On Sunday afternoon, she called Dr. Greenson’s children, Joan and Danny. She sounded heavily drugged and disconsolate. Danny recalled that they hurried over to her house. “She was in bed naked, with just a sheet over her, and she was wearing a black sleeping mask, like the Lone Ranger wore. It was the least erotic sight you could imagine. This woman was desperate. She couldn’t sleep—it was the middle of the afternoon. She said how terrible she felt about herself—that people were only nice to her for what they could get from her. She said she had no one—that nobody loved her. She mentioned not having children. It was a whole litany of depressing thoughts.”
Nothing they said could reassure Marilyn. With their father out of the country, they called in Dr. Milton Wexler. He saw the array of pill bottles by the bed and promptly swept them into his medical bag. Though Pat Newcomb denied ever giving Marilyn prescription drugs, according to Mrs. Murray, the “spin doctor” came over that evening and brought sedatives to replace those taken by Wexler.
On Monday morning, June 4, Murray called Henry Weinstein to tell him that Marilyn’s infection had returned, and that she was unable to report for work. At 8 A.M., the studio doctor, Lee Siegel, drove to Brentwood to check on Marilyn’s condition. He reported that her temperature was over 100 degrees, and instructed Marilyn to stay home. Rumors began spreading that Fox was going to shut down the production.
Weinstein succeeded in reaching Dr. Greenson in Europe, and apprised him of the deteriorating situation. Greenson agreed to fly home immediately, and promised to have Marilyn back on the set by the next Monday. He arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon, June 6, and went directly to Marilyn’s home, arriving at the Brentwood house just before dark. After spending two hours with Marilyn and conferring with Dr. Engelberg, Greenson determined that she was strong enough emotionally and physically to complete the film.
On Friday, June 8, Rudin and Greenson met with studio executives Phil Feldman and Milton Gould. Twentieth Century-Fox had a long list of humiliating conditions for Marilyn to agree to when she returned to work. She would lose what little creative control she had over the production, report for work promptly, and observe the time limit for the lunch break, and Paula Strasberg would not be allowed on the set. Rudin thought Marilyn would balk at not having Paula; however, Greenson, who had no love for Paula Strasberg, interrupted with: “I can persuade Marilyn to go along with any reasonable request,” he said. “While I don’t want to present myself as a Svengali, I can convince Marilyn to do anything I want her to do.”
Gould and Feldman were amazed by Greenson’s statement, which is included in the Fox memos of this meeting. They then asked him, “Would you then determine what scenes Marilyn will or will not do, and decide which takes were favorable or unfavorable?”
“Yes,” Greenson replied. “If necessary, I’ll even go into the editing room.” The luncheon with Feldman and Gould wound up at 1:45 P.M., and as Rudin and Greenson walked to their cars they were optimistic that the production would go forward. But a decision to fire Marilyn had already been made in New York by Fox’s chairman of the board, Judge Samuel Rosenman. On Tuesday, June 4, while Greenson had been in flight to Los Angeles, Rosenman had issued orders to the Fox legal department in New York to prepare a dismissal notice and damage suit against Marilyn Monroe for $1 million. The papers were being filed in the Santa Monica court on Friday afternoon while Rudin and Greenson were still negotiating with Feldman and Gould.
Dr. Greenson heard about the firing on his car radio late Friday and hurried to Marilyn’s home. The devastating news took Marilyn by surprise, and Greenson stayed with her for more than an hour. After giving Marilyn a tranquilizer shot, the doctor lashed out at Fox and angrily said to Mrs. Murray, “You know, it isn’t as if she was goldbricking or out partying. They have acted in bad faith!”
Whitey Snyder, who visited Marilyn shortly after Greenson left, observed, “She had never been fired before, so she was devastated. She couldn’t understand it.” The morning editions of newspapers around the world carried the news of Marilyn’s dismissal. It was the beginning of a campaign structured by the Fox publicity department in New York to discredit Marilyn as the studio geared up for one of the most negative campaigns against a film star in Hollywood history. Orders had come from New York to destroy the star Fox had helped build to the heights of celebrity. The studio executives were relentless, and the viciousness of their attacks was unprecedented.
On Friday, Charles Endfield, vice president of advertising, sent an exclusive to Sheilah Graham: “When Marilyn shows up for work on Monday she will find that she has been fired and replaced—perhaps with Kim Novak. Marilyn hasn’t shown up for days, even though she’s been out on the town doing the night spots. Twentieth Century-Fox doesn’t want her anymore.”
