Marilyn Monroe

by Barbara Leaming

  They returned to Los Angeles on the 24th. It was the day before Marilyn was due back at Twentieth, though of course she had no intention of showing up. As she opened the high iron gate at Doheny, she saw a copy of the script for The Girl in Pink Tights wedged behind her screen door. Zanuck had sent it over as a courtesy, with another copy to Famous Artists.

  Zanuck was by no means conceding that Marilyn had the right to approve scripts, and he certainly wasn’t interested in her opinion. If, as seems likely, Zanuck thought that no harm could be done in giving Marilyn the script, he was wrong. Up to this point, Marilyn had insisted that she was refusing to report to work because she hadn’t seen a script. Now, she was going to do something different. She was going to pass judgment. Worse, she was going to question Zanuck’s judgment. She was going to imply that she knew better than the production chief whether a script was good.

  The next day, when Marilyn failed to appear, her lawyer told reporters: “She read the script and does not care to do the picture.” Twentieth wasted no time in suspending her again. Hours later, the press office released a hard-hitting statement: “Producer Sol C. Siegel, who made Miss Monroe’s highly successful musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, has had a complete script and full musical score ready for the CinemaScope camera. In addition, Henry Koster, who directed the most successful picture in the industry’s history, The Robe, was assigned to Pink Tights and other cast principals have been ready for filming to start. This has involved the studio in a tremendous investment. If Miss Monroe’s failure to appear is based on her desire to approve scripts, the studio wishes to point out that the outstanding success of Miss Monroe’s previous vehicles is evidence enough of the studio’s ability to select stories for her.”

  Privately, Zanuck expressed rage that Marilyn would dare to criticize one of his productions in the press. He thought the idea of her having any input at all was ludicrous. As far as Zanuck was concerned, Marilyn was an idiot and didn’t know the first thing about filmmaking.

  Feldman was delighted to learn that as soon as DiMaggio returned from New York, he planned to take Marilyn to Japan for the start of the baseball season there. Lefty O’Doul, known as Mr. Baseball to Japanese fans, had invited Joe to participate in an exhibition tour, during which they would also give some workshops for Japanese players. Since Marilyn was suspended, Joe asked her to come along.

  For Feldman, the timing could not have been better. He would begin the negotiations with Zanuck without having to worry that Marilyn, always a loose cannon, would somehow foul things up. Besides, there was talk of Marilyn’s making a side trip to Korea to entertain the U.S. troops there, the Korean War having ended six months previously. From Feldman’s point of view, the publicity would be a great advantage. Twentieth would have a hard time attacking Marilyn in the press at a moment when she was singing and dancing for American boys overseas.

  Marilyn arrived in San Francisco on the night of January 28. Joe flew in from New York earlier in the day. Before they went to Honolulu, there was a mishap at home on Beach Street. Marilyn came up behind Joe and put her arms around him. Joe, sensitive about being touched, instinctively threw her right hand back with such force that the thumb had to be put in a splint.

  “I just bumped it,” Marilyn insisted, as she and Joe arrived at the airport on January 29. Reporters had noticed that she was trying to conceal her thumb in the folds of her mink coat. When they saw the splint, they wanted to know what had happened.

  “I have a witness,” Marilyn went on. “Joe was there. He heard it crack.” Clutching Marilyn tightly, he stared immovably at her right hand.

  Did she plan to make another film soon? someone inquired. “We’re not concerned about that now,” Joe interjected. “We’re on our honeymoon.”

  When Pan American flight 831 touched down in Honolulu, thousands of fans rushed onto the airfield screaming “Marilyn! Marilyn!” An inadequate security force was powerless to hold them back. There was pandemonium. The crowd surrounded Marilyn, pawing at her hair and clothing. Some fans later claimed to have broken off strands of her hair. Finally, police formed a ring around the couple and forced a way through to an airport lounge.

  Marilyn’s reception in Tokyo was equally vociferous. At the airport, she had to be smuggled out through the luggage hatch. A large police contingent was waiting at the Imperial Hotel as Joe and Marilyn drove up in a black convertible. When the police closed the lobby doors, fans plunged through the plate-glass panels in an effort to reach Japan’s number one foreign box-office star. Only after “the honorable buttocks-swinging madam,” as Marilyn was called in the Japanese press, put in a brief appearance on a balcony did the crowd finally disperse.

