From the moment Wilder heard that Marilyn was available for Some Like It Hot, he realized there was no other actress in the world for the role of Sugar Kane. Now the title of the movie took on a double meaning. On one hand it stood for the fast, syncopated jazz the 1920s band performed. On the other, it was Marilyn who was “hot”—a sizzling, platinum-blond babe who played the ukulele, sang, and kept a flask tucked in her garter belt—whom everybody had the hots for.
The matinee idol Tony Curtis was already committed to play Marilyn’s leading man (and “female” costar), one of the male musicians whom she first meets while he’s disguised as a woman.
Wilder’s choice for the other male who resorts to drag to save his life was Frank Sinatra. But when Sinatra failed to show up for a lunch meeting with the director, he was immediately crossed off the list. Wilder then approached Jack Lemmon in a restaurant, and while he was eating dinner, the director frantically told him the plot in sixty seconds. Caught up in Wilder’s frenzied enthusiasm, Lemmon accepted the role on the spot.
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Marilyn was not thrilled with the fact that Billy Wilder decided to make it mandatory that all the members of the female band be blond. After all, she was the star of the movie. Shouldn’t she be the only blonde?*
Marilyn sent word to the hairdressing department with explicit instructions—every actress was to have her hair at least one shade darker than her own. “We had to stay away from her color,” recalled costar Laurie Mitchell. Yet Marilyn was aware of the hair shade of every actress on the set. The honey-blond actress Marion Collier, who was cast as Olga the clarinet player, recalled running into Monroe at the studio a year after the filming. “Do you remember me?” Collier asked.
“Oh yes,” Marilyn replied. “You were the only band member who didn’t try to have your hair the same color as mine.” Marilyn needn’t have worried about her costars’ hair color. During the production Marilyn discovered that she was once again pregnant, and she looked particularly voluptuous and radiant.
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While in production, Billy Wilder decided to replace an actor in one of the smaller roles. Auditions were held and Al Breneman, then seventeen years old, was cast in the small but important role of the horny hotel bellhop with a lech for Tony Curtis dolled up as “Josephine.”
“I had been on the set for several days, and there was no sign of Marilyn,” Breneman recalled. “One afternoon I was at the studio and Billy Wilder came up to me and said, ‘Would you come with me, Al? I want to introduce you to Marilyn.’ So he walked me to her dressing room. I was trembling. When I saw Marilyn I didn’t expect to have such a reaction. She was mesmerizing. I had never been in the presence of someone with such an overpowering … I guess you’d call it charisma. Later when she was on the set, Marilyn displayed a magnetism that I couldn’t understand or believe.” By the time Breneman was cast in the movie, the main grievance the cast and crew had with Marilyn was that she was consistently late or didn’t show up at all—sometimes for days at a time.
Marilyn needed to be pampered, and she turned to Arthur Miller, who flew from New York to be with her. Both sensed the impending end of the marriage. But, for their own personal agendas, each could fleetingly rekindle the feeling of genuine affection they once shared. Miller’s presence temporarily soothed Marilyn. Between takes she’d breathe in the sea air, exclaiming, “This will be good for the baby!”
On the inside, however, she was already falling apart. In her troubled state of mind, Marilyn found it impossible to stay away from drugs and alcohol, even though she’d been warned to abstain by her gynecologist, Dr. Leon Krohn. After Miller flew back to New York, Paula Strasberg discovered Marilyn in her hotel room drugged and disoriented. She had overdosed on sleeping pills and champagne. The fact that she had vomited so violently may have saved her life: She was hospitalized for the weekend.
Most of the cast and crew didn’t know that Marilyn was pregnant and dealing with disturbing conflicted emotions brought on by having a baby with Miller. She wanted to have a baby more than anything, but her feelings toward Miller were ambivalent, shifting from brief phases of adoration to increasing periods of hostility.
Throughout the shooting day, Marilyn would call for a thermos she would sip from: She said it contained hot bouillon, but it was reported to be vermouth or, as Billy Wilder believed, vodka and orange juice.
