michelle Morgan

  But in spite of playing down any adoration, in private Marilyn was hurt tremendously when she read that Yves had accused her of having a schoolgirl crush. The quote was false, as Montand declared to columnist James Bacon: ‘Even if it were true, which it isn’t, no Frenchman would ever make such an ungallant statement,’ but the damage was done. Marilyn never heard from her lover again, although she forever retained what she described as, ‘such a strong, tender, wonderful memory’.

  Although physically exhausted towards the end of filming Let’s Make Love, Marilyn went straight into work on pre-production of The Misfits, and also gave interviews with the Sunday Times, Marie Claire, Daily Mirror, Look, Life and Paris Match. For any person the tireless workload would be extreme, but for someone who was anaemic and frequently unwell, it was lethal. By 20 July, when she travelled to Reno for location shooting on The Misfits, Marilyn was absolutely exhausted.

  The people of Reno and Dayton were extremely excited about the arrival of The Misfits’ cast and crew, and when Marilyn touched down at the airport, she was met by several Reno VIPs including Councilman Charles Cowen, who presented her with the key to the city. There then followed a cocktail party and reception at the Mapes hotel, where Marilyn mingled with members of the press and city officials. It gave the illusion of a positive start, but it was not to be; the filming of The Misfits would be a nightmare for all involved.

  There had been many problems with Marilyn’s hair on the set of Let’s Make Love, and one of the things Dorothy Jeakins had done before her departure was to recommend the actress wear a wig to help with the wind, dirt and dryness of the desert. It was a good suggestion and saved time on hairdressing, but it was not enough to prevent major delays on The Misfits set, caused mainly by rewrites demanded by Huston. ‘I thought the original script was wonderful,’ Marilyn later said. ‘They didn’t use it because Mr Huston wanted changes.’

  But rewrites weren’t the only problem, as Marilyn’s illnesses were becoming more and more apparent: ‘The Misfits should never have happened,’ declared Allan Snyder to the ‘All About Marilyn’ fan club. ‘She wasn’t feeling well when they insisted on starting shooting and there were so many script changes in her part that Arthur made so often, she became less and less happy with her role and character.’

  The problem with the character of Roslyn was that she was based very much on Marilyn herself. It had been written as a valentine to his wife, but Arthur’s script became so personal that at times the film is painful to watch. Roslyn is a woman who is in Nevada to obtain a divorce from her husband; she meets three cowboys, played by Clark Gable, Eli Wallach and Montgomery Clift, and accompanies them on a mission to catch horses for use in the dog-food trade. At one point in the story, Roslyn describes how she never wanted children with her ex-husband, which led Marilyn to note in her script that this was just like her feelings towards Joe DiMaggio.

  There were other character similarities too, including a heartwrenching scene where Roslyn screams for the release of the captured horses. This was a reminder of the way she had reacted towards the calf being sold for veal in Roxbury, and also an incident in New York where she bought caged pigeons from some teenagers, in order to release them back into the wild.

  Angela Allen was script supervisor on The Misfits, and on meeting Marilyn at rehearsal, she discovered what she thought was a charming and delightful actress. Unfortunately, her thoughts quickly changed when shooting started and, according to Allen, Marilyn would sometimes arrive five hours late, and then only work for one-and-a-half hours before leaving. This is reiterated by Curtice Taylor, who remembered that, ‘She was late on the set every day – hours late – because she was recovering from the pills. It was like working with a hangover.’

  Her growing reliance on prescription pills was evident to everyone and both cast and crew were shocked to see her stagger around the set. Indeed, at one point the cameraman commented, ‘I can’t focus on her eyes, there’s nowhere to focus.’

  Adding to Marilyn’s misery were the ongoing marital problems between herself and Arthur Miller, made worse by the Yves Montand rumours. There were no specific incidents between them on set but it was apparent to all that the couple were not getting along, with one member of the crew describing Marilyn’s treatment of Arthur as ‘appalling’. Both had their own resentments of each other – the feeling that they hadn’t lived up to expectations – and although Miller told friends that he and Marilyn were planning a trip to Europe, in reality they could hardly bear the sight of each other.