Damaging stories were then sent out by Fox over the Associated Press quoting studio sources: “Miss Monroe is not just being temperamental, she’s mentally ill, perhaps seriously,” declared studio boss Peter Levathes.
In the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Henry Weinstein was quoted as stating, “By her willful irresponsibility, Marilyn has taken the bread right out of the mouths of men who depend on this film to feed their families.”
In Hedda Hopper’s column George Cukor was quoted as saying, “The poor dear has finally gone round-the-bend. The sad thing is the little work she did is no good…. I think it’s the end of her career.”
But Cukor, Levathes, and Weinstein later denied ever making such statements. Weinstein insisted, “They simply released these statements in my name. I never talked to anyone about it. In fact, I quit Fox in protest. After June 8, I was gone!”
The Fox publicity department excelled itself in ruthlessness and planted a full-page ad in Weekly Variety that stated, “Thank you, Miss Monroe, for the loss of our livelihoods.” It was signed, “The crew of Something’s Got to Give.” However, the crew, which had only admiration for Marilyn, had not placed the ad.
The incongruous attempt by a major studio to destroy its own star was puzzling. That the Fox publicity department would release statements questioning their star’s sanity and refer to her as “mentally ill” was incomprehensible. Certainly to Marilyn it must have been the cruelest aspect of the strange campaign to discredit her. Some speculated that it was an insurance scam at a time when the studio needed cash. But insurance benefits were based on a star’s confirmed illness—not alleged malingering. Others theorized that the campaign to destroy the star was merely bad judgment on the part of the Wall Street lawyers who had taken over the Fox board.
On Saturday, June 9, Marilyn called Spyros Skouras. As president of Fox he had always guided her and protected her interests. When Marilyn reached him, she discovered that he had been ill and was recovering from surgery in a New York hospital. Skouras explained that he had been saddened to hear about her dismissal, but he had nothing to do with it. Skouras was not the power at Fox he had been in the glory days. By 1962 he had become only a figurehead and was preparing to resign his post as president; the power was held by the Wall Street barracudas Milton Gould, John Loeb, and Chairman of the Board Samuel Rosenman. They had acquired enormous blocks of Fox stock in order to seize control of the company.
Marilyn learned that Samuel Rosenman was a close friend of Averell Harriman and the Kennedys. Rosenman had been an aide to Franklin Roosevelt and his key speechwriter. Later he was to become an aide to President Truman and a law partner of Clark Clifford, President Kennedy’s White House attorney. JFK appointed Rosenman to several labor-relations panels, and Rosenman was instrumental in settling the prolonged steel industry strikes of the early sixties. It was through Rosenman that Bobby Kennedy set up the film deal at Fox for his book, The Enemy Within. It was rumored that Skakel and Kennedy money was involved in the studio takeover.
The Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, owned by Ethel Skakel Kennedy’s family, had vast real estate holdings in Southern California. The Skakels had purchased thousands of acres for development in Rancho P
alos Verdes, and were constructing the Del Amo Business Center in Orange County. Under the chairmanship of Samuel Rosenman, in 1962, the board sold the back lot of 20th Century-Fox for development as Century City. It was purchased by Alcoa Aluminum, an affiliate of the Skakels’ Great Lakes Carbon Corporation.
Today, the pumps and invisible derricks of the Fox Hills oil field beneath the towering skyscrapers of Century City are so well camouflaged that the casual passerby would never know they were there. But the massive slant-drilling operation, which extends well into Beverly Hills and beyond Rodeo Drive, has been the back lot’s all-time biggest blockbuster.
Judge Rosenman and the Wall Street barracudas were pumping Fox production money into Cleopatra, and this gave the board a rationale for selling off the land where the deep pool of finders’ fees and serious cash was well hidden.
The attorney general’s telephone records indicate a number of calls to Judge Rosenman just prior to Marilyn’s being fired. If Bobby Kennedy was behind Marilyn’s dismissal and the ruthless campaign to discredit her in order to ensure her silence, he was holding hostage the one thing that mattered to Marilyn Monroe—her career. Marilyn found an unexpected ally in Darryl F. Zanuck, who was in Europe producing his World War II epic, The Longest Day. In a Paris press conference Zanuck had only recently expressed his displeasure with the current Fox management. He first heard about Marilyn’s dismissal from Nunnally Johnson, who called him from London with the news.
