“You better stop that,” Miller whispered to Marilyn. “If you lean too hard, I’m going to fall over.”
Marilyn, all smiles and giggles, responded by closing her eyes and kissing Arthur’s weathered cheek.
“Do that again, Marilyn!” the photographers cheered.
She did—numerous times.
“It’s a good thing that we’ll only be getting married once,” Miller remarked to reporters. “That’s all I can tell you.”
Marilyn whispered something in Arthur’s ear that caused him to hold her very tightly, burrowing his nose in her forehead. He was the image of a man deeply in love, a man who certainly deserved to be permitted to go on his honeymoon.
Someone mentioned Francis Walter’s statement that there weren’t too many places in America where Miller would fail to enjoy a honeymoon with Marilyn Monroe.
“It would be rather difficult to honeymoon here,” Miller declared, “since Miss Monroe is going to England.”
“I won’t be in the U.S.,” Marilyn chimed in. “I’ve got to go whether he can or not.” She paused to tilt her head back and gaze lovingly into Arthur’s eyes. “I hope he’ll go with me.”
By the time these pictures appeared in Saturday’s papers, Marilyn had adroitly shifted everyone’s attention from the particulars of Arthur’s testimony, which had not played well in the press, to the question of when and where the wedding was to take place. On Saturday morning, a rumor spread among reporters outside the apartment house that Marilyn was to be married that night. Marilyn didn’t see her psychiatrist on weekends, so she remained out of sight all day. Eager to keep the press on her side, she sent down an assistant to field questions. The assistant denied the rumors, then, at the reporters’ urging, called upstairs on the doorman’s house phone to double-check with Miller.
Around noon, Miller, alone, roared off in Marilyn’s black Thunderbird convertible. He returned two hours later. At 5:15 p.m., newsmen spotted him peeking at the crowd from an eighth-floor window. All heads looked up and Miller ducked. Clearly, he and Marilyn were going to have no privacy and no peace so long as they remained in town.
On Sunday night, Miller’s station wagon, loaded with suitcases, appeared mysteriously. Soon afterward, Miller issued from the lobby and drove off alone. He went only so far as grim, cobblestoned York Avenue in the shadow of the clattering Queensboro Bridge. He parked on the east side of the street. Moments later, Marilyn, carrying a small, striped leather train case in one hand, a straw picnic basket in the other, darted out of 2 Sutton Place South. A yellow Checker cab took her four blocks uptown, stopping on the west side of York Avenue. Marilyn, on spike heels, ducked advancing cars with blazing headlights. No sooner had she reached the station wagon than she felt a hand on her shoulder roughly spin her around. Marilyn was hurled against the vehicle with such force that she nearly fell. The photographer was about to snap her picture when Miller emerged and, without so much as a glance at the fellow, helped her in.
In those days, there were no interstate highway connections between New York and Roxbury. The trip took three hours. Litchfield County was sparsely-populated dairy country with stone walls, eighteenth-century white clapboard farmhouses, and vivid red barns and silos. Arthur called the rolling terrain “my fields.” It would have been hard to see much in the velvety darkness, but the air was perfumed with sweet rocket and trailing arbutus. There were black, red and white oak trees for the headlights to pick out.
In the winter of 1947, Miller, then married to his first wife, had come here in a borrowed truck looking for a certain house that was for sale. The narrow, twisty dirt roads, precarious in any conditions, were snow-covered and slippery. Snow was piled high on both sides. Miller lost control, sliding into a parked car. As chance would have it, the charming, seven-room, white frame house with shuttered windows and a painted chimney was the available property. It stood at the intersection of Old Tophet and Gold Mine Roads. It had forty-four acres and a clay tennis court. When Miller moved there, he and his cousin Morty, who had a house nearby, were said to be the first Jews in Roxbury. The area around Old Tophet came to be known as “the hill where all the Jews are.”
Marilyn had never spent time at close quarters with Arthur’s family before. Tonight, Isadore and Augusta had come up from Brooklyn. His children, Jane, eleven, and Robert, nine, were also present in anticipation of going off to summer camp in Massachusetts the following week. His ex-wife was nowhere in sight, of course, but this was still very much Mary’s house. In back was the ten-by-twelve-foot shack where Arthur had written “the great American play” in six weeks. He liked to say that Death of a Salesman, originally titled “The Inside of His Head,” had taken shape in his thoughts as he built the studio.