Jack Lemmon, although at times vexed by Marilyn’s behavior, decided the magic she brought to the film was worth it. “Her lateness, which is legend, was never ever, in my opinion, the slightest bit caused by temperament. Not once,” he observed. “It was a literal emotional impossibility for her to come out of that dressing room.… She couldn’t face it until she got keyed up, psyched up and ready, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do it.”
There is no doubt that Marilyn was difficult, very difficult, to work with. But because of the embellishments related after the fact about the difficulties of working with her, some of Marilyn’s behavior has been distorted and accepted as absolute fact.
One story about Marilyn’s work on Some Like It Hot that has been described in a myriad of variations is the infamous “Where’s that bourbon?” line. It appears in the scene where Marilyn has to walk into the hotel room of her “girlfriends” Curtis and Lemmon. She enters distraught, rummages through the dresser drawers, and asks, “Where’s that bourbon?” According to many biographies, Marilyn simply could not remember that line. Supposedly she hopelessly mixed up those few words time and time again.
It became one of Wilder’s favorite anecdotes regarding working with Marilyn. “We had eighty-three takes of that one line, ‘Where’s that bourbon?’ that’s all she had to say,” he told a reporter. “And she had a mental block. She just could not say that line.” As Wilder told it, she would say, “Where’s the whiskey?” or “Where’s the bottle?” or even “Where’s the bonbon?” Finally, Wilder said, he resorted to pasting the line on the inside of the drawer.
Ironically, in the finished movie the line is said with Marilyn’s back to the camera—which would have made it easy to be dubbed in postproduction. After the movie came out, many stories about Marilyn’s bad behavior on the set started to circulate and have since become part of the legend of her troublesome behavior. Gossip columns stated that Marilyn wasn’t prepared, she couldn’t remember lines, she’d confuse the words.
One witness has a different memory: “I never saw any evidence that she didn’t know her lines,” Al Breneman said. “I do remember the famous day when we shot the scene when Marilyn comes in and says, ‘Where’s that bourbon?’ I was sitting very close by, watching her. It’s true that they did take after take. But I actually feel that history has given Marilyn a little bit of a bad rap for that. It wasn’t that she couldn’t say the line correctly. I honestly thought Billy Wilder had gotten that take from her very early on. But she kept asking, ‘Billy, please, can we do it again?’ I don’t know what she didn’t like about the scene, but she felt it wasn’t right, that she could do it better. I always thought it was perfect long before she was satisfied. Billy Wilder was so wonderful with her. He always said, ‘Yes, of course, Marilyn.’ And he’d shoot it again. Then she’d say, ‘I want to do it again, Billy.’ He kept doing it again and again for her. When she was finally satisfied, I turned to the assistant cameraman and asked, ‘What’s the most times you ever shot a scene?’ He said, ‘You just saw it.’”
It wasn’t unusual for Marilyn to request thirty-five to forty takes, stopping in the middle of the performance, which would drive the actors and Billy Wilder crazy. To them the scene seemed to be going fine. But it didn’t feel right to her.
Lemmon recalled: “She would stand there with her eyes closed, biting her lip, and kind of wringing her hands until she had it worked out. Now this sounds like selfishness, and I guess it is. But she didn’t mean it to be selfish—it was the only way she could work. Marilyn didn’t give a damn about the director, the other actors, or anything else. It would seem
that she was doing exactly what she’d done in the take before; but for her, something wasn’t clicking quite right. I didn’t necessarily approve of this tactic; it was not easy working with her, but it was fascinating.”
Along with Billy Wilder, Tony Curtis suffered the most. In the second half of the film it was Curtis who had many long scenes with her. Her constant lateness and endless demands for retakes infuriated him, especially since in many of their scenes together he was decked out in a wig, heavy makeup, high heels, and uncomfortable padding under his costume.
One evening some of the cast and crew sat in a screening room watching the day’s rushes. Marilyn was not present. The takes that were being screened were from the scene where Curtis and Monroe are on a yacht. Curtis, posing as a millionaire, is pretending to be impotent, which motivates Marilyn to attempt to “cure” him with a series of steamy kisses.
