by Adam Braver
Standing toe to toe with Arthur, she puts a hand on each of his shoulders. She draws in close to him, clenching her grip. Her stomach tightens. She forces herself to speak slowly, controlled. “Arthur,” she says. “For God’s sake, did he say yes?”
He looks at her, almost with the shame of the scolded. “Yes,” he says. “He said he’d do it.”
She yelps out with joy, and it’s a true joy, an emotion that feels almost foreign. Her heart pounds, and she dances in place, her smile so big and lumbering that it blocks any tears. “I’ve worshiped Gable all my life,” she says, throwing her arms around her husband. “I must have been ten or so when I first saw him in San Francisco, and only a few years later he captured my heart in Gone with the Wind. My whole life I’ve idolized him. This is the real dream. The real dream coming true.”
“I told you, you deserve this.”
She kisses him on the forehead, then goes back to the window. Parting the curtains, she peeks out, imagining she can see the surf. One small wave forming on the surface, battling several breakers, reshaping and refusing to be swallowed. It lifts and curls and thrusts and finally touches the shore.
Late July 1960: The Misfits Set/Harrah’s Club, Reno
On the first shooting call with Gable in The Misfits, Marilyn reports to the set at Harrah’s at 11:45 AM. With her are the following:
1. Arthur Miller (scriptwriter and husband)
2. Rupert Allan (agent)
3. Paula Strasberg (acting coach)
4. Sydney Guilaroff (hair stylist)
5. Whitey Snyder (makeup artist)
6. Agnes Flanagan (hairdresser)
7. Bunny Gardel (body makeup)
8. Evelyn Moriarty (stand-in)
9. Ralph Roberts (masseur)
10. May Reis (secretary)
11. Shirlee Strahm (wardrobe)
12. Gussie Wyler (seamstress)
13. Hazel Washington (personal maid)
She’s anxious, but not the kind of anxious that debilitates her, the kind of anxious that pinches at her, that makes her feel as ordinary as her upbringing and makes her wonder how it is that she could possibly stand among such great talent. She’s in her trailer, alone, parked on Virginia Street in front of Harrah’s Club, where the first scene with Clark Gable will be shot. She sits with her knees drawn in to her chest, just in front of the wall unit air conditioner; it’s the one place that really feels cool, because it’s late July in Reno, and this time of year the heat pounds around the clock. She’s told it’s been upward of 100 degrees every day the past week, which explains why the trailer walls are hot to the touch, and why it’s only the steadily manufactured air that brings any relief.
The scene will be simple. Short. It’s set in the lounge at Harrah’s, where Roslyn and Gable’s character, Gay, along with their respective friends, Isabelle and Guido (played by Thelma Ritter and Eli Wallach), first meet. A dog named Tom Dooley will act as the catalyst that brings them all together. The lines were easily memorized. A good scene to break the ice with. But the thought of Gable makes her antsy, and for a split second she imagines him wondering who she is, and why he’s acting opposite her. She just needs to prepare herself. It’s a mental thing. A transformation. A way to make herself into someone who has no problem belonging.
She tries to put the anxiousness out of her mind. Reportedly, the entire movie crew has shown up for the occasion, as though it’s something historic. And apparently several hundred people are pushing up against the Reno police line, trying to catch a glimpse inside the casino. A press corps worthy of a world event patiently waits, squatting and leaning against poles and walls, but ready to spring into action at a second’s notice. And she laughs a little, thinking about the hubbub, knowing it’s hardly the Chilean earthquake or the Greensboro sit-in or Kennedy’s nomination or anything like that. But, she supposes, maybe their being outside does make it something, and the idea that leaving this trailer and stepping out onto the curb in order to play against Clark Gable might have that level of importance brings back the anxiousness, and all she can do is curl herself up tighter, and lift her face into the airstream, and let it continuously refresh.
