Chekhov introduced Marilyn to the writings of philosopher Rudolf Steiner and believed in her as a thoughtful, worthwhile actress. Not only that, his wife, Xenia, loved her too, often buying her nightclothes as she was worried by rumors that Marilyn slept in the nude. However, the relationship was also often troublesome, since the actress found it difficult to get to class on time. To keep their student/teacher relationship on track, she sent him a note, pleading with him not to give up on her. “I know (painfully so) that I try your patience,” she wrote.
Far from abandoning his student, Chekhov wanted her to go deeper into her studies. He was honest—a little too honest, perhaps—about why the studio thought of her in less than complimentary terms. According to the teacher, Marilyn gave off too many sexual vibrations, making it impossible for Fox to see her as anything but a sex symbol. He told her that if she just stood in front of a camera and did nothing at all, she could still make a fortune. It was this conversation, according to Marilyn, that gave her the confidence to begin her fight with the studio. Being a sex symbol had been fine at the beginning of her career, but now she wanted to be known as an actress of great standing, as well as a worthwhile human being.
Marilyn had expressed a wish to go in another direction when she’d reconnected with ex-boyfriend Bill Pursel just a few years before. “Marilyn said she was thinking about shedding the cheesecake, as I called it, and taking up more serious acting lessons. I had encouraged her to do this earlier; I thought she could become a great actress, especially in feminine comedy. Now she wanted drama. Had she lived, she would have turned acting heads.”
After the deep learning curve of 1954, Marilyn was finally ready to take the leap into her fight with the studio. While it all came very naturally to the actress, her decision on a larger scale was earth-shattering. It was brave enough to fight for roles she wanted, but it was something else entirely to drop her existing career to search for a new one. Throwing off any worries about the loss of her stardom, Marilyn launched into a new era. To do this, she enlisted the help of a young photographer named Milton Greene.
Greene had first met Marilyn in 1953, when he was sent to Los Angeles on an assignment for Look magazine. The actress saw some of his photos and insisted they work together—even through the night if they needed to. At the time, Milton was actually in the room but she did not realize it; she thought that he was just “this young fellow, standing around all the time.” When the two were introduced, Marilyn was amazed. “He’s thirty-two,” she later explained, “but I think he looks nineteen years old.”
They hit it off immediately, and Milton took photos of Marilyn that were completely different from the standard Hollywood portrait, showing her dressed down, relaxed, and with little makeup. Most remarkable about the pictures is that while Marilyn was now a Hollywood star, the essence of her real-life personality came shining through. She later wrote that while she’d met many top photographers during her life, Greene was so unique that she wished he could always be her photographer: “He’s not just a photographer, he’s an artist really…. One of the things that make him such an artist is he’s so sensitive and introspective. It was the first time I didn’t have to pose for pictures. He just let me think, but he always kept the camera going.”
When the two first met, Marilyn was at the beginning of what would become her first major rebellion against the studio. Greene, meanwhile, was making changes of his own. Firstly, he was about to get married to a beautiful, confident woman by the name of Amy, and second of all, he was looking to create a new career for himself. The photographer had long been known for his outstanding pictures in Life, Look, and Vogue, but now in his thirties, he wanted to branch into books and films. It was fate that the two should meet at such crossroads in their lives, and it wasn’t long before they began talking about how they could eventually work together.
Over the course of the next year, Marilyn became a close confidante to Milton and Amy Greene, sent dozens of roses on the day of their wedding, and spoke to Amy on the telephone two or three times a week. The women eventually met when Milton again traveled to Los Angeles, and they became firm friends. From then on, the idea of actress and photographer working together bubbled away in the background, and when Marilyn complained about her ongoing studio troubles, Milton suggested she walk out and start her own company. Marilyn was surprised but delighted. Nobody had ever proposed such a solution before, and she promised to give it some serious thought. Indeed, during the New York location shoot for Itch, Marilyn met with Greene and his lawyer, Frank Delaney, to secretly discuss the real possibility of reaching out for independence.