Roxbury was the sort of place where you awakened to discover cows studying you from the other side of a stone wall. You could walk for hours without seeing more than one or two cars. Few outsiders found their way into the tangle of gritty back roads which had long, hilly views. But when Marilyn awakened on the morning of Monday, June 25, she could hear the clamor outside. Voices in several languages drifted through the open windows. The grinding of newsreel cameras drowned out the small, tremulous sounds of barn swallows. She and Arthur had not eluded the press after all. It was Sutton Place South all over again. Only the yellow ice-cream wagon was missing.
Here, Marilyn couldn’t hide on the eighth floor with the air-conditioner blasting and a doorman and other apartment-house staff to run interference. A great many reporters loomed on the other side of the fragrant green hedge that partly obscured the property. A helicopter could be heard just overhead as a news photographer shot an aerial view. In these conditions, how was Miller possibly going to get any work done on the expanded version of A View from the Bridge he had promised to deliver to Binkie Beaumont? He had never been the sort of writer to tolerate distractions.
This morning, he had to drive to Manhattan to confer with Lloyd Garrison. Before he left, however, he and Marilyn had little choice but to give reporters a photo opportunity. Marilyn knew that the press, always fickle, must be kept on their side. America’s sympathy was every bit as important to getting that passport as anything Arthur’s lawyers could say or do. Whatever serious matters he had to attend to later in the day, right now it was essential that Miller play the cuddly, nervous bridegroom.
Marilyn put on a pair of blue jeans, a sleeveless, button-front, white blouse, and moccasins. Miller wore dark trousers and a white shirt open at the collar. As they emerged into the bright sunlight, Marilyn, wearing dark glasses, threw her arms around Arthur’s waist. Without high heels, Marilyn stood five feet five and a half inches; the top of her head reached Miller’s shoulder. He had to crane his long, leathery neck to nuzzle her tousled hair.
“It won’t be for several days at least,” Marilyn told the adoring crowd before she went back inside.
“There’ll be no wedding this week,” Miller added as he prepared to drive off. “I can’t say yet when.”
Rather than face more questions, Marilyn remained in an upstairs bedroom. While the children played outside, Augusta Miller announced that Marilyn was “badly run down” and needed rest. Meanwhile, several reporters found their way to Hodge’s general store in Roxbury center. Residents picked up their mail there, sipped coffee, and chewed the fat. They were said to be the kind of people who looked at an outsider twice before saying hello. The strangers didn’t exactly get a warm welcome. There was a good deal of upset about the invasion.
One Hodge’s regular who failed to show up on Monday was old Ed Dillingham. The crusty ninety-four-year-old asked a neighbor to pick up his mail, declaring, “I’m saving all my strength for Marilyn!”
Miller had a great deal to do that afternoon at the Madison Avenue office of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison. Joe Rauh, in Washington, had been greatly disturbed by false press reports that Miller was withholding an affidavit stating that he was not then and never had been a Communist Party member. The Stat
e Department would not consider issuing a passport without the affidavit.
Rauh had prepared a draft over the weekend and gotten it off to Lloyd Garrison for Miller to review and sign. He asked Miller to draft a supplementary affidavit consisting of passages from his literary work and interviews that indicated a belief in democracy. Rauh was especially eager for the State Department to see a 1954 interview with the Icelandic newspaper Morgungladid, in which Miller protested against “the tyrannical suppressions of liberty in Russia.” In the light of Francis Walter’s alarming statements on Friday, Rauh also wanted to move quickly to avert the possibility of Miller’s being cited for contempt of Congress. HUAC had shied away from recommending a contempt citation against Paul Robeson; the committee feared he’d use contempt proceedings as a platform for more spotlight-grabbing histrionics. But the polite, soft-spoken, intellectual Arthur Miller was another story.