“You know, I never particularly liked Monroe,” Zanuck said to Johnson, “but I’ve got a hell of a high regard for her box-office value. The treatment of her on this film makes me terribly frightened for the future of Fox.”
On the Monday following her dismissal, Marilyn called Zanuck in Paris. Whitey Snyder remembered Marilyn explaining to Zanuck that she had been truly ill, and that she very much wanted to finish Something’s Got to Give. “I only heard one side of her conversation with Zanuck,” Snyder said, “but I got the impression that he agreed to help her engineer her comeback.” It was the opening gambit of Marilyn’s strategy to outwit Robert Kennedy.
When Marilyn had called Zanuck in Paris, he was already over his own problems with Judge Rosenman and the Wall Street barracudas, who were selling off Fox real estate and bulldozing the studio. Ravenous for cash, they were planning to seize The Longest Day, slash thirty minutes from its running time, and dump it on the market in a mass release.
The Longest Day had taken over two years to film and featured thirty-five stars, including Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, and Robert Redford. Zanuck expected the film to be presented as a prestige motion picture with a series of glittering premieres and a top-ticket road-show presentation, but Rosenman had informed Zanuck that “under no circumstances would The Longest Day have special handling.” It would have to take its chances under a blanket release to thousands of neighborhood theaters.
Zanuck soon realized that The Longest Day could be rescued from the jaws of the Wall Street lawyers only if he regained control of the 20th Century-Fox board and became president of the company.
While neither Rosenman, Gould, nor the other members of the Fox board knew of Zanuck’s plans, the ailing Spyros Skouras joined Zanuck in a secret pact to unseat the Wall Street insurgents. Zanuck controlled 280,000 shares of Fox stock and Skouras owned 100,000 shares—almost enough to dominate the proxy battle that loomed ahead.
It was shortly after Zanuck made his decision to regain control of Fox that Marilyn called him in Paris on Monday, June 11. Telling Marilyn of his plans, Zanuck assured her that when he was back in power Something’s Got to Give would be completed, and she would be the star.
After her conversations with Skouras and Zanuck, Marilyn sent a Western Union message to Robert and Ethel Kennedy declining an invitation she had received in April to attend a party celebrating the wedding anniversary of Pat and Peter Lawford.
ATTY GENERAL AND MRS. ROBERT F. KENNEDY
1962 JUN 13 PM
HICKORY HILL MCLEANVIR DEAR ATTORNEY GENERAL AND MRS. ROBERT KENNEDY: I WOULD HAVE BEEN DELIGHTED TO HAVE ACCEPTED YOUR INVITATION HONORING PAT AND PETER LAWFORD. UNFORUNATELY I AM INVOLVED IN A FREEDOM RIDE PROTESTING THE LOSS OF THE MINORITY RIGHTS BELONGING TO THE FEW REMAINING EARTHBOUND STARS. AFTER ALL, ALL WE DEMANDED WAS OUR RIGHT TO TWINKLE
MARILYN MONROE
56
The Method to the Madness
The truth is I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve sometimes let men fool themselves.
—Marilyn Monroe
Joe DiMaggio was visiting Nunnally and Nora Johnson in London when they received the news of Marilyn’s problems with Fox. DiMaggio was working as a public relations representative for the Valmore Monette Corporation, an East Coast firm that supplied American military post exchanges. When the Johnsons told DiMaggio about Marilyn’s dismissal, he quit his lucrative job and flew to Los Angeles. He felt it had always been Marilyn’s career that stood in the way of their happiness, and by all the newspaper accounts her career was over.
“He loved her a great deal,” Valmore Monette stated, “and he told me that he had decided to remarry her. He thought things would be different than they had been before, and that everything would work out well for them now. I knew that was why he had left us and was going back out there.”
Norman Jefferies remembered working in the guest cottage when Joe DiMaggio arrived from London. “Marilyn was out, and Mr. DiMaggio sat on a ladder and talked to me while he waited for her to return,” Jefferies recalled. “Marilyn had told me a lot about him—how nice he was…. He was very friendly, and we talked about baseball, Marilyn, the movies, Italian food—you name it.”
