Marilyn Monroe

by Michelle Morgan

  Marilyn became something of a mascot for the ‘Rat Pack’, as Sinatra’s posse were labelled. She spent time with Dean Martin and his wife in Newport Harbor; discussed making a film with Sinatra; and surprised herself by quite happily settling into life in Los Angeles. ‘I’ve never had such a good time ever – in Hollywood,’ she confided to Louella Parsons. ‘For the first time in many years I am completely free to do exactly as I please. And this new freedom has made me happier. I want to look for a home to buy here; I think I’ll settle in Beverly Hills.’

  This was backed up by make-up artist ‘Whitey’ Snyder, who commented, ‘Since her divorce from Arthur Miller she’s been in her best condition for a long time. She’s happy! I’m amazed at how well she is.’

  In June 1961, Marilyn was thrilled to visit Kay Gable and meet her son, John Clark. Talking into the night with Kay, she later described the meeting as ‘Wonderful . . . kind of sad too,’ and declared John Clark as ‘My real love; he’s the big man in my life, even if he is a little young for me.’ Shortly after she was honoured to attend the baby’s christening, where she gleefully posed for the cameras and later mingled with guests at the Gable family home.

  Marilyn seemed perfectly happy with her life in Los Angeles, but she was still desperate to get the Rain project off the ground. Letters had been going back and forth between parties for the past six months, and finally on 13 June a tentative production schedule was again drawn up, with Marilyn due on set from 27 July to 19 August. She returned to New York and once there held various meetings with her lawyer Aaron Frosch and NBC. She also met writer Rod Serling at her East 57th Street apartment, where they spoke about the script until the early hours. The meeting went well but Serling was furious to discover later that Marilyn was privately rehearsing a 1923 version of the play, and not the one he had written himself.

  As a result of a meeting with Lee Strasberg on 21 June, Marilyn decided that he should get more control of the project and on 26 June told NBC of her plan. It was rejected immediately. However, on 27 June it was decided that Marilyn would only sign for Rain if she could have Richard Burton as a co-star and George Hill as director. Once again NBC refused and wrote to Marilyn to inform her of its decision to cancel the project completely.

  Marilyn was disappointed but executive producer Ann Marlowe was even more so. She immediately wired the actress, declaring: ‘I would like to again offer you ‘Rain’ for television . . . Lee Strasberg told me you were a superb Sadie Thompson.’ The telegram didn’t work, however, as Marilyn replied saying she would only consider the project if Lee Strasberg was hired as the director, a request that nobody wanted to fulfil.

  On 28 June the entire correspondence was filed away, with Marilyn’s representatives noting that unless something new was to occur, ‘this is the kiss-off’. A statement was prepared which said that Marilyn had been advised not to take part in the programme and later that day she was rushed to Polyclinic hospital suffering from what her spokesman described as ‘a mild intestinal disorder’. However, it was quickly determined that there was much more to her pain than that, and a two-hour operation was performed on the evening of 29 June to remove the entire gall bladder.

  The operation was a success, though Marilyn was in some considerable discomfort, especially after her departure from the hospital: ‘Right after I had my gall bladder operation the crowds in the street pushed at me so hard that it opened up the incision again,’ she said. She required a great deal of convalescence on her return to 57th Street, but Joe DiMaggio was on hand and Marilyn’s sister, Berniece, travelled from Florida to look after her, sleeping in what was once Arthur Miller’s study, helping around the house and walking Marilyn’s new dog, Maf, a present from Frank Sinatra. But something was troubling Marilyn, and Berniece became worried not only about her intake of prescription pills, but also by the problems she continually seemed to encounter.

  There were worries about money; anxiety over the will she had signed in January (but apparently disapproved of); concern for her career; and stress over the letters of complaint she was receiving from her mother, Gladys, who continued to live at Rockhaven Sanitarium.