Garrison had written a letter to Chairman Walter requesting ten days to prepare a memorandum on precedents for not citing Arthur Miller for contempt. Miller reviewed the letter. His lawyers wanted to be sure that Walter received it before HUAC met in executive session on Wednesday morning. Otherwise, the committee might very well recommend a contempt citation. If the House voted to proceed, the Justice Department would launch an investigation with an eye to indicting Miller. So there was a good deal of nervousness in Miller’s camp in anticipation of the moment when Walter read Garrison’s letter.
And there was anxiety about Miller’s four-family party line in rural Connecticut. When Walter reacted, Rauh and Garrison wanted to be able to confer with their client immediately without fear that others might be listening in. The presence of all those journalists in Roxbury meant that the details of the lawyers’ telephone conversations could find their way into the next day’s newspapers. The last thing Miller needed on Wednesday was a bunch of sharp-eared reporters hanging out at Hodge’s general store.
On Tuesday, on discovering the press still camped out at Gold Mine and Old Tophet, Miller emerged from the house to propose a deal. Doctors had ordered Marilyn to get some rest. She needed to be able to sun herself without fear of being photographed through the hedges. Obviously the reporters hesitated to budge lest they miss the wedding. Miller promised that the ceremony would not take place before Saturday. If they all returned to the city and left Marilyn alone, he vowed to “bare all”—whatever that might mean—at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
“I have always kept my word,” the playwright declared, “and I will in this instance.”
An hour later the reporters had dispersed. Though they may have assumed that Marilyn was lazily sunning herself, in fact the household was bursting with tension as she, Miller, and his parents awaited the news from Washington. If the committee recommended a contempt citation, the State Department was most unlikely to give Miller a passport. For many months to come, he might be required to devote time, energy, and money to his defense. Marilyn would have to go to England alone.
While the committee deliberated, Arthur’s cousin Morty showed up at the house and collected two vials of blood, which would have to be tested before they could apply for a marriage license. They were to be married on Sunday, July 1 at the home of Miller’s agent, Kay Brown, in South Salem, New York, just over the state border. Rabbi Robert Goldberg of New Haven, a prominent civil libertarian, agreed to perform the ceremony.
The result of the HUAC executive session on Wednesday was not what anyone in Miller’s camp had anticipated. Initially, the news seemed to be good. HUAC had voted unanimously to wait ten days before deciding on a contempt citation, as Garrison had requested. But the reason they gave was not to allow Garrison to research precedents for not holding Miller in contempt. Instead, Miller was allowed ten days in which to change his mind about naming names. He had until July 7, six days before the scheduled departure for England.
As Arthur and Marilyn drove down to South Salem for a marriage license on Friday morning, they were under a good deal of pressure. By the time they returned, the dusty intersection of Old Tophet and Gold Mine was already clogged with parked cars. Reporters had begun to assemble in anticipation of the statement Miller had promised to make this afternoon. There were many new faces. Meanwhile, Morty and his wife, Florence, invited Marilyn, Arthur, his parents and children to lunch. In their absence, as many as four hundred journalists gathered outside Miller’s farmhouse in the rapidly escalating heat.
Mara Scherbatoff, New York bureau chief for Paris-Match, arrived with a photographer named Paul Slade. His eighteen-year-old brother Ira had driven them up from the city. When there was no sign of Marilyn Monroe at the house, Scherbatoff made some inquiries and decided to drive to Morty’s house. Paul Slade remained to set up his equipment on the grass with other photographers. The sunlight was punishing. The journalists’ clothes grew damp.
Morty Miller’s house was about a mile and a half away. Ira Slade and Scherbatoff parked outside and waited. Shortly before 1 p.m., Marilyn, Arthur and his cousin left in a station wagon. Morty drove quickly; he knew the winding dirt road well. The New York teenager took off after them. Gold Mine was badly rutted and the ride was a bumpy one. About three quarters of a mile from the crossroads, Slade took a sharp, difficult turn. Residents knew to slow down, but the kid proceeded at top speed. He lost control and the car flew off the shoulder into an oak tree. The reporters at Arthur’s house, including Slade’s brother, were startled by the sound of the impact.
Morty hit the brakes. He, Arthur, and Marilyn raced back on foot. The sight was horrifying. Both Scherbatoff and Slade were still inside the gnarled wreckage. The boy was crumpled behind the steering wheel. Scherbatoff, in the passenger’s seat, had been hurled partway through the windshield. Her face was sliced open from the middle of her lip to her forehead. Teeth were missing. Her chest was crushed, her legs broken. Blood gushed from a severed artery in her throat. She was crying softly.