Nobody can remember if Harrah’s Club has ever been closed to the public—it’s always open, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days per year. But John Huston has a commitment from the casino for three days, figuring it might take that long to get the shot. And now it’s a shell populated by a Hollywood crew, seventy-five extras brought in to act as patrons, and the regular Harrah’s staff, still earning their hourly wages, were supposed to go about their business behind the tables and in the pits while trying not to show their disappointment at having to forgo their usual tips. Standing near the entrance, Bill Harrah tells people how he hopes the shoot will go a little quicker; the closure could cost him close to $50,000 per day. The deal was that in exchange for the casino, Huston will ensure that Harrah’s is mentioned by name in the film. At one to two days, the potential PR payoff made it seem like a smart financial move. Three days will take it into an area of risk.
The room teems with life, looking oddly normal with people milling about, despite the absence of the usual soundtrack of slot machines and tumbling dice and spinning wheels. As a precaution, the crew elected to cut the air conditioning, thus avoiding potential sound issues. Not even noon, and the inside temperature has become unbearable.
She moves across the floor, her entourage in tow, heading toward the bar, where the scene will be shot. She’s acutely aware of the attention she’s garnering from the extras and the staff. But it seems misplaced. Her camaraderie is with the crowd. She shares the same anticipation. Darting her eyes around the room with as much expectation as the fans, she also hopes to catch a glimpse of Clark Gable.
Despite the authenticity of the casino, they could be shooting anywhere. The dominant architecture of the bar is the usual ubiquitous construction of spots and floods, and clipboards and notebooks, and cameras and dollies, and electrical wires and film canisters, all supervised by a crew that seems too numerous to fit in such a tiny space. Kneeling beside the large Mitchell camera, Huston peers into the viewfinder that sticks out from the side, waving the stand-ins into place and calling out, “Stop there . . . No, no, back up. There . . . Now, just a little bit more.” Evelyn Moriarty inches back and forth on set under his commands, wearing the exact same costume that Marilyn will be wearing in the scene, a long-sleeved black dress with a matching lace-netted hat trimmed in black. She looks like a foggy reflection. Huston slowly backs away from the camera, cautious not to lose his perspective, and confirms with his key grip, Charles Cowie, and his cinematographer, Russell Metty, that they’ve locked in the lighting values.
Marilyn stands to the side, like an oddly misplaced interloper. She hasn’t seen Gable yet. She’s fooled for a minute when she sees his stand-in, Alabam’ Davis. She folds her arms over her stomach. There’s a knot there, both queasy and painful.
Dressed head-to-toe in black, Paula Strasberg steps up to her. Paula came in from New York to ensure that Marilyn stays true to the method she studied at the Actors Studio. She stands a physical contrast to Marilyn, shorter and rounder, with hard features that are shadowed under a strangely oversized bell-shaped hat secured by a strap under her chin. Her expression is serious at all times, and it’s made clear to everyone around them that she’s there to work for Marilyn, not for the production company. (Marilyn already had to scold Arthur once for giving Paula the sobriquet “Black Bart.”) Paula coughs into her fist, then clears her throat. She asks Marilyn if she feels ready. Her voice has an edge. She clips the ends of her sentences, just letting them drop. Marilyn says if ready means knowing her lines, then, yes, she is ready.
Having moved around so much in her life, she’s become an acute student, studying everybody around her, watching how they interact and learning how to take and give the proper social cues. On many levels it’s served her well: she knows how to fit in, play the various games, and move herself beyond being a s
ocial interloper and into someone who is part of the chosen circle. But she’s able to hold on to that for only so long. Out of nowhere, an anger will creep up on her, one that’s stoked with resentment over having to be the one to adapt, and having to adapt to a convention that sooner or later reveals its true mediocrity. To negotiate the chosen world, she has to conform to the chosen world. And that’s usually the point when she’ll give in and fall apart. When she’s conformed so much that it swallows her whole.
She leans over and whispers to Paula, “I’m going to leave.”
“Leave?”
“Yes, leave. I’m going to go.”
“They’ll ask questions. Someone will want to know why.”
“I’ll collapse if I have to stand here any longer.”
“I can’t tell them that, my dear.”