  Friends recalled that even in the privacy of their hotel room, neither would speak to each other. ‘There seemed to be a barrier come between them, going from professional to cool and eventually hostile,’ remarked Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder to the ‘All About Marilyn’ club. As time went on Marilyn started to believe that anyone associated with her husband was against her and producer Frank Taylor was unfairly accused of being on Arthur’s ‘side’. Script supervisor Angela Allen also found herself under attack when Marilyn began spreading scandalous rumours that she was Miller’s new girlfriend. Meanwhile, Howard Sheehan Jr, who had met her briefly while his father was producing the 1947 movie Dangerous Years, saw her on the set and went up to say hello: ‘I asked her if she remembered me and she just looked at me coldly, said “No” and walked away.’

  And yet despite all this, there was still a side to Marilyn that was giving and friendly, particularly to her fans and her ‘group’: Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder; Evelyn Moriarty; Marjorie Pletcher; and Ralph Roberts. ‘When The Misfits was going bad, it was her employees who rallied round,’ remembered Curtice Taylor. She was also well liked by Eli Wallach (who had known her for many years) and Thelma Ritter, who she had worked with twice before. When interviewed on the set, Ritter was asked how Marilyn had changed from when they first met during Marilyn’s ‘formative’ years: ‘I think she has grown but I mean what she has now she had then; she’s had a chance to develop it. It’s been rather fashionable to underrate Marilyn; to say that she’s just another blonde but of course there are so many other blondes and Marilyn’s not one of them. I have great respect for her and a very deep affection for her.’

  Although Marilyn categorically turned down another appearance on the Person to Person television show, she did take time to meet certain members of the press, including Harry Brandon, who interviewed both her and Miller for the Sunday Times. Marilyn had little to say during that interview, but with reporter Peer J. Oppenheimer she found it hard to hide her misery: ‘The last time I saw her was when she was making The Misfits, remembered Oppenheimer. ‘I was there to interview both her and Clark Gable, who became extremely upset with Marilyn’s inability to get to the set on time and remember her lines. Gable was not the sort of man to become aggravated easily, but he was extremely upset with Marilyn. I think she realized there was a real problem with her career. I felt sorry for her because things were beyond her control.’

  Despite that, Marilyn told Oppenheimer that she still intended to be a mother. In the article, which was published on 11 December, she described how she would take her child with her on filming trips, and would hire a tutor so it didn’t impair the child’s education. ‘I realize it takes more thought to raise a child in show business, but it doesn’t need to work out badly,’ she stated.

  Children were very much on her mind during the shoot, and Marilyn spent time with youngsters on set, and the ones she met in town. Whilst filming a rodeo scene, she took a real delight in walking some dogs with thirteen-year-old Bob Plummer Jr; while eight-year-old Gene Walmsley took his friends to the set to meet ‘the prettiest lady I’d ever seen’. Dayton resident Edna MacDiarmid told Lyon County Reflections that Marilyn treated both her son Tom and the other children in town in a very special way, and this was extended to a fan who admired one of her diamond rings: Marilyn went out and bought her one of her own.

  Still, despite this generosity and kindness, the residents all noticed an unhappy air about her. Reporter Art Long
visited the set and witnessed Marilyn to be ‘so sad, so down in the dumps’, while a shop assistant at ‘the Joseph Magnin store described her as ‘the saddest looking woman, really tormented’. Meanwhile, during a scene filmed in Harrah’s Casino, one employee, Mark Curtis, noticed Marilyn looking seemingly oblivious to everything, before finally looking up at Curtis and smiling, ‘a smile from a sick bed,’ as he later told the Reno Gazette-Journal. ‘Though she was adored by millions, I could not imagine a more pathetic or lonely creature.’

  According to stand-in Evelyn Moriarty, Marilyn was not treated well on the set, and remembered an incident during the rodeo scene, which had her sitting for hours on end in the blazing sun while rewrites were being done. Another episode involved the filming of a long shot that Moriarty was convinced could have been shot without Marilyn, but instead the actress was forced to sit in a car for almost two hours, in the 115°C heat.