After the rushes finished running, someone joked to Curtis, “You seemed to enjoy kissing Marilyn.” Curtis stood up and angrily retorted, “It’s like kissing Hitler!” The room fell silent. There was a collective intake of breath. Jack Lemmon, who was in the screening room, cringed in disbelief. When the lights came on, Paula Strasberg was in tears. “How could you say a terrible thing like that, Tony?” she asked.
“You try acting with her, Paula,” he fumed, “and see how you feel.”*
Marilyn was bewildered and hurt when she heard the “Hitler” remark. For one thing, Curtis had managed to hide his disdain for her completely while they were shooting. She told Rupert Allan that Curtis would stop by her dressing room before she was making up and say, “I think you’re just wonderful! The most beautiful woman I know.” She had fallen for it to a degree. She thought Curtis liked her, and she even felt that he might be making a play for her, in spite of the fact he was married, with a new baby daughter.
His malevolent remark touched her deepest insecurities, further proving that she just couldn’t trust anybody. People would show her one side, then turn around and stab her in the back.
Although Wilder may have been seething on the inside, he never showed any anger on the set. He was making a frothy comedy, and he did his best to keep the atmosphere relaxed and light. A visiting reporter watching rehearsals noted: “I have never watched a film put together amidst so much hilarity.… Electricians, scene shifters, prop men, in fact the entire crew, spent their time roaring with laughter.”
The many production stills taken during shooting illustrate a very congenial set. Marilyn is seen laughing with Curtis, Lemmon, and Wilder, posing for publicity shots, or deeply engrossed in conversation. Everyone seems to be getting along and having a good time. “I never saw any signs of the things they said later on in the press and in books,” Breneman stated.
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When Some Like It Hot was released, it caused an immediate sensation. LIFE put Marilyn on the cover, playfully nibbling on a rhinestone earring, with the caption, “A comic Marilyn sets movies aglow,” setting the tone for the majority of reviews she would receive—some of the best of her career. The movie was daring, sexy, and hilarious—a perfect vehicle for Marilyn at this moment.
Variety, the bible in the world of show business, reported: “To coin a phrase, Marilyn has never looked better.… She’s a comedienne with that combination of sex appeal and timing that just can’t be beat.”
Hot was one of the most popular movies of the year and went on to gross a fortune. Through the years it has continued to grow in popularity. In 2000 the American Film Institute named it the funniest movie of all time.
“When it was all over I was absolutely drained,” Wilder said. “There was a kind of exhaustion and there was a moment of ‘never again.’ All I can tell you is, if Marilyn were around today I would be down on my knees saying, ‘Please, let’s do it again.’”
EIGHTEEN
TRUTH
Shortly after filming was complete Marilyn suffered another miscarriage. “I’m sure she would have been a much different person if she could have had a baby,” George Kupchik, Miller’s brother-in-law, observed. “She loved children so and would play with them on their own level.” Marilyn’s disillusionment in her marriage, her career, and life in general continued to fester.
Marilyn was angered by The Misfits, the screenplay that Miller wrote for her. She was angered by a lot of other things too. But Miller’s work was being touted as a gift to her. Despite all her insecurities and self-doubt, she was wise enough to realize that this gift was really to himself: She knew that when they first met he was in Hollywood with Kazan trying to sell a screenplay—a script that never sold. Miller had never had success in the movie industry.
It was unlikely that The Misfits would have been produced without her participation. “Marilyn Monroe” was the hook that got everyone interested. She couldn’t help but feel used.* Marilyn felt that Miller was merely using her as a conduit to success in the movie industry. Marilyn did not hold in her rage. She let him know it, and as a result she became more impossible to deal with. She upped her pill intake. She upped her alcohol use. Miller, on the other hand, internalized his anger. He couldn’t show her his frustration, that he needed her to make the movie. But it was there, intensifying.
Marilyn might have been able to overlook everything else if Miller had written something for her that she admired and wanted to play. Unfortunately Marilyn was horrified by what she read in The Misfits and she made it known to many people she trusted that she didn’t want to play the role of Roslyn.