IN EARLY NOVEMBER 1954, Marilyn checked into Cedars of Lebanon hospital for minor gynecological surgery. Joe DiMaggio was at her side, and the media wondered if the two were about to reconcile. The reality, however, could not have been further from the truth. Shortly after their separation, Joe had hired a team of private detectives to find out if Marilyn was in a relationship with her voice coach, Hal Schaefer. This incident led to various scuffles and climaxed when DiMaggio and his friend Frank Sinatra kicked down the front door of an apartment, believing they would find Marilyn inside. Instead, the men discovered that they were in the wrong apartment, and while a middle-aged woman inside screamed at the sight of them, Marilyn and her voice coach made a run for it from next door.
The episode had been traumatic to everybody involved, but unbelievably, it did not stop Marilyn from remaining on amicable terms with her ex. Perhaps she felt it was easier at that time to be conversational, but if friends and reporters took her good nature to be one of reconciliation, they were very much mistaken.
One day while she was still in her hospital bed, Marilyn received a phone call from Amy Greene, asking if she would like to stay with her and Milton at their Connecticut home. With The Seven Year Itch finished, her divorce waiting to be finalized, and nothing on the horizon, the time was finally right to free the shackles of the Hollywood studio system and branch off on her own. She accepted Greene’s invitation. Milton flew to Los Angeles and the two decided that on their return to the East Coast, they would create their own film company—Marilyn Monroe Productions.
The philosophy for the film company was simple: to create films and other projects that were worthy of the public’s attention. Marilyn would provide the talent but was unable to put money into the venture, since she knew that walking out of her Fox contract would leave her without an income. Greene truly believed that the company would eventually be a resounding success and agreed to invest his own money into it, so that Marilyn could forget about cash problems and concentrate on the creative work.
During the next few weeks, there was a rush of activity. Despite having much to do, Marilyn was eager to watch Ella Fitzgerald perform at the Tiffany Club on November 18 and 19. Two days later, Marilyn was stopped and charged with driving without a license. Putting that behind her, she got on with the plans to move east, which included instructing her agent, Charles Feldman, of her intentions. Since he had been one of the producers of The Seven Year Itch, it put him in an unfortunate position. Because he was so closely associated with Fox, Marilyn believed him to be more inclined toward their interests than her own, and she still hadn’t forgotten that he had previously told her to tone down her demands. While she did not tell him at that point, Feldman’s days as her agent were numbered, and it wasn’t long before she quietly fired him in favor of MCA agent Jay Kanter.
From November until mid-December 1954, Marilyn and Greene set about making their plans reality. Her contract with Fox was carefully studied, and the actress wrote a stern letter to Fox, disclosing that she felt her old contract was no longer relevant because new negotiations had never been finalized or signed. As far as she was concerned, her last two films were made under a separate agreement and no formal written contract existed between herself and the studio. On that note, Milton booked flights to New York for them both.
In the middle of it all, There’s No Business Like Show B
usiness was premiered to great fanfare. Darryl F. Zanuck announced that it would be released to 275 theaters over the Christmas season, making it one of the biggest Fox Cinemascope releases. The premiere would aid the Actors Fund of America, and it was reported that the publicity campaign would top one million dollars. In addition to the usual television, radio, and print media, the promotion would also include fashion shows and contests. The Natlynn Junior Originals dress company announced that they would be releasing women’s outfits inspired by the film, while Westbrooke Clothes took on the male element. The former featured day dresses with full skirts, petticoats, and a small V-neck complete with bow, while the latter was based on suits worn by Donald O’Connor in the film. The entire campaign was due to run for six months, with the main hope being that the film There’s No Business Like Show Business would become universally known overnight.
Motion Picture Daily described the movie as “most assuredly and unreservedly, worthy of its title and living proof of it.” It praised all the performances, including Marilyn’s, and declared that “it has so much to offer, so much to sell and be talked about, that this excellent show is certain to attract a huge crowd which can but go their way as salesman for it, after seeing it.”