According to Jefferies, when Marilyn finally arrived there was a warm and heartfelt greeting. Marilyn showed DiMaggio the herb garden that she had planted herself along the brick path that led from the kitchen to the guest cottage, and they talked of the past and happier times. But when their conversation turned to plans for the future, it ended in a quarrel when DiMaggio learned that Marilyn was more determined than ever to pursue her career.
Joe DiMaggio Jr.’s fiancée, Pamela Reis, remembered having heard that there was “a bitter row” over Marilyn’s career and the Kennedys. The disagreement soon turned into a violent argument as DiMaggio saw his hopes for a reunion and a real life together slipping away. It was the last bitter argument between Marilyn and the Slugger.
The next day, Thursday, June 14, Dr. Ralph Greenson drove Marilyn to the Beverly Hills clinic of Dr. Michael Gurdin, who had once been Marilyn’s plastic surgeon. Gurdin was startled by Marilyn’s appearance. When Marilyn removed her scarf and glasses, Dr. Gurdin noted that the film star’s nose was black and blue and there was a large bruise on her left cheekbone. Greenson stated, “Marilyn had a small accident in the shower. She fell and hit the tiling.” X rays were taken to see if there were any broken bones.
“Greenson did all the talking,” Gurdin recalled. “He didn’t seem anxious for Marilyn to speak.” However, when the nurse brought in the X rays, Marilyn asked, “If my nose is broken, how quickly can we fix it?” The X rays showed that there were no broken bones or cartilage, and she wrapped her arms around Greenson and said, “Thank goodness!”
Putting on her dark glasses and scarf, Marilyn left by the rear door on Greenson’s arm. Gurdin later said that the injuries could have been caused by a fall, but Robert Slatzer always believed that somebody “beat the hell out of her.”
“My guess was that Joe still loved her,” Nunnally Johnson commented, “But after that Joe was under no more illusions about any sort of reunion. In short, he’d had it. So far as he was concerned, she was a lost lady, and while there might be someone to save her, he wasn’t the one.”
Between June 20 and July 15, Marilyn launched an unparalleled media blitzkrieg with the world’s leading syndicated columnists and a nonstop series of interviews and photo sessions with Vogue, Life, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan. Calling in Pat Newcomb, she dictated 104 telegrams to the cast a
nd crew of Something’s Got to Give lamenting the studio’s decision to shut down the film.
Marilyn exclaimed to one interviewer, “I don’t look on myself as a commodity, but I’m sure a lot of people have, including one corporation in particular which shall be nameless. If I’m sounding ‘picked on,’ I think I have been…. An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?”
For George Barris of Cosmopolitan she posed on a windswept beach wearing a Mexican sweater, champagne glass in hand, and stated that at age thirty-six, “As far as I’m concerned, the happiest time is now. There’s a future, and I can’t wait to get to it!”
At an extraordinary session for Vogue, photographer Bert Stern was enchanted. “Marilyn had the power,” Stern later rhapsodized. “She was the light, and the goddess, and the moon—the space and the dream, the mystery and the danger!”
When Richard Meryman interviewed her for Life, he was mesmerized by her enthusiasm and expressiveness, “Her inflections came as surprising twists and every emotion was in full bravura, acted out with exuberant gestures,” Meryman reflected. “Across her face flashed anger, wistfulness, bravado, tenderness, ruefulness, high humor and deep sadness. And each idea usually ended in a startling turn of thought, with her laugh rising to a delighted squeak…. I felt a rush of protectiveness for her; a wish—perhaps the sort that was at the root of the public’s tenderness for Marilyn—to keep her from anything ugly and hurtful.”
When Meryman recalled asking her if many friends had called up to rally round when she was fired by Fox, “there was a silence, and sitting very straight, eyes wide and hurt, she answered with a tiny ‘no.’” However, she had millions of anonymous friends acquired in the darkness of movie theaters around the world, and Fox was soon bombarded with letters and telegrams protesting the studio’s actions. Marilyn received help from another unexpected source: when Dean Martin learned that the studio was replacing Marilyn with Lee Remick, he notified his agent at MCA that he was going to walk off the film if it wasn’t completed with Marilyn Monroe. In a series of heated meetings between Fox executives and MCA to force Martin to accept a replacement, the agency supported Martin’s position, and much to the Fox publicity department’s chagrin, the news of Dean Martin’s decision made bigger headlines than Marilyn’s dismissal.
The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe Page 49