  By this point in shooting, she was very close friends with massage therapist Ralph Roberts, who also appeared in the film as an ambulance driver. In order to try and relax her, Ralph Roberts got into the habit of massaging her as she fell asleep, talking of his childhood in Salisbury, North Carolina, and making plans to take her there one day. Then one night he was shocked to be called to Marilyn’s room, only to find her barely conscious and in very bad shape. He managed to bring her round before letting himself out, only to be called back slightly later to find Marilyn unaware of what had happened just a few hours before.

  Because of her painful periods, Marilyn had an agreement that said she did not have to work whilst menstruating and on 26 August, while off set, Marilyn decided to fly to Los Angeles for a rest. She consulted her doctor, Hyman Engelberg, who was shocked to see her in such bad shape, and recommended she enter the Westside Hospital to be treated for extreme exhaustion. Arthur Miller, Paula Strasberg and May Reis accompanied Marilyn to Los Angeles, while several days later Ralph Roberts drove down with Susan and Lee Strasberg.

  Back in Nevada, Clark and Kay Gable were extremely concerned for her welfare, and sent a huge, elaborate bouquet, along with a heartfelt note. The set closed down and the cast and crew left Reno. Unfounded rumours surfaced of Marilyn being taken from the set wrapped in wet towels and that John Huston sent her to Los Angeles so he could regain money lost in local casinos. In reality, the director was so concerned that he felt if she worked much longer in the state she was in, she would surely die. ‘Marilyn got very ill up there during filming,’ remembered Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder. ‘She was under too much pressure with the situation with Arthur and all.’

  After resting for over a week, Marilyn returned to Nevada on 5 September, declaring ‘I’m looking forward to getting back to work. I’m feeling much better. I guess I was just worn out.’ The cast and crew also returned to work, and filming carried on as it did before, but it was exhausting for everyone, especially Clark Gable, who at fifty-nine was the oldest member of the cast and insisted on doing his own stunts.

  The weekend before location filming ended, Marilyn, Ralph, Paula, May and Agnes Flanagan travelled to San Francisco to see Ella Fitzgerald in concert. For Marilyn this trip was not just a chance to see Ella perform, but also an opportunity to renew ties with her old ‘family’, the DiMaggios. Joe was not in town, but Marilyn spent time with his brother and sister, along with best friend ‘Lefty’ O’Doul, and even visited the famous DiMaggio restaurant, where she had spent much of her time in 1954.

  That weekend was a turning point for Marilyn, and by the time the production moved to Los Angeles, she had decided her marriage was well and truly over. Ralph Roberts witnessed a huge row between Marilyn and her husband at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and while they kept up appearances on set, both knew that Miller had moved out of the hotel and out of her life. Snyder later summed it up during an interview with ‘All About Marilyn’: ‘I felt extremely disappointed that Marilyn once again had lost something that she had cherished so much . . . The normality of a happy marriage and life of security with the one you love.’

  ‘Arthur is a brilliant man,’ she later told Louella Parsons. ‘Maybe it wasn’t his fault that he was a much better writer than he was a husband. I’m sure that his writing is the most important thing in his life.’

  The day before the film wrapped, Clark Gable saw a rough cut of the movie and declared it to be the best thing he had done since Gone with the Wind. When they said goodbye the day after, Marilyn told Gable he was her hero, but couldn’t get up enough nerve to tell him just how much she idolized him: ‘I don’t know how he would have reacted if he had known how important he had been to me all those years,’ she told Family Weekly magazine. Alas, she was never to find out; on 5 November Clark Gable suffered a massive heart attack and, just eleven days later, on 16 November 1960, he passed away after suffering a second attack.

  On 7 November, just over a week before Gable’s death, Miller went home to Brooklyn in order to break the news of his marriage break-up to his stunned parents. He told them there was no hope of a reconciliation and added that he had left because ‘it could not go on this way’.

