Marilyn Monroe

by Charles Casillo

  In a bedroom scene where Marilyn and Gable’s characters have spent the night together for the first time, Gay comes into the room and kisses Roslyn. Marilyn stretches languorously and the sheet drops, exposing her breast. The entire set perked up with excitement. Huston, however, said condescendingly, “I’ve seen ’em before.” He wanted a retake. They shot the scene again, this time without the sheet slipping.

  There was a great debate as to whether or not the nude take should be used. Frank Taylor, Miller, Gable, and Marilyn all wanted it used. Taylor, who felt it was the best take of the scene, thought Huston was being prudish. Marilyn said, “I love doing things the censors won’t pass.” Huston was against showing Marilyn’s bare breast, not because he was afraid of censorship, but because the nudity was gratuitous in the scene. “Believe me, he was the last person who would be afraid to challenge the censors,” Angela Allen stated.

  The argument raged on for several days, and was much more heated and contentious than previously reported. Huston was adamant it would not be in the film, and ultimately his decision was the final one. Taylor, exasperated at the thought of the take being lost forever, kept the actual film.

  For years it has been believed that the exposed-breast take from The Misfits had been destroyed and that Marilyn’s only existing nude scene on film was in her last, uncompleted movie, Something’s Got to Give. However, the unused take from The Misfits, including the sound, still exists. Today the nude scene is in Curtice (Frank Taylor’s son) Taylor’s possession in a locked filing cabinet.

  * * *

  Determined that her body be showcased in the movie, Marilyn continuously wandered around the set, vague and druggy, murmuring in her breathless voice, “When are we going to shoot the bikini scene?” As in Let’s Make Love, Marilyn’s weight fluctuated through the filming. Huston was holding off on the scene, waiting for her to drop a few pounds. Ultimately the scene could be put off no longer, and there is in the film a fleeting shot of a particularly plump Marilyn running from the sea toward Gable, who is waiting for her with an embrace.

  In the evenings, after trying to memorize Miller’s rewrites—revisions that even Huston considered “pedestrian”—she would be too wound up to sleep. In desperation she was taking up to four Nembutals a night. To make them work faster she would stick a pin in them, sometimes licking the powder from her palm.

  Marilyn’s good friend and masseur Ralph Roberts would massage her into drowsiness. The following day Whitey Snyder would make up her face while she was flat on her back in bed to allow Marilyn precious time to rest before she had to face the cameras.

  With each passing day, Marilyn’s pill intake was increasing to alarmingly dangerous doses. An ambulance was called in twice to pump Marilyn’s stomach. “There were most definitely at least two serious suicide attempts during the production,” Angela Allen recalled. Whether these were serious suicide attempts or accidents is uncertain. Each time she was saved because she managed to make a phone call while she was quickly falling under. The chatter on the set began to focus not only on if she’d show up for shooting, but if she would live through it.

  One day, as the cast and crew were waiting, Huston approached Miller. “This has to stop,” Huston warned. “Marilyn has had only two afternoons in front of the camera in a week.” A few days later a car pulled up to the set. Huston witnessed Marilyn being helped out of the car. The crew watched helplessly as she staggered around. She didn’t seem to know where she was. Later, when she was in front of the camera at last, the cameraman, Russell Metty, approached Huston: “I can’t film her like this,” he said. “Her eyes won’t focus.”

  The production had reached a breaking point. Dr. Ralph Greenson, the psychiatrist who had treated Marilyn during Let’s Make Love, was called in again to help. Huston made the decision to shut down the production for a week or two. If she didn’t complete The Misfits, it was unlikely she’d ever be insured on another movie, and if Marilyn was going to complete the film, it was necessary to get her off narcotics.

  * * *

  On Saturday, August 27, Marilyn was flown to Los Angeles by private plane so she could enter Westwood Hospital. She was escorted by her secretary, May Reis, and Paula Strasberg.

  While she was in the hospital, Dr. Greenson and an internist, Dr. Hyman Engelberg, started giving her smaller doses of Nembutal and substituting a milder drug. Meanwhile Marilyn stayed busy on the telephone trying to reach Yves Montand and taking calls from Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.