“It was just a statement of fact, not an excuse.”
“Although, you are looking pale. Still, that’s not something I’d say.”
“They’d be waiting for that. Expecting it. For me to be sick.”
“Yes,” Paula says, “they’d be expecting it. Waiting for that.”
“I don’t want to be standing here when he arrives. I don’t want to be just standing, waiting my turn, while everybody fawns, and there is all the drama. I just don’t want to be standing here then. It won’t be good for the scene. It’ll be awkward, is what it will be. Maybe my trailer. There’s nothing odd about going back to the trailer, is there?”
Paula takes her by the elbow. “If we work on your lines there, then there’s nothing odd about going back to the trailer. It’s always helpful to keep on the lines. That’s what’s good for the scene.”
“You know I know them, the lines. Maybe just a little more practice on how to live in them. How to react, you know? And then when he’s here, actually ready to go, then we’ll come back. Meet him when we’re ready to begin. Instead of this standing around. And waiting.”
Paula leads her out through the casino, past the rows of inactive slots and card tables guarded by peering extras. Marilyn trails a slight pace behind her, like a shadow. She looks back once to the set. Evelyn waits, opposite Alabam’ Davis, hip jutted out and her eyes turned downward, kicking her heels against the floor in boredom. And Evelyn suddenly looks like a child, miscast and out of place, with no business being there. Marilyn turns and pulls even with Paula, wanting to tell her to hurry up or she really will collapse, except that she can’t speak because she’s holding in her breath. It’s what keeps her upright and weighted down. Just enough to get her to the privacy of her trailer, where she can safely collapse from nerves.
Gable tells Marilyn it’s good to meet her, and he looks forward to making a good picture together. He says it’s a heck of a script that her husband put together, and that sometimes you don’t need to say a whole lot to say everything. And she just stands before him, unsure of what to do with her hands. She feels little, as small as she was when she’d lie on her stomach on the bed thumbing through magazines just to find a picture of him. She calls him Mr. Gable, and he corrects her, saying to call him Clark, and she calls him Clark, but it feels as unrealistically dreamy as sitting in any one of her childhood rooms, staring up at the ceiling and imagining that her unknown father might have been Clark Gable. Or that one day Clark Gable would rescue her. Clark. He looks at her when she says his name, waiting. But she can’t think of anything to follow it up with, and the hole just hangs there, while she searches for something to fill it, until she finally grabs Paula’s hand and says, “Have you met Paula Strasberg? My acting coach.” As soon as she says acting coach a sense of rank amateurishness washes over her, and she follows up by explaining that Paula is married to Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio in New York, where she’s been studying, but Gable just looks at her with no real expression, clearly not interested in where she’s been studying. In her head she tells herself to shut up, because that’s what she needs to do—she needs to shut up. Paula steps forward to introduce herself, and Gable tells her it’s good to meet her (no different from how he said it to Marilyn), adding that she must be awfully hot all in black. Marilyn’s sure he takes none of this seriously, and so she searches and searches for some bit of information, some interaction she’s witnessed that will tell her what to do and that will establish her as something more than a grade-school girl who raised the most money in the school auction, with the prize being a chance to meet Clark Gable. “If you’ll excuse me,” she says with abrupt alacrity, “I think I left something back in my trailer.” She turns around, walking off without Paula, figuring that by the time she reaches her dressing room, she’ll be alone and able to rummage through every stored box in her memory, tossing out the contents without anybody else there to name them, until finally finding the one deportment that will allow her to ease into the world of Clark, and belong there.
Here’s the scene: The four principal characters are staged at the bar. A recently divorced Roslyn has just walked through the casino with Isabelle, who stops to throw a coin in a slot machine. Settling at a table in the lounge, they order a scotch and a rye-and-water. Isabelle tries to cheer Roslyn, telling her, “One thing about this town, it’s always full of interesting strangers.” Gay Langland, sitting at the bar beside Guido, will first come into view when he turns around to look for his brown and white hound, Tom Dooley. A fairly simple and static scene. Easy enough to stage.
