Marilyn Monroe

by Charles Casillo

  Arthur and Marilyn did not specifically talk about getting married, but by now their affair was being whispered about. While Marilyn was in Hollywood making Bus Stop, Miller planned on going to Nevada for a few weeks in order to divorce Mary.

  * * *

  In early February, Laurence Olivier and the playwright Terence Rattigan arrived in New York to discuss the movie version of the latter’s The Sleeping Prince—the first movie to be produced by Marilyn’s production company after she completed Bus Stop.

  They met Marilyn at 2 Sutton Place. It was Milton Greene’s Manhattan apartment—where she could live for the time being in order to save the company some money. Olivier and Rattigan patiently waited while, in the bedroom, Marilyn prepared herself to face them. Her delayed appearance was a familiar situation when she was gripped by her inferiority complex and fears of not appearing to be what was expected.

  She’d sit in front of her mirror, once again conjuring up the enchanting creature they knew as Marilyn Monroe. By now the recipe had been perfected: a base of her natural magnetism with a mixture of lipstick and lashes and insecurity and perfume and alcohol and exhibitionism. By the time she would appear, at the height of everyone’s anticipation, it was in a tizzy of perfume, glamour, powder, and sensuality—there was an air of breathlessness, a slight disarray, a girlish “Hello.”

  It was decided that Olivier would act opposite Marilyn and also direct the production. Olivier had appeared in the stage play opposite his wife, the two-time Academy Award winner Vivien Leigh.

  They announced the project at a press conference held at the Plaza Hotel on February 9, 1956. The assembled media were surprised, amused, perplexed, and grudgingly admiring that Marilyn had managed to snare the great Shakespearean actor Sir Laurence Olivier to star in the very first production of her new company. Just one year before, she had been considered a va-va-voom star who was damaging her career by taking herself way too seriously. Perhaps they had underestimated her.

  Yet Marilyn herself, in her own paradoxical way, didn’t want to wipe away completely her reputation as a delicious dish. While answering questions—with Olivier, Terence Rattigan, and Milton Greene—Marilyn sat demurely listening, in a formfitting black cocktail dress. At one point she leaned over, and a strap on her dress broke. It caused complete pandemonium in the midst of flashing camera bulbs and general hysteria. A female reporter produced a safety pin, and Marilyn fixed the strap.

  Once again she left the press scratching its collective head. Was she a ditzy sexpot who couldn’t keep her tits in her dress? Or the head of a corporation producing movies with the world’s greatest talents? Marilyn left them to sort it out. The dress strap popping at a key moment would be re-created for the opening sequence of The Prince and the Showgirl—almost exactly as it had occurred in the press conference. Marilyn had created a moment that was too good to squander.

  FOURTEEN

  “A DIFFERENT SUIT”

  In February, at a press conference to announce the shooting of Bus Stop, a female reporter remarked, “You’re wearing a high-necked dress, the last time I saw you, you weren’t. Is this a new Marilyn? A new style?”

  “No, I’m the same person,” Marilyn replied thoughtfully. “But it’s a different suit.”

  Bus Stop was William Inge’s Broadway play about a naive young cowboy, Bo, who is in town for a rodeo where he hopes to find himself an “angel” to marry. On his first night out he sees a world-weary singer, who calls herself “Cherie,” perform “That Old Black Magic” at the local saloon. Although she is a hillbilly with a tarnished past, Bo sees only her innocence and beauty. But Cherie has ambitions to go to Hollywood—blind to the fact that she doesn’t have much talent. Most of the plot revolves around Bo’s inept but sincere attempts to win Cherie’s heart.

  In Cherie, Marilyn saw a role in which she could use the Method techniques she had learned while studying in New York: There were certainly enough parallels with her own troubled life.

  The studio secured Joshua Logan, a respected film and stage director, for the movie. He was on the list of directors Marilyn would agree to work with. But when Fox first approached him, Logan’s initial reaction was no, because his opinion at the time was that “Marilyn Monroe can’t act.” After having dinner with her, however, Logan was won over by Marilyn’s intense feelings and ideas for the role of Cherie. “She struck me as a much brighter person than I had ever imagined,” he said. As they talked, she demonstrated the southern accent she planned to use.