  After her hospital rest, Marilyn returned to the set on September 5: “I’m looking forward to getting back to work. I’m feeling much better. I guess I was just worn out.”

  On October 24 The Misfits crew returned to Los Angeles for studio work needed to complete the film. She and Miller moved into the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Roberts witnessed a loud argument between them—they had already decided to divorce.

  The last day of shooting was on November 4, 1960. At the end of the movie Marilyn and Gable reconcile. “How do you find your way back in the dark?” she asks him as they drive into the night toward their home. It is the last line Marilyn uttered in her final completed film. Privately Huston said of Marilyn, “I’ll be surprised if she lives for another year.”

  * * *

  As the movie wrapped, Gable saw a rough cut of The Misfits. He was very moved by the film and proud of his performance. He announced that he thought it was the best thing he’d done since Gone with the Wind

  Two days later Marilyn was shaken by the news that Clark Gable had suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital. At first he seemed to be doing well and was on the road to recovery. Gable’s wife, Kay, who was staying at the hospital in a nearby room to be close to him, told reporters: “He finished shooting The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe on Friday, and he said he never felt better in his life. He spent most of Saturday rolling around on the floor wrestling with his stepchildren.” Marilyn traveled back to New York to start preparations for her divorce from Miller.

  She had completed her Valentine to her husband.

  TWENTY-ONE

  A WOMAN ALONE

  With the making of two pictures back-to-back, a frantic affair with Yves Montand, and the dissolution of her long-troubled marriage to Arthur Miller, when Marilyn returned to Manhattan in the fall of 1960 she was a diminished, lost woman.

  In New York, a city of millions of people, it was easy to get lost in the comfort of anonymity. “I restore myself when I’m alone,” she said. Marilyn needed time to learn how to define herself, her career, and an image that was fast becoming obsolete. In New York she could be just one more displaced person trying to find her place: There was a certain comfort in not having the constant expectations of filmmaking and professionalism placed on her. Yet her solitude often turned into loneliness.

  She sequestered herself in the dark bedroom of her apartment, where she slipped into depression. She longed to sleep, but she once again found it impossible, except with heavy doses of medication. It was easy for her to lose track of the amount she took before falling under. She’d wake disoriented and lethargic and put on a stack of records—mostly Sinatra’s blues ballads.* Naked, she’d spend hours sipping champagne, gazing at herself trancelike in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that covered the walls. For the first time she was scrutinizing the changes in her body, specifically the result of her steady weight gain over the past few years. Although she had begun to diet shortly before completion of The Misfits, the changes she saw troubled her.

  Some of the reviews of Let’s Make Love commented that she appeared fleshy, not at all like the Marilyn from her prime. The movie magazines, which she read, were also reporting on her weight gain.

  Hedda Hopper, the powerful gossip columnist, who had been a failed actress before becoming a reporter, took to her poisonous pen and published a shockingly venomous “open letter” to Marilyn. Disguised as a helpful bit of advice titled “Marilyn, Don’t Drink It Won’t Bring Back the Baby.”

  In
the article Hopper scolds Marilyn for drinking gin as a way to cope with her miscarriage. It goes on: “Being overly sensitive about your weight and doing nothing about it makes no sense. You’re a star and must know you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” Hopper continued to chastise: “When you do a scene that doesn’t come up to your expectations, is it fair to blame the cameraman when your rushes are a disappointment because you are too heavy?”

  For a woman as vain as Marilyn, it must have been devastating. However, she wasn’t turning a blind eye to her body now. She had already begun to lose weight—and she was seeing the results. Marilyn, approaching thirty-five, knew that she was still considered beautiful, but it was time to start fighting more seriously to protect the part of her image that had given her the only real security she’d ever felt.

  * * *

  On the rare occasion that a friend managed to get her on the phone, her voice was drained of emotion—defeated and faraway. Sometimes, when overwhelmed with anguish, she would phone Yves Montand, who was in Paris trying desperately to repair the relationship with his wife. Marilyn begged him to come see her in New York. When he refused she threatened to fly to Paris to visit him. Montand didn’t respond.