  Perhaps with her mind on family connections and relationships, Marilyn invited her friend from Florida, Lynn Pupello, to stay with her during the summer. To the young woman Marilyn told something she would never forget: ‘She said that if she could pick out someone to be her daughter that it would be me; she liked the fact that I was a professional writer on an important newspaper; someone interested in and knowledgeable about archaeology, art history, architecture, film, theatre, literature and fine arts. She talked to me for hours about how depressed she was about her divorce [but also] talked about moving back to LA, so she gave me some of her nightgowns and jewellery, which she said I should wear whenever the time came later in life to marry.’

  Other erstwhile close relationships came to the fore when, together with Ralph Roberts and Berniece Miracle, Marilyn travelled to Roxbury in order to sort out some personal items which had been overlooked during the separation and divorce. Marilyn seemed in good spirits, introducing her new dog Maf to her old love Hugo. She smiled continually as if the whole meeting had been well rehearsed. She was even cordial to Miller, and while he asked about her health and poured her a cup of tea, she took delight in showing him her gall-bladder scar, as if to prove the point that she really had been ill all those years.

  But in spite of her outward confidence, being in the house she had shared with Miller all those years was a painful experience and, at the end of the meeting, she appeared to stall her departure. Getting into the car, she sat back in her seat and waved silently goodbye not only to Miller but to the place she had once thought would make her happy. She had dreamed of raising children there, of living a quiet life in the country, but it was not to be; and as she was driven past the trees and flowers she had once helped to grow, she knew she would never return to Roxbury again. It was time to move on.

  By the time Marilyn had fully recovered from the gallbladder operation, it was time for Berniece to return to Florida and Marilyn’s thoughts returned once again to work. She refused Twentieth Century Fox’s requests for her to do Loss of Roses (which later became The Stripper with Joanne Woodward) but they did insist she star in Something’s Got to Give, a George Cukor-directed film, which was a remake of the 1940 movie, My Favourite Wife. This, along with a desire to see therapist Ralph Greenson, prompted a return to Los Angeles in September where she settled into 882 North Doheny Drive, the apartment she had lived in before her marriage to DiMaggio in 1954.

  On 22 September Marilyn returned briefly to New York, only to encounter problems during take-off, which forced the plane to return to Los Angeles. The episode disturbed her and, as soon as she touched down, she sent a telegram to Joe DiMaggio, informing him that she would be leaving again at 5 p.m., and confiding that when the plane was in trouble, the two things she thought about was, ‘you, and changing my will,’ before adding, ‘Love you, I think, more than ever.’

  On 5 October, Patricia Newcomb sent an internal memo to her own boss, the publicist Arthur P. Jacobs, informing him of Marilyn’s new Los Angeles address, and urging that all mail should be addressed to Marge Stengel (a woman who had acted briefly as Marilyn’s assistant). To Jacobs she urged that Marilyn’s name not be put on any envelopes, and that even the street must remain secret; Marilyn was back in Los Angeles, but this time her main concern was most certainly her privacy.

  But one person who did know her address was friend Ralph Roberts, whom Marilyn asked to drive cross-country to join her in California, in order to give her massages and act as something of an unofficial chauffeur. Together they enjoyed eating steaks on the barbecue, and talking quietly into the night, until it all came to a sudden halt when Marilyn told him something quite disturbing: Dr Greenson was urging her to drop old friends and, as a result, Roberts found himself travelling back to New York.

  This has also been confirmed by Whitey Snyder, who told the �
�All About Marilyn’ club: ‘Marilyn mentioned several times that Greenson often suggested there were many of her so-called friends that were only using her and she should only trust him. She laughed and said that she often trusted her so-called friends more than him. I am sure Dr Greenson did everything to keep Marilyn under his thumb.’

  Much has been made of Greenson’s treatment of Marilyn during her last few months, and the relationship is still shrouded in mystery today. Marilyn became Greenson’s most famous client but his family now refuse to talk about her. We may never know the full extent of his control over her life, but what we do know is he did something very few doctors have done before or since – welcomed her into his home and into the bosom of his family.

  The children of former therapist Marianne Kris were not involved with Marilyn in any way, but Greenson’s children, Joan and Daniel, became friends with their father’s patient, walking with her and sharing friendly chit-chat. It was a strange way of doing things, but he was hopeful of a successful outcome, confiding to friends that she was showing some improvement though admitting to Anna Freud that he had improvised in her treatment, often wondering where he was going yet knowing he had nowhere else to turn.

