by Donald Spoto
The enterprise briefly succeeded, at least in part because it took Hollywood by surprise. Milton Greene and his attorneys Frank Delaney and Irving Stein could maneuver deals because the West Coast movie people did not take seriously those on the East Coast they considered ignorant arrivistes. MMP was thought to be a typical bit of Marilyn’s fey daydreaming, like her occasional statements that she would like to play Grushenka in a film of The Brothers Karamazov.
At the same time, Marilyn felt that Charles Feldman’s friendship with Zanuck put her at a disadvantage. Famous Artists and Feldman did more business and had more clients at Fox than any other agency in town, and this did not go down well with her. Suspicious of almost everyone connected with the studio, she left Feldman—casually breaking that contract, too, even though she owed him $23,350 advanced to her as a personal loan; at the encouragement of Milton Greene, she now went over to MCA.5 There, agency president Lew Wasserman saw to it that she would be managed on both coasts: by himself and his colleagues in California, and by Jay Kanter and Mort Viner in New York.
Feldman, ever the gentleman, chose not to force his contract with a volatile and unhappy client; he did, however, insist on being repaid the money she owed him, although it would take five years for him to collect. As for Wasserman and company, Marilyn knew he was the most powerful agent in the business. He had already negotiated an historic deal for James Stewart by which the actor waived a portion of his salary for a percentage of a film’s profits. This was the origin of the so-called percentage deal, which revolutionized actors’ fees, eventually enabling them to be producers as well and creating the phenomenon of the hyphenate—the actor-producer-writer-director becoming the jack of all Hollywood trades.
As for Marilyn, she felt that thus far she had
never had a chance to learn anything in Hollywood. They worked me too fast. They rushed me from one picture into another. It’s no challenge to do the same thing over and over. I want to keep growing as a person and as an actress, and in Hollywood they never ask me my opinion. They just tell me what time to show up for work. In leaving Hollywood and coming to New York, I feel I can be more myself. After all, if I can’t be myself, what’s the good of being anything at all?
The fear that she was not indeed herself, that there were major parts of her person unknown and unexplored, was her central concern for the rest of her life.
In 1955, she set for herself several tasks—producer, acting student, analysand—that suggested her desire to try a very different persona than “Marilyn Monroe,” whom she all but abandoned that year. If this were mere caprice, or a series of shallow “experiences” to which she gave herself in lieu of serious pursuits, it would be easy to label her as many did: an immature, self-absorbed, lazy dilettante. But in fact she was nothing of the kind. At twenty-eight, much of her experimentation was a legitimate kind of self-exploration that would only become permissible later for people of post-college age in American culture; in the 1950s, uniformity and the aspiration to stability were set forth as prime national virtues, and by one’s early twenties a respectable person was expected to have achieved a passport into some aspect of the commercial scramble. Honest enough to admit that she was neither familiar nor comfortable with an identity she poorly understood and had in fact not yet achieved, Norma Jeane/Marilyn for a year disposed of The Monroe and became a frank wanderer into new realms.
In this regard, her lifelong obsession with mirrors was not simply the sign of an actress’s narcissism. Colleagues at work and friends at home often found her before a wall of mirrors, or seated at a three-paneled vanity table as if it were sacred triptychs; she gazed not in dreamy, mute adoration but in ruthless assessment, studiously refashioning and recreating, ever dissatisfied with the image she beheld. Constantly dressing and undressing, reviewing, repainting, drawing once again the lip and brow lines, washing and recommencing the application of a new look on a new face, she lived in a perpetual state of self-criticism, ever trying and retrying to focus some unrealized image of an unfinished self.
As she embarked on the search for a new Marilyn, the men at Fox were rightly alert to their own best interests and wise enough to find mechanisms to sustain them. For an entire year, from the end of 1954 to Marilyn’s signature on a new Fox contract at the end of 1955, Greene’s lawyers dealt with Fox’s.