  Like many women of the era, Marilyn was desperate to have a man to love her, comfort her, affirm her. “A woman can’t be alone,” she commented. “She needs a man. A man and woman strengthen and support each other … she just can’t do it by herself.” Or Marilyn couldn’t.

  It wasn’t that there was a shortage of suitors. Soon after her separation from Miller, her phone began ringing. Ralph Roberts, who knew her as well as anyone at this time, recalled that a lot of guys were pursuing the newly available Monroe—including Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy. Kennedy’s invitations would often come through messages passed on by Peter Lawford or Pat Newcomb, but Marilyn wasn’t interested in him at this point. She was wounded, unsure—hurting over the end of her marriage and still pining for Montand. The thought of getting involved with someone new seemed daunting.

  * * *

  Pat Newcomb was a name from Marilyn’s past—the press agent who had worked briefly on Bus Stop. Marilyn felt Newcomb had betrayed her and promptly sent her packing. Newcomb entered Marilyn’s life again, but this time the two would work well together and become close.

  Marilyn’s primary press agent, Rupert Allan, decided to move to Europe to represent Princess Grace of Monaco, who was a good friend. The head of Marilyn’s public relations firm, Arthur Jacobs, recommended she give Newcomb another try. With Allan gone, it was necessary for Newcomb to travel to Nevada to talk some business with the star. Marilyn, who was especially vulnerable, was warm during the conversation. When she was headed back to New York, Paula Strasberg suggested that Newcomb fly with her because she was about to announce the separation from Arthur Miller and somebody had to do it.

  Worn out and feeling defenseless, Marilyn was apparently able to put aside the previous antagonism that had developed when she believed Newcomb had passed herself off as “Marilyn Monroe” on a date, while handling her press during the shooting of Bus Stop. Evidently the very smart and hardworking Newcomb convinced Marilyn that she would be devoted to her.

  Those who knew Marilyn well in her last years say that the two women would become extraordinarily close. Rupert Allan and Ralph Roberts (among others) would come to believe that Pat Newcomb became obsessed with Marilyn as she became more and more a part of her famous client’s life.

  * * *

  On November 16 Marilyn was awoken by the phone and, in her half-sleep state, was informed that Clark Gable had died. He died of a coronary thrombosis while recuperating in the hospital from a heart attack. In childhood she had fantasized that Gable was her father. He behaved tenderly and protectively toward her during the harrowing months they spent making The Misfits. Now she had lost another connection to a father figure. Marilyn was overwhelmed with despair.

  To make matters worse, she worried that perhaps her frustrating absences during the shooting had contributed to Gable’s death. His widow made statements to the press suggesting that the maddening delays in making The Misfits had contributed to his heart attack. Kay Gable never mentioned Marilyn by name, but the implication seemed clear: “That picture helped kill my husband. It wasn’t the physical exertion that did it; it was the horrible tension—that eternal waiting. He waited around forever, for everybody. He’d get so angry waiting.”*

  It must be noted that Gable had crash-dieted before shooting started in order to be in better shape for the film. He was a three-pack-a-day smoker and had been for decades. Gable also insisted on doing the extremely strenuous stunts involving the capturing of the wild horses—one of which had him being dragged across the desert.

  Still, in the court of public opinion, the blame was placed on Marilyn, and she couldn’t help but feel some guilt. “Murderer!” strangers would call out as she hurried down the city streets. How easily they could turn. Her public, her people, her fans, the ones who always called out, “Hiya Marilyn, how’re you feeling today?” were now shouting, “How does it feel to be a murderer?”

  * * *

  Outside the claustrophobia and deadness of her bedroom, the city was more alive than usual. The holidays can be crushing, especially for the lonely, and Marilyn was feeling it that season. Surrounded by people who were doing things, traveling, embracing their relationships with friends and family, Marilyn had no one with whom she wanted to share Christmastime.

  Marilyn spent Christmas Eve quietly in her apartment with her new public relations agent, Pat Newcomb. For a present, Marilyn gave Newcomb a mink coat. It was an extravagant gift for a recent employee—and someone she had clashed with and mistrusted in the past. Perhaps it was Marilyn’s way of saying she had been wrong about her initial impression, but it’s also poignant to think that Marilyn felt she was valued by her friends and employees only when she was giving them valuables.