  Dr Greenson discovered that Marilyn took a variety of pills including: Demerol – a narcotic analgesic; the barbiturate Phenobarbital HMC; and Amytal. She also had a unique knack of being able to get large doses of drugs from a variety of different doctors, never informing them of each other, or of other pills and prescriptions. He was concerned, especially about her use of Demerol, which was believed to be dangerous if used on a regular basis.

  To Freud he described Marilyn as a sick, borderline paranoid addict and expressed how hard it was to treat someone who had such severe problems but who was also incredibly famous yet totally alone. To this end he hired a housekeeper for Marilyn: a middle-aged woman called Eunice Murray, whom he had known since he purchased her former home in Santa Monica.

  Eunice seems to have been a jack of all trades, turning her hand to many different skills: dressmaking, cooking, landscaping, interior design, bookbinding and even psychology. She had worked with several psychiatrists and their patients, helping in their homes to give support of whatever nature was required. Greenson believed Murray to be an ideal choice as companion for Marilyn and so it was that in November 1961, she began work at Doheny Drive, chauffeuring Marilyn around town, helping with the groceries and performing simple housekeeping errands such as washing and cleaning. ‘I was everything Marilyn needed,’ Murray later said, as she recalled the vast number of tasks she undertook for the actress.

  But even though Murray believed herself a trustworthy companion, this thought was not reciprocated by Marilyn’s friends, with many of them wondering why she was there and what were her real motives. ‘My impression of Eunice Murray was that she couldn’t be trusted and that every move Marilyn made was reported immediately to Dr Greenson,’ commented Whitey Snyder to the ‘All About Marilyn’ club. ‘She was extremely quiet, secretive, and always hovering around Marilyn.’ He also wondered if Dr Greenson’s treatment was at all beneficial: ‘As the months went by it was obvious his influence was becoming stronger and stronger,’ he said. Furthermore, he felt that the frequency of visits and his twenty-four hour availability to her was ‘unprofessional and greedy’.

  During this time Marilyn was still extremely busy, getting ready for her next Fox production, contributing to articles for Paris Match, Tempo and Redbook, and giving interviews to Vernon Scott, Joe Hyams and Henry Gris. But one project was to leave a lasting impression, when photographer Douglas Kirkland was assigned to do a portrait of Marilyn for the twenty-fifth anniversary special edition of Look magazine.

  Arriving at the small Doheny Drive apartment, his first impressions were positive: ‘She was amazingly pleasant and playful like a sister and not at all intimidating as I had imagined her to be,’ remembered Kirkland. ‘She sat beside me, laughed easily and made small talk, putting me at ease. I was young and did not know how to ask her to pose for the sexy images I hoped to get, but she simplified it all by suggesting she should get into bed with nothing on but white silk. We discussed the details and Marilyn said she wanted Frank Sinatra music and chilled Dom Perignon.’

  On the day of the photo shoot, she arrived very late and when she stepped into the room Kirkland was amazed to discover that she was now Marilyn Monroe, the superstar. He remembered: ‘It was an extraordinary photo session. She was wonderful; luminous as she floated under that semi-transparent silk sheet. She arrived with her hair and make-up already done and an assistant carrying various changes of clothes although they were not really needed. She told everyone in the room, “I’d like to be alone with this boy. I find it usually works better that way.” There was sexual tension in the air and it reflected in the resulting photos.’

  However, the next afternoon, when Kirkland took the transparencies to Marilyn’s department, there was a distinct difference in her demeanour: ‘She seemed depressed. She was wearing dark glasses and might have been crying, but she eventually brightened up and decided she loved the pictures.’