The eventual collapse of the traditional studio system and its ownership of actors owed much to her tenacity and to the success of efforts exerted by her, Greene and his attorneys. Marilyn Monroe was Fox’s prodigal daughter, to be sure, but ultimately she was enthusiastically welcomed home and very much on her terms. It was as before a relationship of mutual benefit, for Marilyn and Milton needed Fox’s money, and Fox needed her to bring them profits.
As for the personal association between the star and her new partner, it had its fantastic side. Neither Monroe nor Greene was remarkably articulate, both depended on spokesmen and in conversation there were often long pauses with mysterious non sequiturs. Of the hundreds of transcripts of meetings between Marilyn Monroe and Milton Greene, most suggest they might have been playlets drafted by the young Harold Pinter.
Marilyn came East to stay with the Greenes for Christmas 1954 and to plan a life in New York that would include regular attendance at Broadway plays and study with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. She would, she said, leave the details of business and financial matters to Milton, his lawyers and his accountant. With the new year 1955, everyone’s hopes were high with artistic expectations and friendly trust; even personal problems might have easy resolutions.
Marilyn spent a good deal of quiet time with the Greenes at their home on Fanton Hill Road in Weston, Connecticut, during the next twenty-eight months. Since his city childhood, Milton had wanted a country home, and from its origins as a stable the house was enlarged over the years and became one of the most charming and architecturally admirable in the area. The stable became the living room, with a two-story cathedral ceiling and a large fireplace. There were guest rooms, a large country-style kitchen and a photographer’s studio.
The Greenes brought Marilyn into the many social and professional circles of their life. “With us she had something entirely new,” Amy recalled,
and that was a structured life in an organized house. She had her own little room when she visited. But most of the time we were in the New York social whirl. We were invited everywhere and were doing everything. She wanted to become an educated lady, but she also wanted to be a star. That was a conflict. But in the beginning she was very happy, functioning well, fighting Zanuck, feeling her oats.
Jay Kanter, one of her New York agents at MCA, agreed. “Marilyn seemed to me very free that year, animated, enthusiastic, looking forward to serious work. She liked being out of the Hollywood film business. It was a time full of promise and she seemed to me to be taking hold of a new life.”
On Friday evening, January 7, part of that new life was publicly announced. Milton gathered eighty pressmen, friends and potential investors in MMP at Frank Delaney’s home on East Sixty-fourth street. Every Manhattan columnist and every reporter of any status was present except Dorothy Kilgallen and Walter Winchell, both of whom had been excluded by Milton “because of their general hostility toward Marilyn.” The star, as usual, was an hour late, finally arriving all in white, wearing a borrowed ermine coat, a white satin dress and her hair a new shade of subdued platinum; she resembled nothing so much as a reincarnation of Jean Harlow. “She really wanted to be Jean Harlow,” according to Amy.
That was her goal. She always said she would probably die young, like Harlow; that the men in her life were disasters, like Harlow’s; that her relationship with her mother was complicated, like Harlow’s. It was as if she based her life on Harlow’s—the instant flash, then over.
In a calm voice, Marilyn formally announced that evening the establishment of her new company, with herself as president and Milton Greene as vice-president. “We will go into all fields of entertainment,” sh
e said, “but I am tired of the same old sex roles. I want to do better things. People have scope, you know.” When asked how this related to her status at Fox, Delaney interrupted: she was no longer under contract to Fox.
Delaney’s quiet, brief remark reached executives on Pico Boulevard before their workday was over, and they reacted with perhaps predictable shock and called their own press conference. Marilyn Monroe was most certainly legally bound to work for them, it was announced—and for four more years. That, it seemed, was that. But in fact it was not, and over the next several weeks the discord was daily served up in the nation’s papers.