  That night, Marilyn, in a clinging red wool dress, held a press conference for seventy-five Japanese journalists at the hotel. She was assisted by Lefty O’Doul. “We are told you do not wear anything under your dress,” shouted one reporter. “Is it true?” DiMaggio cut a poignant figure, lurking nearly unnoticed in the corner of the large room. That kind of question pained him. Neither was he thrilled when Marilyn announced that she did indeed plan to spend about four days entertaining the troops in Korea.

  The side trip was exceedingly important to her. Marilyn had often talked to Feldman about her desire to go to Korea, since she believed that she owed a good deal of her success to the U.S. soldiers who collected her posters. It was said that there were more pictures of her pasted up in bunkers, military offices, and footlockers than of any other actress. More lonely soldiers wrote to Marilyn than to anyone else in Hollywood. The military newspaper Stars and Stripes featured so many photographs of Marilyn on its cover that it often had to run repeat shots.

  On February 16, Marilyn flew to Seoul, accompanied by Lefty’s wife. She wore a combat jacket over a man’s army shirt and trousers, and combat boots. At the Seoul City Air Base, they transferred to a helicopter that took them to the cold, mountainous location, formerly a war zone, where the First Marine Division was stationed. In addition to the pilot, there were several other soldiers on board.

  The sight of thousands of men waiting on the mountain where she was to perform thrilled Marilyn. She instructed the pilot to fly in a low circle so that she could wave to the troops. Then she threw open the sliding door. Shouting at the two soldiers to sit on her feet, Marilyn slid belly-down out of the helicopter. Laughing and blowing kisses, she dangled in mid-air over the shrieking, whistling, applauding Marines. The danger seemed only to enhance her euphoria. Four times she ordered the pilot to circle the mountain as the excitement below kept building.

  By the time the helicopter landed, Marilyn had the crowd worked up to a frenzy. There was a makeshift platform with an upright piano and a microphone. Marilyn disappeared into a dressing area behind some burlap curtains that flapped in the icy wind, and changed into a skin-tight, embroidered sheath dress with plum-colored sequins. Despite the piercing cold, her shoulders were bare, the low-cut dress held up by fragile spaghetti straps. She wore rhinestone-covered hoop earrings, a pearl bracelet, and stiletto heels.

  When Marilyn peeked through the burlap curtains, what she saw exhilarated her. Some thirteen thousand men, wearing heavy, hooded parkas and fur-lined hats, were all there for her. Marilyn loved the power she had over men. When she felt that power most strongly, all her insecurities dropped away. Marilyn had been known to hide in her dressing room in fear of facing a film camera. She had been known to vomit and to break out in spots. But at moments like this, she was transformed into a different person. She fed on the noise, the adoration, the sexual frenzy of the crowd.

  Marilyn strutted out onstage to wild cheers. She caressed the microphone, holding it close to her moist red lips. She talked to the troops in a baby voice. Singing “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend,” “Do It Again,” and other songs, Marilyn seemed oblivious to the piercing cold. It might have been the hottest day of the year.

  That night, Marilyn was the guest of honor at a dinner attended by some fifty officers. The Sign
al Corps had hooked up a telephone connection to Joe, with the conversation to be broadcast on a public address system. As Marilyn spoke to her husband, she was still keyed up after the performance. “Do you still love me, Joe?” Marilyn purred for all to hear. “Do you miss me?” Though he said that he did, DiMaggio, who hated being made to look ridiculous, sounded tense, measured, subdued. He remained that way when Marilyn returned to Japan, exuberant about her experiences in Korea.

  “Joe, you never heard such cheering,” she told him.

  “Yes, I have,” DiMaggio answered ruefully.

  Marilyn was running a fever, a prelude to the fully fledged pneumonia that would keep her in bed at the Imperial Hotel until it was time to go home.

  After a few days of Marie’s pampering in San Francisco, Joe went to New York on business. Marilyn, her voice still a bit raspy, flew to Los Angeles for the Photoplay Awards ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel. This year, she was to be honored as Hollywood’s most popular actress.