  Marilyn had no vanity about playing the character—her goal was realism. When the studio had typically flashy costumes designed for her to wear as Cherie, she instead went to the wardrobe department and rummaged through old costumes for the most worn-out clothes she could find. She chose a flimsy skirt and blouse and a cheap gold lamé coat with a rabbit-fur collar—all in keeping with a second-rate performer’s idea of glamour.

  As if the clothes didn’t look pitiful enough, she pulled off fringe and poked holes in the fabric. The costume Cherie wears in her nightclub act was also realistically tacky—a skimpy green-and-black leotard with a long tail attached, which she wore with fishnet stockings. Marilyn tore at those stockings and had them ineptly darned, as if the costume had been worn and mended by dozens of performers before.

  As vice president of Marilyn Monroe Productions, Milton Greene was very much involved with Bus Stop. Greene decided to change Marilyn’s makeup, creating the ultra-pale appearance that Marilyn was to have in the movie. Greene envisioned Cherie—a performer who worked all night and slept all day—as having skin with the unhealthy pallor of a woman who rarely saw sunlight.

  Shortly before filming was to begin, the role of Bo Decker, the love-struck cowboy who sees the angel hidden within a tawdry saloon singer, went to a twenty-six-year-old screen newcomer, Don Murray. A rising stage actor, he was then winning great reviews on Broadway in The Skin of Our Teeth.

  Joshua Logan also cast a young fair-haired ingénue, Hope Lange, whom he had seen in a television show, to play a waitress at the bus stop. Lange later found out that Marilyn tried to get her fired. “Even though I was no threat to her in any way, shape, or form,” Lange said. Marilyn, with one eye on her image, wanted to be the only blonde in the movie. When Logan didn’t fire her, Marilyn insisted that Lange’s hair be dyed a shade darker. “But I didn’t dislike her,” Lange continued. “She was just immensely insecure.”

  * * *

  In what was seemingly one of the most callous moves of Marilyn’s life, she cut off Natasha Lytess without a word. Natasha reached out to Marilyn over and over, but Marilyn refused even to see her. When Marilyn felt used by someone, she was able to banish that person from her life without ever looking back. She could be very, very strong that way.

  Was it the smothering domination Natasha had tried to exercise over Marilyn’s life in their years working together? The sexual pressure she had put on her earlier in their relationship? Her greedy demands for more and more money, while trying to persuade her to make inferior movies simply for the salary? Likely all those factors came into play, along with the fact that Marilyn had decided that Natasha’s techniques were a fraud.

  That doesn’t mean that Marilyn didn’t need someone on a movie set (other than the director) coaching her. To be with her on this film she had also employed Paula Strasberg as her new drama coach, at the very generous salary of fifteen hundred dollars a week. Whether Paula Strasberg’s techniques were any better than Natasha’s for Marilyn’s acting is not the point. Marilyn simply did not have the self-assurance to perform if she did not have someone she trusted there exclusively for her.

  As she had with Natasha Lytess, Marilyn put most of her trust in Paula. As soon as Logan called out “Cut!” it was Paula to whom Marilyn looked for feedback rather than the director. It would be this way on every film Marilyn would make from then on. On the set of a Marilyn Monroe film Paula Strasberg now called the shots.

  During the production of Bus Stop, a young publ
icist named Patricia “Pat” Newcomb was assigned to handle Marilyn’s press and would briefly enter Marilyn’s inner circle. A few years later Newcomb would become one of the major players in the last months of Marilyn’s life, but their working relationship on Bus Stop was very short-lived and ended badly.

  The newspapers and magazines were so crazed by Marilyn’s return to filming that her public relations firm, Arthur P. Jacobs Co., Inc., sent the young publicist to handle the media during production on location in Phoenix. Newcomb was young, smart, and fiercely loyal to her celebrity clients. She was also known to have a volatile temper—she would slam her office door so hard that a framed picture of Dean Martin would fall off the wall, shattering the glass “every other day.” At first Marilyn and Newcomb became friendly, but after only a few weeks of working on location, Marilyn had Newcomb fired and immediately sent home.