Her excellent instincts told her The Misfits screenplay wouldn’t make a good picture—it was too wordy, the monologues were talky and wooden. That’s not to say that Marilyn still didn’t have the utmost respect for Miller’s talent. She simply didn’t connect with the script he wrote for her.
They had terrible fights over it. “About rewriting,” Sam Shaw revealed. “I think Arthur was wrong. Marilyn felt she couldn’t say the dialogue he put in Roslyn’s mouth. But Miller refused to take her advice and rework her character,” Shaw observed. “It sounds very trite and corny and cliché, but she wanted the truth. Marilyn felt ‘Never lie in life. Never lie in a script.’ They had trouble. She felt she wasn’t telling the truth within the character.”
Determined that the movie would be made with Marilyn in the lead, Miller pressed ahead. On his own he sent the screenplay to John Huston, a director for whom Marilyn had great respect. Thinking that Marilyn was definitely attached, he agreed to direct it.
Marilyn, however, was much more interested in starring in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She was captivated by the kooky heroine of Capote’s novel, Holly Golightly.
A nineteen-year-old actor at the Actors Studio, Michael J. Pollard, was sitting in class with George Maharis (who went on to have a success in TV’s Route 66) when he looked back and saw a blonde. “That looks like Marilyn Monroe,” he said. “That is Marilyn Monroe!” Maharis replied. With all the confidence of a twenty-year-old, Pollard approached Marilyn after class. “Would you like to do a scene with me?” he asked. Marilyn didn’t hesitate. “Sure,” she said.
She suggested they do a scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Pollard instantly agreed. Marilyn invited him to rehearse at her Fifty-seventh Street apartment. Walking to the apartment after class, Pollard vividly recalls pedestrians calling out to her. “People would recognize her when we walked from class to her apartment because she was ‘Marilyn Monroe,’ and they would call out to her: ‘Hi, Marilyn!’”
There was no screenplay for Breakfast at Tiffany’s yet, so Pollard and Marilyn crafted the scene from the book: Holly climbs through her new neighbor’s window: “I’ve got the most terrible man downstairs,” she says, stepping in from the fire escape.
As the day of the scene approached Marilyn admitted, “I’m really worried about the lines.” She tore out pages from the book so they could spread them out over the performance area.
For Marilyn, this was a tryout. She was really hoping to snag the lead in the film v
ersion, even though it was being done at Paramount. She would have to get Fox to loan her out.
When it was over Strasberg said that it was the best work he had seen from Pollard. Marilyn’s own performance was enchanting.
Audrey Hepburn made such an indelible mark on the role that it may be difficult to imagine Marilyn as Holly. But if we erase for a moment Hepburn’s delightful and legendary performance, we can see what magic Marilyn might have brought to the character.
George Axelrod, who had a talent for writing quirky dialogue and had adapted two of Marilyn’s greatest roles, in The Seven Year Itch and Bus Stop, was hired to tailor the script for Marilyn specifically, which he did magnificently.
The script was submitted to Marilyn for her consideration in September of 1959 (along with a shooting schedule)—demonstrating that Paramount was strongly considering her.*
When the part went to Hepburn, Capote was furious. “I thought Marilyn Monroe should have played Holly Golightly,” he fumed. “She was closer to it than Audrey Hepburn.… Holly was a hillbilly named Lula Mae passing as a sophisticate. She was also an expensive but somewhat innocent call girl. Emotionally, she was very fragile. The tears were very close to the surface.”
Capote had used a great deal of the real Marilyn when creating the character, and Holly Golightly would have given Marilyn her most multifaceted and demanding comedy character: a free-spirited modern-day woman with a secret past, who makes her way through the world utilizing her wits and considerable charm while trying desperately to keep some semblance of dignity as she wallows in immorality.
For whatever reasons, Marilyn ended up making The Misfits instead. Although she definitely did not feel comfortable with the script, this was a screenplay written expressly for her by her Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright husband. It was a high-profile, high-interest project. The eyes of the entire world would be on the production—just from the curiosity factor alone it seemed like a surefire hit.
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