  That evening, however, she received a “forest of poinsettias” from Joe DiMaggio. He sent them, he explained, because he knew she would call to thank him, which of course she did. “Besides,” he added when he had her on the phone, “who in the hell else do you have in the world?”

  She invited him to visit her, and they did spend Christmas night alone together. They quietly began seeing each other again. Always very discreet, DiMaggio would visit her at her apartment. He would arrive late in the evening, use the service elevator, enter through the kitchen door, and leave by dawn.

  They continued seeing each other for several weeks until he was called back to Florida on business. DiMaggio remained concerned not only at the apparent wasteland of Marilyn’s emotional life but her increasingly haggard appearance. Food was something she rarely thought of anymore.

  * * *

  An unhappy break in the monotony of Marilyn’s misery came on January 20, 1961, when Marilyn flew to Mexico with Pat Newcomb and her attorney, Aaron Frosch. Newcomb wisely chose the day of President Kennedy’s inauguration to deflect attention—and headlines—from the Monroe-Miller divorce.

  On that day Kennedy walked into his wife, Jackie’s, bedroom while she was having her hair done for the inauguration by the stylist Rosemarie Sorrentino. When Jackie mentioned that Sorrentino also did Marilyn Monroe’s hair on occasion, Kennedy casually asked if Marilyn—whom he had not yet met—was as temperamental as her reputation. Neither woman thought to ask why the soon-to-be president was interested in Marilyn Monroe’s temperament.

  Meanwhile Pat Newcomb remembers that she and Marilyn watched the inauguration at the Dallas airport while between flights. In the Mexico court Marilyn pleaded “incompatibility of character.” She requested an immediate divorce. It was granted without incident, and she was back in the safety of her apartment four days later.

  * * *

  It seems that nobody was aware of just how sick Marilyn really was. Fox announced that they planned to cast her in the lead of Goodbye Charlie, by George Axelrod, which had been a Broadway flop s
tarring Lauren Bacall. The plot revolved around a callous playboy, Charlie, who is killed by a lover’s jealous husband and instantly reincarnated in the body of a gorgeous woman—to be played by Marilyn.

  Although Charlie materializes in glorious female form (karmic retribution for the way he treated women), his/her mind and mannerisms remain those of a male. The studio was eager to collect the last picture Marilyn owed them on her contract and thought the novelty of Marilyn Monroe playing a man trapped inside her famous curves would be a box-office bonanza.

  Marilyn, however, was appalled at the idea of having to butch it up. She couldn’t bear the thought of her femininity being questioned. Obsessing over homosexuality during a psychiatric session with Greenson, Marilyn had expressed rage when he informed her that there was something feminine and masculine in both genders, and she became mortified that anything masculine might be perceived in her. Now she was being asked to act masculine on screen for laughs.

  “The studio people want me to do Goodbye Charlie,” she fumed to the press. “But I’m not going to do it. I don’t like the idea of playing a man in a woman’s body, you know? It doesn’t seem feminine.”

  * * *

  In early 1961 she seized on an offer of a project she thought could move her career in a new direction. It was announced in the press with great fanfare that Marilyn would star in a high-profile television production of Rain.

  The play, based on Somerset Maugham’s short story, is about a prostitute named Sadie Thompson and the obsessed preacher who tries to reform her. Exercising total control over Marilyn’s confidence in her acting abilities, Lee Strasberg inserted himself into the project from its beginning, spotlighting his role in her life as a way of reflecting his own importance. Strasberg thought the role of the prostitute in Rain was ideal for her—and he wanted to be involved: Sharing a screen credit with the Actors Studio’s biggest cash cow was irresistible.

  NBC offered Marilyn $150,000 to star in a ninety-minute adaptation of the play. Maugham was delighted with the idea of Marilyn in the role. “I’m so glad you’re going to play Sadie in the television production,” the legendary author wrote her. “I’m sure you’ll be splendid.”