  “I can’t even say I’m glad to be home, because home is with my husband and he isn’t here,” Marilyn told reporters at the airport on March 5, 1954. As she talked she waved her left hand, calling attention to a glittering diamond bracelet. “Joe’s in New York and he’ll be here in a few days. He’s the head of our family and I’ll live wherever he decides, but he doesn’t know yet what city it will be.”

  As always, Marilyn came to the ceremony late. There was considerable awkwardness when she entered wearing a white satin dress with a wrapped top, her hair tinted a Harlow-esque platinum. This year, however, it wasn’t Marilyn’s costume that caused a stir, but her position on the dais four seats from Darryl Zanuck. As the date required by her tax situation had finally passed in her absence, Feldman had begun negotiating her contract in earnest. The talks were still in progress. Marilyn and Zanuck did their best to ignore each other, though he appeared to listen as she answered a reporter’s question.

  “I am still under suspension,” said Marilyn, blowing away a strand of platinum hair that had fallen over her face. “I have no idea when the suspension may be lifted, and consequently can give no definite answer about my return to pictures.”

  Feldman waited until Joe arrived in Los Angeles to convey to Marilyn the details of his discussions with Twentieth. They met in his paneled office on March 15. Sitting under a Renoir painting, the agent reviewed all he had accomplished so far. At such moments Feldman tended to be self-effacing.

  He had convinced Zanuck to abandon The Girl in Pink Tights. He had convinced him to pay Marilyn a lot more money. He had convinced him that she must be required to do no more than two films a year. And he had convinced him to buy Horns of the Devil for $225,000, whether or not Marilyn actually appeared in the film. On all these issues, the production chief had moved swiftly because, thanks to Joe, Twentieth had no backlog of unreleased Marilyn Monroe films beyond River of No Return.

  On one issue, however, Feldman had been unable to budge Zanuck. He emphasized that from the start, he had repeatedly insisted on Marilyn’s right to approve scripts, directors, and cameramen. But Lew Schreiber had been quick to point out that Twentieth would never consider such a request. Zanuck alone decided what scripts were made on the Fox lot and who made them. This was the hot-button issue for Zanuck. Certainly, all his statements to the press had signaled that he had no intention of giving Marilyn a voice in such decisions.

  Though he certainly never told her so, Feldman didn’t believe Marilyn was equipped to have that kind of responsibility anyway. Her own agent was certain that if only Zanuck would make a small, symbolic concession in this area, she would forget all about creative control and focus on the one really important issue: money. But Feldman failed to understand that this was not just a whim of Marilyn’s. It went to the very heart of what she wanted. Winning the right to these controls would confirm that Marilyn finally had the respect that, she believed, came with stardom. She needed a sign from Zanuck that her childhood dream really had come true.

  Marilyn was upset, but Feldman minimized the problem. He assured her that he was still trying to persuade Zanuck to give her some form of creative control. But, he emphasized, Marilyn would have to compromise as well. By the time the conversation was finished, Feldman had persuaded her to scale back her demands drastically. In the end, she asked only for the right to approve her own choreographer and dramatic coach. It was very little, but at least it would be a sign that Zanuck acknowledged Marilyn had earned the right to a voice in the creative process. Marilyn was certain that Feldman understood how much this meant to her. Surely, after all she had done in the past year, no one would refuse such a tiny request.

  Zanuck was especially eager to settle, Feldman believed, because he wanted to cast Marilyn in There’s No Business Like Show Business, a backstage musical that featured the songs of Irving Berlin. It was scheduled to start in April, under the direction of Walter Lang. Feldman also mentioned the tantalizing possibility of using Marilyn in an independent production of his own. He had been talking to Billy Wilder about a film of the hit Broadway comedy The Seven Year Itch. Wilder and Feldman would produce together, with Wilder directing and George Axelrod writing the script. Though Feldman made no promises that Twentieth would permit him to shoot The Seven Year Itch there, if all went well he wanted Marilyn to star.