But the dog will not cooperate. Perhaps it’s the energy surrounding the set. Or the large crowds outside. Or the electrical buzzing from the cables snaking around the club. Either way, his handler, Cindy James, can’t get him under control. She’s a veteran trainer, and, as with the rest of the crew, she’s been brought on to The Misfits because she’s the best. She studied under the great animal handler Frank Inn at Halsey Canyon in Santa Clarita, moving from acolyte to torchbearer. But Tom Dooley doesn’t care about her professional credentials. He jumps on the barstools, tries to lick Marilyn’s face, wants to engage Gable in some kind of play, and sometimes just runs circles around the bar and through the equipment. As she crouches beside the camera, James’s hand signals are blatantly ignored. Tom Dooley will not let them set the scene. It’s all Cindy James can do to calm the excitable hound down enough to get through rehearsals. She looks exasperated, trying not to apologize, but rather to explain that he’ll come around, he’s been trained to perform under any circumstances, he just needs to find his grounding.
Gable looks bothered. He glances from the bar to Marilyn while she strokes the dog, armed with a bag of treats, a quick concession to appeal to Tom Dooley’s innate sense of purpose. Catching her eye, Gable holds a longer stare. This is not the way movies were made when he started. If someone couldn’t handle the scene, or couldn’t even make it on time, then they were fired. And that went from the lead to the dog. She tries to return the look, matching his stern and professional expression—one she recalls Arthur having in a disagreement with a stage director. But her confidence mostly melts inside her. And she worries she might have just lost all her lines.
Once the cameras are rolling, though, Marilyn finds her way into the role, and the lines spill out as if they’re not memorized. And though Marilyn Monroe still has little sense of how to get through to Clark Gable, Roslyn Taber and Gay Langland connect on a completely spiritual level, dancing around each other in inaugural questions, accented by her coy looks and his hardened stares. She loves when they shoot the takes. It’s barely even acting. She looks up at Gay, her shoulders dropping, with a faint smile on her face, moving treats back and forth to Tom Dooley’s mouth. She pulls at her hair. Strokes her neck. Looks right at Gay when she addresses him, but then drops her eyes flirtatiously to finish the lines. She comes alive when Gay justifies living out on a ranch in the countryside, saying how everything is there and in the country “you just live.” Her face ignites at that thought, sparking half a blink with her right eye, imagining the possibility, as she says, “I know what you mean.” And when she agrees to go and see the
ranch with Gay and Guido and Isabelle, surrendering with a devil-may-care laugh, the expression is so real it appears to be something the camera has accidentally caught.
After they wrap for the day, she’s backed up into the corner, in conference with Paula about her techniques and delivery. Paula tells her it went well and that she looked beautiful, and she’ll be able to offer more once she sees the rushes and can then confer with Lee by phone. There’s nothing much more to say. But Marilyn keeps the conversation going. Asking questions. Rehashing. Talking about anything. Anything, until she can see Gable leave, ensuring that she won’t find herself trying to figure out how to talk with him.
The next day she almost doesn’t show up. Arthur’s anxious. Pacing their room at the Mapes Hotel, worrying over some possible changes in the script, particularly the nagging detail of who pays the check in the Harrah’s Club scene. There are a few ideas that he needs to talk out with Huston. He’s been trying to keep his temperament even while waiting for her, calling through the bathroom door that they need to get going. Reminding her of the schedule. She says to go ahead without her. She’ll meet him there.
Arthur knocks once more and this time slowly turns the knob, cracking open the door. She’s kneeling before the tub, her white robe still on, the terry belt hanging between her bare legs. A hand is under the faucet stream, testing the temperature. “For God’s sake, Marilyn,” he says. “It’s a ten o’clock call.”
She glances back over her shoulder, trying to keep her composure. Her hand slices in and out of the faucet stream. The water’s getting too hot. She turns the spigot, inching up the cold water. Hot water droplets rain off the side of her palm, falling into the tub, breaking up near-perfect soap bubbles.