  Through the years various reasons have been given for Newcomb’s sudden dismissal. Newcomb said it wasn’t until years later that she found out why Marilyn fired her. The way she understood it, Marilyn had thought Newcomb was interested in a guy she liked. Newcomb always maintained she wasn’t.* Apparently Marilyn was dependent on, and in love with, Arthur Miller but didn’t consider it exclusive yet, and she continued to flirt with and see other men.

  A different but very interesting version was told to the biographer Donald Spoto by Rupert Allan, who handled most of Marilyn’s press relations. According to Allan, Newcomb would take phone messages for Marilyn—many from men wanting to meet her. “Pat intercepted Marilyn’s messages,” Allan said. “She hogged.”

  Then, according to Allan, things went too far. Newcomb didn’t particularly look like Marilyn, but perhaps with the right lighting and makeup she could pass. Fred Lawrence Guiles wrote in his biography, “Patricia Newcomb was a twenty-five-year-old Mills College graduate who resembled Marilyn physically. They were almost exactly the same height (almost five feet six); her thick hair was medium blond and hung loose to her shoulders.”

  Rupert Allan asserted that Newcomb went through “a lesbian phase” but also dated men.

  Allan heard—and believed—that “Pat passed herself off as Marilyn one night to somebody. And it got back to Marilyn. Marilyn said, ‘She’s not Marilyn!’” If the story was true, someone trying to pass herself off as Marilyn would certainly infuriate her. “Marilyn couldn’t forgive her,” Allan said.

  Whatever the reason, Newcomb found herself on a plane back to Los Angeles. It would be nearly five years before she and Marilyn would be in contact again. And at that time Newcomb would become one of the most important and controversial people in Marilyn’s life—known as the keeper of her secrets and one of the last people to see Marilyn on the day she died.

  * * *

  On March 15, 1956, principal photography on Bus Stop began on location in Phoenix. The work Marilyn had done the previous year at the Actors Studio with Strasberg did make her a better actress, as was revealed in this movie. Everything about her as Cherie comes across as genuine and touching, from the way her body slumps exhaustedly in a chair to the exasperation and anger she displays when Bo pushes her around.

  But this new depth in Marilyn’s acting came at a price. Now there were demons on the set—her own demons that she called up from her past to use in her acting. The past was with her constantly now because it was part of her work—and the pressures she put herself under were worse than ever.

  “She was the most nervous actor I’d ever worked with,” Don Murray said. “She would break out into hives and her body would be covered with little red splotches, and they’d have to cover up with makeup.”

  Because it took Marilyn a long time to get back into character after a scene was stopped, Logan developed a unique way of working with her. Instead of saying “Cut!” he kept the cameras rolling. Sometimes he would simply say, “Begin again.” She never broke character as long as the camera was rolling. Marilyn continued acting until she seemed to have exhausted every emotion she could bring to the scene. Only then would Logan stop the cameras.

  This was wonderful for Marilyn but frustrating for the other actors, most of who came from the theater and were used to playing as an ensemble with strict discipline through continuous, sustained scenes. But when they saw the edited film, they were astonished. “She was magnificent!” Don Murray exclaimed.

  Even with this unorthodox way of shooting, Marilyn would demand many takes if she felt she could do it better. It was already well known that Marilyn was very difficult to work with now; as part of the “new Marilyn” her inability to work in any kind of a professional manner was becoming part of her legend. “She just was out of control,” Hope Lange said. “She was like a little baby. When you have an actress who wants thirty and forty takes. It can hold up the set for hours.”

  * * *

  When the nights became too unbearable Marilyn would call Arthur Miller. As the production went on, Marilyn became more nervous and began to panic because she feared she wasn’t giving a good-enough performance. Miller talked to her for hours as he reassured her: Yes, he loved her. Yes, she had talent. Yes, everything was going to be fine.

  When Bus Stop was released, it looked as if all of Marilyn’s ambitions to be considered seriously were beginning to be realized. The media tentatively began to acknowledge that her talent just might equal her sex appeal. Even Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, who before had viewed her as little more than a flashy performer, started his review by declaring: “Hold onto your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise. Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress in Bus Stop. She and the picture are swell!”