After the press party, Marilyn told the Greenes she wanted to continue the celebration at the Copacabana, where Frank Sinatra was singing. That would be impossible, Amy Greene said: Frank’s show had been sold out for weeks. “Never mind,” Marilyn replied. “If you all want to hear Frank, follow me.” She scooped up her ermine wrap and led the contingent of partygoers to the Copacabana, where Milton suggested they enter through a rear door and ask to see Angelo, the maître d’hôtel. Within minutes, additional tables and chairs were pushed onto the nightclub floor. Sinatra, distracted, stopped singing and the room was hushed. There in front of him, shimmering in white, was Marilyn, who just raided through the wrong door but was in the right place. Sinatra had to smile, he winked at her, and the show resumed. “So we couldn’t get in?” Marilyn whispered to Amy. “I stand corrected,” her friend replied. “She knew,” Amy said years later, “precisely the power and influence she had.”
When he said Marilyn was no longer bound to Fox, Delaney spoke neither cavalierly nor without grounds. He had taken careful count of the days Marilyn was put under suspension in early 1954, and of the time when Fox was obliged to exercise their option for Show Business and for Itch. Late by a few days in renewing that option and remiss in putting on paper the single verbal guarantee of a $100,000 bonus for Itch, the studio was technically in arrears; in addition, they had relied on Feldman to get Marilyn to sign two relevant documents, but she had cannily avoided doing so. Furthermore, as Delaney pointed out to all who would listen, “it seems legally impossible that Mr. Feldman could have become both Miss Monroe’s agent and the producer [of Itch] without a separate agreement and the consent of Miss Monroe.” This made Itch separate from the rest of Marilyn’s deal, a situation never put in writing. Delaney, therefore, could claim that de facto the production of The Seven Year Itch terminated the Monroe-Fox contract of 1951.
By happy accident for MMP, someone at Fox mentioned to someone at Variety that “Miss Monroe had indeed made [Itch] under a new agreement which gave her a substantial salary increase.” This bit of publicity aided the MMP cause immeasurably: according to California law, publication of such a statement meant that Marilyn now had no further obligations to Fox until a new contract was negotiated. At the same time, she received a letter from Fox in which it was casually admitted that her 1951 contract was effectively terminated by oral agreement when they began Itch. “It is the damndest letter you ever saw, and a lawyer’s dream,” wrote Irving Stein, “because seldom does an opponent make so good a record of an oral arrangement. I am convinced that Twentieth had best bargain realistically or they will lose a diamond mine.” For the moment, things were almost hilariously favorable for MMP.
As might have been predicted, sabres were at once duly and loudly rattled in the offices of both Fox and Greene. First of all, the studio suspended Marilyn—an empty threat, as she was still being paid her weekly salary because Itch was officially still in production and required her presence for a few final retakes in Hollywood that January. But she would be further penalized, Fox announced, if she did not remain for her next assignment, How To Be Very, Very Popular—which, because she was to have the role of a stripper, Marilyn had no intention of accepting.
Duly fulfilling her obligations for Itch, Marilyn and Milton flew to Hollywood on Sunday, January 9, and next day she was at the studio for the final shots. “You’re looking good,” said Billy Wilder in welcome. “Why shouldn’t I?” replied Marilyn. “I’m incorporated!” The first picture of her new company, she said somewhat proleptically, might be the life of Jean Harlow.
Back in Manhattan, MMP’s wiry, hyperkinetic corporate lawyer Irving Stein was hard at work. An honorable man thoroughly dedicated to the success of the new company, Stein was an old friend of Greene’s attorney Frank Delaney and had been brought in as counsel for the new venture. He worked tirelessly for them, frequently without regular pay, for MMP had no income until Milton refinanced his Connecticut home that spring to help provide seed money and daily operating expenses—such as the cost of Marilyn’s New York apartment.
Stein proved his worth at once, urging that in case Fox should attempt a lawsuit, Marilyn ought to make herself a legal resident of the State of Connecticut (which, as an additional benefit, had no income tax). Accordingly, before the end of January she applied for a driver’s license and registered to vote there. Just as important, Stein realized the significance of Marilyn’s continuing relationship with Joe DiMaggio, who had visited her in New York during the Christmas holidays—indeed, had stayed with her at least one night at her hotel.
