Marilyn Monroe
Page 40
* The studio had originally wanted James Garner for the role.
* Although Greenson may have had good intentions in surrounding Marilyn with people he knew and trusted, it appears suspicious in the eyes of history that he felt the need to have his own personal relationship with all the people he was bringing into Marilyn’s fold, extending his influence—some might say control—in her life.
* Greenson was worried about her escalating promiscuity. Marilyn had entered a phase of sexually searching, exploring—almost in a desperate way—for someone to rescue her with intimacy.
* She learned this from an exercise that she got from The Thinking Body by Mabel Elsworth Todd. This was a book that she first read as a very young starlet and usually carried around with her from place to place.
* For example, the respected medical researcher Mathilde Krim stated that all of the photos taken of Marilyn and both Kennedy brothers at her celebrated party on the night of May 19, 1962, were “borrowed” by officials and never returned. Also Marilyn’s phone records of the last week of her life were confiscated the day she died and never seen again.
* We know now, because the footage is available, that Cukor was not telling the truth. He had no idea it would someday be available, and it shows Marilyn giving a fine performance.
* Crues elaborated: “Having known Elizabeth well for a number of years, I repeatedly saw her, without any fanfare and very privately, stand up for a lot of people, saying that she would put herself on the line for them in various ways. I often recall that discussion with her and think that it’s something that no one really knows about—the situation that both those women were put in by 20th Century-Fox.”
* She was also good friends with Brando’s longtime buddy Wally Cox, who was costarring with her. Marilyn was amused by Cox’s cautious driving. “Driving along the freeway with Wally is like sitting in a parked car,” she joked.
* To a modern person living in the days of breast implants, they simply appear to be the natural, unremarkable breasts of a thirty-six-year-old woman.
* Vogue rejected all the nude photos Stern took of Marilyn. The magazine chose to publish only the black-and-white fashion shots. The editors saw the value in the direction Marilyn was heading. In most of the photographs she is wearing haute couture—looking moody and sublime. Marilyn, however, would never see the layout. She was dead before the issue hit the stands.
* Fox was also offering her another movie, at a salary of a half-million dollars, tentatively titled I Love Louisa. The movie would eventually be made as What a Way to Go! with Shirley MacLaine.
* This information comes from a highly respected and reliable source who was interviewed by the author and wishes to remain anonymous.
* The accounts vary wildly as to the time—anywhere from shortly after midnight to 3:30 a.m. It seems all the major players wanted her body to be discovered later than it was, because there was a delay in notifying the police.