  Marilyn’s performance in Bus Stop was universally praised and it made money, but ironically it wasn’t as big a hit as her previous star vehicles for Fox. Even more disappointing was that she was not even nominated for an Academy Award.* The industry refused to reward Marilyn for anything—even greatness. She had become a star against the odds and then thumbed her nose at them, left Hollywood, lived and studied in New York, and started her own company. In their view she was ungrateful, and they weren’t about to reward her for that.

  * * *

  On June 21, 1956, Miller was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington about his alleged association with various communist organizations. Miller claimed that the day before the hearings, Representative Francis E. Walter of Pennsylvania let it be known to his lawyer that if Miller would permit him to take a photograph with Marilyn Monroe, he would call off the hearing. Miller said he refused.

  Instead he dutifully admitted that he had attended a few Communist Party writer’s meetings back in the 1940s. But when they asked him to name some of the colleagues he saw at those meetings, Miller, unlike his friend Elia Kazan, refused to name names. He would eventually be charged with contempt. But after the hearing, when Miller was asked about his future plans, he was willing to name one name that might help him get out of trouble. He announced that he would be marrying Marilyn Monroe. This was big news to everyone—including Marilyn.

  Marilyn’s friends said sarcastically that it didn’t hurt—if you were being investigated by any congressional committee—to be engaged to America’s number one sweetheart. It was noble of Miller not to give the names of people who might have been damaged by his testimony. He was, however, willing to use Marilyn’s power and celebrity to help him be viewed more sympathetically by HUAC—even though doing so could have damaged her career.

  After his brief press conference, Miller called her from Washington.

  “I just announced to the press that we’re going to be married,” he said.

  “The press already told me,” she replied happily. “They’re very fast when they want to be.”

  Marilyn was really over the moon. In that moment she adored the man and was honored that he would want to marry her. Friends of Miller’s commented that she wanted to be married to one of the leading playwrights of the day.

  Mar
ilyn still found moments when she filled up with the familiar dread of oncoming doom, the childhood darkness, and in her blackest moments, she wanted to die. The actor Delos Smith, who studied with Marilyn at the Actors Studio, became very close to her. She was always saying to him, “Let’s kill ourselves.” She’d write it on his notepads during class. “That girl’s not going to live,” he thought. “I felt the wish, the wish to die. The death wish was strong because it represented freedom, escape,” Smith recalled. “Sometimes she had this great bubbly beauty, but dank underwater like she was more submerged than we were, otherworldly, as if she were drowning.”*

  Very often death was more enticing to her than life, and she chased after it like a dream, like a lover, like sleep. As Miller recounted to actor Frank Langella, “We were hiding out in a little place in Brooklyn. She had just tried to off herself and it had been a nightmare. The press was all over us. So we were secretly holed up in this apartment, and she did it again. I couldn’t face another circus. I looked for a doctor in the phone book in the neighborhood and called him. He went into the bedroom and saved her life.”**

  The doctor promised not to reveal what had happened, and he didn’t want any payment. What he did want was Marilyn’s autograph, which Miller supplied by holding a half-conscious Marilyn’s hand to scrawl a signature on the doctor’s prescription pad.

  Miller said, “Beneath all her insouciance and wit, death was with her everywhere and at all times, and it may be that its acknowledged presence was what lent her poignancy, dancing at the edge of oblivion as she was.”

  * * *

  Death was very much on her mind the day she and Miller made the official announcement of their marriage.

  The press conference was to be held outside of Miller’s home on Old Tophet Road in Roxbury, Connecticut, on June 22. On the way there, the press tailed Marilyn and Miller, who were driving very fast.

  Mara Scherbattoff and Paul Slade, a journalist and photographer from Paris Match, following close behind, lost control, and slammed head-on into a tree. Slade was severely injured. Scherbattoff had flown into the car’s windshield, her face was smashed. Miller, realizing something had happened, stopped the car and went back to investigate. Within moments Marilyn found herself helping to pull out the profusely bleeding Scherbattoff from the smashed windshield. Her broken and bloodied body was placed on the side of the road, where she lay in great pain—moaning and gurgling, her stomach convulsing.