Irving Stein saw the relationship from a strategic viewpoint: it could present either a difficulty or become an advantage for the business simply because Marilyn was obviously not emotionally free of Joe. “It might be fatal for us,” Stein noted in his corporate diary on January 27, “since Joe is inducing pressure to have Marilyn return to California.” And then, significantly, he added: “Leave her alone and we’re in trouble.” Four days later, he wrote himself a reminder: “Get Joe DiMaggio to talk to Frank [Delaney]. Milton and Marilyn had a row in [the] car coming down from Conn[ecticut]. We must know DiMaggio!” On February 2, his corporate notes indicate that he told Delaney it was appropriate to relay to Marilyn news of Fox “only while DiMaggio was in town.”
This was not difficult, for wherever Marilyn went, Joe was sure to follow. When she and Milton traveled to Boston to visit a potential contributor to MMP, Joe popped up at their hotel, and so she abandoned Milton and spent five days with her ex-husband in Wellesley, Massachusetts, at the home of his brother Dominick. The press was delirious with rumors of a renewed love match.
“Is this a reconciliation?” asked a newsman, interrupting their dinner at a Boston restaurant.
“Is it, honey?” asked Joe sweetly, turning to his ex-wife.
Marilyn hesitated a moment. “No, just call it a visit.”
The man Milton and Marilyn had traveled north to visit was a wealthy dress manufacturer named Henry Rosenfeld, a New Yorker whose business had brought him to Boston that month. A legendary figure in fashion, he had founded a company during World War II with the idea that wealthy women could wear inexpensive clothes that would nevertheless be as chic as designer models. At that time his spare, casual shirtwaist dresses, for example, sold for eight to ten dollars and were hailed by office girls, actresses and society ladies alike; by 1955, his annual volume had leaped to eighty million dollars. Dubbed the Bronx Christian Dior, Rosenfeld had developed many professional interests, and Milton hoped to make film production one of them. This attempt failed on the grand scale, but for several months Rosenfeld provided small sums for MMP’s operating expenses, and there were rumors (impossible to corroborate) that Marilyn used her charms in private to convince Rosenfeld of the seriousness of her company’s venture.
At the same time, very many people—Sam Shaw, Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford and Milton’s own team—believed that the company’s principals had resumed their own affair. It is clear that the shots Milton took of Marilyn during 1954 and 1955 are some of the most seductive and erotic ever rendered by any photographer. In some, like the diffused, so-called Black Sitting in which she seems like a Berlin vamp circa 1928, she wears little more than fishnet stockings, a kind of teddy and a hat, her expression and attitude oddly distracted, almost madly, intoxicatingly carnal.
For years, Amy Greene
firmly denied the rumors that Marilyn and Milton were in fact lovers; she claimed that she of all people would have known of such an involvement. But Amy had to admit that “Marilyn was a homewrecker, although she didn’t want to be,” and that Milton was a cagey and elusive man, given to excesses and indulgences he often seemed unable or unwilling to control. After the Monroe-Greene partnership was dissolved, however, Marilyn spoke quite freely to others (her publicist and confidant Rupert Allan, for one) of her ongoing liaison with Milton throughout his marriage. Since the time of André de Dienes, a confident and persuasive photographer was perhaps the single most powerful, irresistible aphrodisiac to Marilyn Monroe.
Also in January 1955, Milton leased a suite for Marilyn at the Gladstone Hotel on East Fifty-second Street near Lexington Avenue. There she could meet the press, be available for interviews and take advantage of whatever New York activities seemed helpful. She would also be close to Milton’s studio at 480 Lexington Avenue, where business meetings and photo shoots were frequently scheduled. Marilyn quickly learned, as she said on national television in April, that if she slipped on dark glasses and a scarf, wore an old coat but no makeup, she could stroll around New York quite untroubled, without even being recognized, much less importuned for autographs. “Marilyn Monroe,” after all, would surely be a knockout if one were ever to turn a corner and meet her face-to-face, and the effort of being Marilyn Monroe was not something to which she dedicated herself in 1955.6