The Motion Picture Herald, however, showed a different side. They printed a regular feature that asked theater managers to report on business and the opinions of their customers. One manager, Mr. F. P. Gloriod from Rodgers Theater, Poplar Bluff, Missouri, was steadfast in his opinion of Show Business: “Leave Monroe out of this and give it to someone else and this would have been an excellent show. Most comments were ‘Monroe sure was terrible.’ Business was good first day, off other three.”
The opinion that Marilyn gave a “terrible” performance was harsh, to say the least. However, when she was later asked what her worst role was, she replied, “The one in There’s No Business Like Show Business. I was miscast. I had to be continually taking off my shoes because of the difference in statures between Donald O’Connor and me. I admired Donald very much. He can be serious and I can be serious but we can’t be serious together.”
Joe DiMaggio had hated the “Heat Wave” dance number and he was not the only one. Columnist Ed Sullivan shocked readers by complaining that the film would have been far better if two of Monroe’s songs had been cut out. “‘Heat Wave’ frankly is dirty,” he griped.
Things were not helped when O’Connor did his best to disassociate himself with Marilyn’s involvement in the film. He told acidic columnist Hedda Hopper that Marilyn might as well act on another soundstage, as far as interacting with her costars went. He observed that it was hard to have any kind of rapport with her, and then swiped that she had, after all, been up against incredibly experienced people.
MARILYN FLEW TO NEW York with Milton Greene. To avoid publicity, she used a false name: Zelda Zonk. Amy met them at the airport, and the three drove to the Greenes’ Connecticut farmhouse, which was to be Marilyn’s base for the foreseeable future. There, she met Milton and Amy’s baby son, Joshua, and their maid, Kitty, both of whom would become firm friends with Marilyn in the weeks and months ahead.
In December 1954, Clifton Webb hosted a New York party for playwright Noël Coward. The actor had invited Coward’s favorite stars, including Barbara Stanwyck, Rosemary Clooney, and Judy Garland. He then asked who else the writer would like to meet, and was somewhat surprised by the answer. “I would adore to meet Marilyn Monroe,” Coward said. On the night of the party, Webb noticed that the playwright and actress sat together and talked intensely about their life and work. “She talks very seriously,” he remembered.
After babysitting Joshua on Christmas Eve, Marilyn awoke in Connecticut to find presents under the tree. Milton photographed her unwrapping gifts while chaos ensued all around her. It was a happy day spent as part of her new family. Just minutes away from the Greenes’ house, there was another stranger to the East Coast. Bertha Spafford Vester was an American philanthropist who had lived and worked in Jerusalem for most of her life. In 1925, she created a children’s center and from then on ceaselessly helped that and other causes she felt passionate about. By December 1954, Bertha was almost seventy-six years old, but still spent much of her time fund-raising and sharing awareness of her charitable enterprises related to the American Colony in Jerusalem. In that regard, she traveled to New York City to give talks and hopefully persuade fellow philanthropists to come on board with her mission.
Journalist and editor Fleur Cowles—married to Gardner “Mike” Cowles, founder of Look magazine—knew a great many wealthy people who could be called upon to give their support. So it was that Bertha found herself spending Christmas 1954 with the Cowles family at their home in Weston, Connecticut. Although the couple was “cordial and pleasant,” she still felt out of place. “I am in Connecticut and alone,” she wrote on the evening of December 25. “The first time I remember spending Christmas without one of my family being present. A stranger in a strange place.”