  Another photographer who had the opportunity of working with Marilyn in late 1961 was Eric Skipsey, who took photos of her with Maf, her small puppy. He remembered: ‘Marilyn was a friend of mine but I only had one occasion to do a portrait sitting which was a success. It was a bit complicated in that the publicist was three-quarters of an hour late in arriving, during which time we talked and joked and even had a small taste of champagne to pass the time away. When the female publicist finally arrived she turned to me and said, “You have ten minutes Mr Skipsey,” and Marilyn immediately said, “You have as long as you wish Eric, they are my pictures, not hers.” We worked together for another hour and in fact Marilyn said I could have more time if I wished. This attitude was typical of her: she did not behave like a superstar; she was a nice and considerate person.’

  By December 1961 Marilyn’s therapy with Greenson was having its ups and downs, though she was committed to it, despite the pain it was causing. One aspect of the treatment – that of Greenson’s desire to get Marilyn working and studying once again – inspired her to write to Lee Strasberg on 19 December. In the letter, she informed her coach that through the absence of his lessons, she felt as though only half of her was functioning. She had big plans for the future and was desperate for Strasberg to move to California to work as part of a new independent production unit she was hoping to form; so determined was she that she even wrote to Marlon Brando asking for his opinion on how best to get Lee to Los Angeles, declaring that ‘time is of the essence’.

  She once told reporters that, ‘I seem to be a whole superstructure without any foundation,’ and as 1961 rolled into 1962, she said that she was now ‘working on the foundation’. At her side once again was Joe DiMaggio, shopping with her for Christmas presents on Olvera Street, buying her a little Christmas tree for her apartment, and even attending a seasonal dinner with the Greenson family and their friends. But the event wasn’t altogether successful, when the men at the house gathered around DiMaggio and bombarded him with baseball questions. Marilyn laughed when it was commented that the men were paying no attention to her at all but, in reality, she did not find it particularly funny.

  In January 1962 Marilyn’s relationship with the Strasbergs started to cool slightly when she discovered that a television project was being planned about the Actors Studio and that Lee initially did not want her to know about it, changing his mind only at the last moment. She then received a letter from Paula, asking her to sign a statement so that work could begin, which left her ‘confused by the entire situation’. Writing to Lee in mid-January, Marilyn demanded to know what her part would be in the television programme; what the idea and purpose was behind the project; and made it clear that there was no way she could possibly become involved when there were so many unanswered questions.

  Another difficult friendship was the one she had with Frank Sinatra, which went
off the boil one day when Marilyn started telling him about her childhood. ‘Oh not that again,’ he exclaimed. Marilyn was not pleased by his rebuttal of her woes, and shortly afterwards she surprised friends by refusing to give him copies of photos from a recent boat trip. ‘I’ve already given him enough,’ she told them.

  Marilyn was a warm-hearted person to people she liked, but she could also be something of a ‘monster’, as she admitted to reporter W. J. Weatherby in 1961. One person who saw this side of her was Michael Selsman, who worked with her through the Arthur P. Jacobs agency. ‘She was Pat Newcomb’s client,’ said Selsman, ‘but Pat was frequently busy with some of her other clients, so I was detailed to cover certain PR functions for her. It was always difficult to work with Marilyn – sometimes unpleasant. I had other “difficult” clients but they were also kind and generous, which Marilyn was not. She made it hard for me (and others around her) to do our jobs – just because she could. It’s tempting to say she was a spoiled brat, but it went deeper than that. She could be mean, spiteful, threatening and duplicitous; to the point I dreaded having to see her.’

  On one occasion in January 1962, Selsman and his wife Carol Lynley travelled to the Doheny Drive apartment for a meeting with Marilyn: ‘Carol was nine months pregnant, due any moment now. I couldn’t and didn’t want to leave her at home by herself, so I took her along to Monroe’s apartment, where Marilyn was to look at negatives from a photo shoot she had just done with the hot new photographer, twentyone-year-old Doug Kirkland, for Look magazine. I knocked on her door, as Carol stood shivering beside me. Marilyn opened the door and looked at Carol, whom she knew, since they had adjacent dressing rooms at the studio, and said, “You come in,” motioning to me, “but she can wait in your car.” This was unexpected and I was momentarily stunned. Carol and I exchanged glances, and I assured her I’d be out in fifteen minutes. I was frankly scared. Monroe was one of our biggest clients and I did not want to confront her, or lose my job.