  Marilyn may have been ambivalent about Feldman personally, but she respected his talents as a producer, especially his ability to choose prestigious projects. The Seven Year Itch would be Feldman’s first independent production since A Streetcar Named Desire. The participation of Wilder, whose work Marilyn admired, made the project irresistible. This would be Marilyn’s first opportunity since Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to work with a director of the first rank.

  Joe and Marilyn returned to Feldman’s office three days later. As he was close to a deal with Zanuck, Feldman advised Marilyn to start There’s No Business Like Show Business even if she didn’t have a signed contract yet. The musical promised to require a lengthy shoot, and Feldman wanted Marilyn to be finished by the time Wilder, currently at work on Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn, was free. Wilder and Axelrod planned to work on the script sometime during the summer. Though Marilyn disliked the idea of another musical, she agreed to the assignment strictly because she was eager to do The Seven Year Itch.

  Feldman also urged Marilyn to accept the studio’s proposal that if a contract hadn’t been finalized in time, she begin the picture at her old weekly salary of $1,250. The moment a new salary and other terms had been agreed on and the papers were signed, Twentieth would retroactively pay the difference. That amount, Joe would be happy to hear, promised to be substantial. The studio was fast approaching Feldman’s target price of $100,000 per picture.

  In the days that followed, Marilyn was euphoric. All these months of listening to Joe and to Charlie finally appeared to have paid off. Excited about The Seven Year Itch and confident that her new deal at Twentieth was nearing completion, Marilyn swept into Famous Artists on March 31 and signed the papers officially making her their client. As soon as she signed her new studio contract, Feldman would finally begin to be paid.

  As the door to Marilyn’s luxurious, ground-floor dressing room in the two-story, beige stucco Star Building at Twentieth opened, the aroma of Chanel No. 5 perfume filled the air. The scent lingered when Marilyn was absent. Sunlight peeked through the edges of closed Venetian blinds. Marilyn had inherited dressing room M, said to be the best on the lot, from Betty Grable. An outer area was decorated with crimson-upholstered Queen Anne chairs and sofas. When the fluorescent lights were turned on, a spacious dressing table was visible inside, adorned with a small framed photograph of Joe—gray-streaked hair growing to a widow’s peak—and littered with countless tiny prescription bottles from Schwab’s. Mirrors large and small hung on all sides.

  Twentieth lifted Marilyn’s suspension on April 13 and she returned to the lot the next day. She hadn’t set foot in her dressing room since December 23. Afterward, at the
studio’s request, she met with reporters in Sol Siegel’s office. Asked about her contract, Marilyn declared that she and Twentieth were still “working out details” but that she anticipated signing very soon.

  How was married life?

  “As far as I’m concerned baseball players make good husbands,” said Marilyn. “Joe and I want a lot of little DiMaggios.”

  The journalists applauded. The studio executives winced.

  “Am I expecting now? Oh, no, but I wish I were. We want children as soon as possible.”

  Joe and Marilyn had rented a furnished, two-story, eight-room Tudor cottage on North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills. It faced directly onto the street, affording little privacy. A curved brick path, bordered by chrysanthemums and red roses, led to the front door. Behind were a large patio and a turquoise swimming pool. There were usually two Cadillacs on the driveway. By contrast with Joe’s immaculate blue car, Marilyn’s black convertible with black leather upholstery tended to be messy, the back seat cluttered with old clothes and unpaid traffic tickets.

  On April 23, Marilyn, sipping a vodka on the patio, noticed an advance review of River of No Return in the Hollywood Reporter: “If River proves anything at all, it is that Marilyn Monroe should stick to musicals and the type of entertainment that made her such a box-office lure. If the film fails to bring in smash returns, Twentieth Century–Fox can attribute it to Marilyn’s inability to handle a heavy acting role. Most of her genuine values are lost here…. If Twentieth persists in casting her in epics calling for emotional histrionics and dowdy costumes, revealing as they may be, it is going to affect her box-office pull.”

  Marilyn screamed. Crying, she raced upstairs to find the long, rambling letter Feldman had written from Switzerland back in December. Hadn’t he told her that he’d watched a rough cut of River of No Return with Zanuck? Hadn’t he assured her that they both thought she was great? If Zanuck and Feldman really knew what they were doing, how could they have been so mistaken?