Marilyn helped to dislodge Scherbatoff, placing her on the ground beside the open car door. Arthur pulled the boy out. His injuries were considerably less serious. Meanwhile, Paul Slade had rushed to the scene. He hovered over Scherbatoff, stemming the flow of blood by pressing a finger on the exposed artery.
Marilyn and the Millers sped to Arthur’s. Arthur, the first out of the car, dashed into the house. Morty, thin and bald with sunglasses and black sneakers, followed with Marilyn. She appeared to be traumatized, her white blouse flecked with blood.
“There’s been a very bad accident up there,” she was saying. “A girl has been terribly hurt. It’s awful.” Morty added that Arthur was calling the hospital right now.
The nearest hospital was in New Milford. Miller, told there wouldn’t be an ambulance for two hours, grew frenzied. He notified the operator that the girl on the road was Marilyn Monroe and that the story would be front-page news tomorrow. That sped things up.
Marilyn, on automatic pilot, went upstairs to prepare for the press conference. It seems never to have occurred to her to cancel. She changed into a mustard green blouse and a black linen skirt. Despite the heat, Miller pulled a navy V-neck sweater over his white shirt. He puffed on a cigarette. He clenched his jaw.
Thirty minutes later, Marilyn was ready. After a lifetime of playing the happy girl, she was expert at masking her emotions. But in this instance, the disjunction seemed weird and disturbing. Suddenly, she was all smiles and laughter. There was not a trace of the very real upset people had witnessed only half an hour ago. Milton Greene, who had driven over from Weston, introduced the couple. As Marilyn and Arthur took their places under a maple tree behind the house, an ambulance siren could be heard in the distance.
Greene notified the photographers that they had twenty minutes to get what they needed. Marilyn, as though in a trance, hugged and cuddled Miller for the cameras. She kissed his forehead. She held his waist. She rubbed up against his back. Miller, clearly, was barely going through the motions. During the question-and-answer period, he was testy with reporters
for the first time since appearing before HUAC.
“I’m not going to tell you where and when we’re going to get married,” he said. “If the press do not leave me alone, we will leave here for parts unknown.”
After the reporters left, word came from New Milford Hospital that Scherbatoff had died on the operating table. Marilyn, distraught, had to be convinced that the woman’s death was not somehow her fault. Paula Strasberg, in New York, called the accident a bad omen.
Miller had had enough. Eager “to stop all the publicity,” he decided to get married immediately. It was a way of seizing control, the situation having gotten monstrously out of hand. Apparently in the belief that once the ceremony was over the media circus would end, he arranged for them to be married that evening at the Westchester County Court House in White Plains, New York. Judge Seymour Robinowitz promised to tell no one, not even his wife. Miller had ordered a ring from Cartier’s but it wasn’t ready, so he borrowed Augusta’s wedding band for the ceremony. Marilyn changed into a short-sleeved sweater. Arthur wore a blue blazer over his V-neck sweater and white shirt.
Judge Robinowitz pronounced Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe man and wife at 7:21 p.m. A bottle of champagne was produced, the exhausted couple toasting each other in front of a shelf of law books in the judge’s chambers. Marilyn looked particularly wan.
“I’m glad it’s over,” said Miller. “Now the world can go back to what it was doing.”
Later, one of Marilyn’s publicists heard about Arthur’s comment and said wryly, “He doesn’t realize that this is only the beginning.”
News of the civil ceremony meant that the press were caught off guard when Arthur and Marilyn went ahead with their plans for a religious ceremony. On the afternoon of Sunday, July 1, family and friends waited on the flagstone terrace at Kay Brown’s white farmhouse while the bride and groom drove down from Roxbury. There were Arthur’s parents and children. There were his brother Kermit, sister Joan, cousin Morty and their spouses. There were the Lee Strasbergs, the Milton Greenes, and the Norman Rostens. Because of the intense heat, the men removed their jackets. Long tables with white cloths and folding chairs had been set up beneath a large picture window. As usual, Marilyn was late.
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