  ‘It hit us like a bomb,’ Augusta Miller later told Motion Picture magazine. ‘We never interfered. They had their own lives to live. And we’ve always been very fond of Marilyn. She was just as fond of us too.’ Augusta was right. They had been a huge presence in Marilyn’s life and she determined to keep in touch not only with them but with her stepchildren too: ‘I take a lot of pride in [Joe Jr, Jane and Bobby] because they’re from broken homes. I can’t explain it, but I think I understand about them. I think I love them more than I love anyone; their lives that are forming are very precious to me and I know that I had a part in forming them.’

  Back in New York on the day of Gable’s death, Marilyn was woken up at 4 a.m. in order to be told the news by a reporter. She was heartbroken and by the time she rang her friend Ralph Roberts, she was absolutely hysterical. Things were made no better when rumours began to circulate that suggested Marilyn was responsible for Gable’s death. She had become extremely close to both Gable and his wife Kay during the making of The Misfits, and these stories hit her hard, even though they did not have a kernel of truth in them. She was further disturbed to walk out of her apartment one day, only to be confronted by people shouting ‘Murderer’ at her on the street.

  This event convinced her that she was to blame for Gable’s death and she spiralled into a deep depression, spending many days alone in her bedroom, refusing to see any of her old friends, and playing sad songs on her phonograph. In his book, Marilyn: An Untold Story, Norman Rosten described how, when his wife Hedda eventually got through to Marilyn, ‘her voice was blurred, distant, unhappy’. It was a desperate situation, and no one knew just how to help her. ‘I was completely run down,’ she later admitted, ‘and was more unhappy than I remember being at any time in my life.’

  During this period of turmoil, May Reis took charge of the practical aspects of the separation, and packed up Miller’s books and papers, sending them on to Roxbury and a nearby hotel. Miller was given custody of the Roxbury house and also Hugo, the basset hound Marilyn had adored so much, while she remained in the 57th Street apartment they had leased at the beginning of their marriage. Meanwhile, on 23 November Miller officially resigned as a director of Marilyn Monroe Productions, and on 28 November, an emergency meeting was held at the offices of Weissberger and Frosch to discuss the resignation not only of Miller, but of Secretary John C. Taylor, and Advisory Committee members John F. Wharton and Robert H. Montgomery.

  With the realization that both her company and marriage were in tatters, Marilyn found little to be happy about during the run-up to Christmas, but New York publicist John Springer tried to cheer her by sending various requests for interviews, along with a tape of poet Robert Frost reading his own poetry. She even received a card from her mother, Gladys, addressed to Norma Jeane Miller though quite bizarrely signed, ‘Loving good wishes, Gladys Pearl Eley’.

  Christmas day was spent qui
etly with Patricia Newcomb, the publicist who had worked briefly on Bus Stop and who had returned to work at the end of 1960. Despite any problems they had had in the past, Marilyn was happy to welcome Newcomb into her group, and gave her a mink coat as a Christmas present. That night, Marilyn was surprised to receive a forest of poinsettias from Joe DiMaggio, sent, he said, because he knew she would call to thank him, and ‘besides, who in the hell else do you have in the world?’ Despite the fact that the two hadn’t seen each other in a long time, Marilyn agreed to see him on Christmas evening, later saying, ‘I was glad he was coming though I must say I was bleary and depressed but somehow still glad he was coming over.’

  On New Year’s Eve, Patricia Newcomb returned to Los Angeles wearing the mink coat Marilyn had presented to her, and during the flight wrote a heartfelt letter, urging her friend to ring any time, day or night; she sympathized with what she was going through and asserted what she hoped would be a lifetime friendship. It was a genuine gesture and one that Marilyn would appreciate during the bleak months ahead.

  Chapter 19

  ‘I’m working on the foundation’

  January 1961 started in a very positive fashion, with Marilyn announcing that she was to bring W. Somerset Maugham’s Rain to television for NBC. ‘I’m going to play Sadie Thompson,’ she told reporter Margaret Parton; ‘I’m really excited about doing the part because [the character] was a girl who knew how to be gay, even when she was sad. And that’s important – you know?’