On December 26, Bertha woke to breakfast in bed, but her room was so cold she spent the rest of the morning in the library and sun parlor. During this period of relaxation, Fleur caught up with her and disclosed some startling news. Bertha wrote in her diary about what followed next: “Fleur cautioned us all not to disclose it, but Marilyn Monroe was coming to lunch. She had run away from Hollywood (where she had spent her whole life) I suppose from a husband or a lover and was living with a neighbor, a Mr. and Mrs. Green [sic], a photographer. Fleur made me promise that I would ask Marilyn to help me collect money for my work. So I did, after, I am sure, Fleur made the introduction, and got her all excited about me being a wonderful woman. Marilyn is a pretty girl without any background—is a coming movie star—bleached hair, limpid blue eyes—straight, small nose, lovely mouth. The day passed listening to modern crooners and jazz and watching [a] football game. About 5 o’clock all guests and children departed. At 6 Fleur and Mr. Cowles and I had tea and sandwiches, and the Cowles left for New York by car to take a plane tomorrow for California to meet the Shah and Empress.”
Many years after the event, Fleur Cowles wrote about her friendship with Marilyn, as well as the meeting with Bertha Spafford Vester. With the passage of time, her story became disfigured somewhat: she wrote that Bertha was over ninety years old (a good fourteen years older than she actually was) and implied that Marilyn was actually staying at her house during the meeting. Nevertheless, it is a joyous little story, with Bertha being delighted but terrified of spending time with such a glamorous woman, and Marilyn winning her over immediately with her dressed-down clothes and casual manner. Photographs show the two women deep in conversation and at ease in each other’s company. According to Cowles, Marilyn listened intently to Bertha’s fund-raising stories and told the older woman that she was determined to do good for the world and would not waste her life away.
MARILYN ADORED HER TIME in Connecticut, and for the first time in many years, she was able to just be herself, as well as recover from a recent bout of anemia and exhaustion. Not used to experiencing real seasons, she loved the winter trees and thought it was a miracle that they’d soon wake up and sprout leaves. Nobody bothered her during her long walks alone, and the peace gave the actress a chance to think about her future and plan the next step.
When she wasn’t walking, Marilyn passed the time quietly in the Greenes’ farmhouse and made sure nobody had to fuss over her. She read many books, enjoyed scented bubble baths (her favorite was jasmine and gardenia), and entertained the Greenes’ toddler, Joshua. His earliest memories would be of Marilyn playing games and reading stories. The home became her safe place—an environment where she and Milton could build their business together. She also spent a lot of time chatting with Amy Greene: “We’d discuss everything from clothes to housekeeping to babies to headlines,” recalled the photographer’s wife. “Sometimes we’d giggle like a couple of school kids. Others, we’d come up with some sure-fire formula for saving the world. You know, the way women do
.”
Milton and Marilyn’s conversations centered on organizing the running of their film company. Marilyn would be the president, as well as the majority shareholder with 51 percent of the stock. Milton was the vice president and owned 49 percent. Directors were appointed, lawyers hired, and paperwork completed. At the end of it all, the two partners had what looked—on paper, at least—to be the basis for a productive, creative, and worthwhile organization.
Milton was ecstatic. Starting the company had been a huge risk both financially and creatively, but he was confident that everything would work out, especially since Marilyn proved herself to have a fantastic business head. Reporter Earl Wilson thought the same way: “I think Marilyn knows exactly where she’s going—and that it’s forward. It’s just possible that she’ll turn out to be not only the sexiest but the smartest blonde of our time.”
On January 7, 1955, it was time to present the “New Marilyn” to the world. This was done by way of a press conference held at the home of attorney Frank Delaney. Unbelievably, while Marilyn was readying herself for her first public appearance in months, Fox put out a statement to say that as far as the executives were concerned, the actress was still living in Hollywood and nowhere near the East Coast. Marilyn’s arrival at the conference would, of course, prove Fox wrong, but as reporters waited for that moment, rumors swirled as to what exactly this new Marilyn would look like. Would she still be blonde? Still be glamorous? They didn’t have to wait long to find that the answer to both questions was yes. As the actress waltzed into the room, several journalists noted that the fresh Monroe looked rather like the old one. “Tell us about your new look,” demanded one reporter. The actress blinked, pretended to be confused, and declared that this was the first time she’d heard of it.
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