Marilyn Monroe

by Barbara Leaming

  More and more, Marilyn was being pulled between two households in Santa Monica. On the one hand, she loved to attend the chamber music concerts held regularly in Dr. Greenson’s living room. On the other, she continued to be very much drawn to the Lawfords’. There, on Sunday, November 19, the event everybody had been waiting for finally occurred. A motorcade pulled up. Jack Kennedy, who had spoken at the Hollywood Palladium the night before, emerged from an open convertible that had been intended for Secret Service agents; on the way out to the beach, he’d insisted on changing cars. He had only a few hours to relax before returning to the Beverly Hilton to prepare for the first of a series of talks with West German Chancellor Adenauer, and he planned to enjoy himself.

  Kennedy, whose father had been active in the film business in the twenties and thirties, was decidedly at home in Hollywood. Inside his sister’s house, he swapped the dark business suit he’d worn to church for a sports shirt and blue denims. Before long, he was out on the sunny beach mingling with the Lawfords’ guests. Lawford, in the words of Gore Vidal, was “Jack’s Plenipotentiary to the Girls of Hollywood.” From the first, the President seems to have viewed Marilyn as a particularly desirable scalp to add to his belt.

  Marilyn discovered in the President the perfect vehicle to play out her own emotional contradictions. After the failure of her third marriage, she had lost the chance for absolution that being Mrs. Arthur Miller was supposed to have provided. With Sinatra and Lawford, she plunged back into precisely the world she had once been desperate to flee. The President was very much of that world, though most people didn’t see him that way. Marilyn’s personal history gave her a unique perspective. Both Charlie Feldman and Joe Schenck had been close to Joseph P. Kennedy. Both had assisted, in one way or another, his mistress Gloria Swanson. Both had entertained young Jack in Hollywood. From the outset, Marilyn recognized the President as one of a particular group of men. She knew who he was and what he was after.

  At the same time, Marilyn, like many Americans, was caught up in the romance of the Kennedy administration. He was young. He was modern. He was charismatic. He was passionate about ideas. He spoke to youth as perhaps no president had in recent years. In this light, Marilyn saw Jack Kennedy as a moral figure on a par with Arthur Miller. Certainly, Kennedy’s Saturday night speech at the Hollywood Palladium, an attack on right-wing “crusades of suspicion,” would have been familiar political terrain. As Marilyn later indicated to Dr. Greenson, she was prepared to do anything to help the President. The psychiatrist’s dilemma was that politically his own heart was very much with Kennedy.

  Lawford arranged another meeting two weeks later. On December 5, howling winds rocked New York. Gusts of up to sixty-eight miles per hour pried loose a stone ornament on a building directly across from the Hotel Carlyle on East 76th Street at Madison Avenue. An emergency crew secured the huge, heavy cresting with a rope in time for the presidential motorcade to pass beneath shortly before 3 p.m. There were fifty police motorcycles and twenty-five cars. Jack Kennedy, wearing neither hat nor topcoat, rode in a bubble-top limousine, accompanied by a contingent of city officials who had met him at the airport. The President, on his way to Palm Beach, Florida, was to spend Tuesday night at the Carlyle. In view of the danger, he entered by a side entrance.

  That evening the President was guest of honor at an awards dinner given by the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame at the Waldorf-Astoria. Afterward, he went to a party at the Park Avenue apartment of Mrs. John Fell, the widow of a prominent investment banker. That’s where he was to see Marilyn again, Lawford having arranged for her to fly in for the occasion. But when the President arrived, Marilyn wasn’t there yet. As usual she swept in late, much to Lawford’s annoyance. It was his responsibility that such encounters ran smoothly.

  Lawford wasn’t the only one frustrated in efforts to pin Marilyn down to a schedule. That month, Twentieth finally let her read Something’s Got to Give. A nervous accompanying letter pointed out that the screenplay had been revised specifically as a vehicle for her and was still in the process of being polished. It stressed the studio’s recognition that she would probably have suggestions of her own. Two copies of the script were delivered to her lawyer. Four days before Christmas, Rudin called Ferguson. Marilyn demanded changes, but that was not all. She wanted Twentieth to hire the cameraman from Some Like It Hot. She wanted a say in the casting. She wanted a say in the publicity. She reluctantly agreed to work with Cukor, but not with his color consultant. Afterward, Ferguson found himself wondering whether it was coincidental that “each calendar year seems to end in a crisis which has been created by this girl.”

  The negotiations resumed after Christmas. Nothing was settled right away, yet the studio had a sense that progress was being made. Marilyn insisted that a good picture was her sole concern. It is significant that what she meant by “good” had changed drastically. She had once rejected the crowd-pleasing, money-making formula of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire. At the moment, however, her needs were different. She believed she had “slipped” in the past two years. She needed a hit.

  When Twentieth proposed Nunnally Johnson to rewrite Something’s Got to Give, Marilyn was enthusiastic. He had done the screenplay for How to Marry a Millionaire. He knew how to write “Marilyn Monroe.” Marilyn feared he was still angry about her having turned down How to be Very, Very Popular, but Johnson declared: “Tell Miss Monroe that if everybody who turned down a script I wrote was no longer a friend of mine, I wouldn’t have any friends.” They reconciled over three bottles of champagne at the Polo Lounge. On January 24, 1962, Ferguson gave the go-ahead for a contract to be drawn up. Johnson went to England to work. Marilyn agreed to do the film if the script turned out as she hoped.

  The nurturing atmosphere of the Greenson household appeared to have had a stabilizing effect. When the doctor advised Marilyn to exchange her depressing apartment for a home of her own, she chose a house in Brentwood expressly because it reminded her of the Greenson residence. It was on Fifth Helena Drive, a secluded cul de sac. Marilyn hoped to replicate the colorful tiles and other Mexican decor she associated with her happy evenings at the Greensons. She was particularly eager to reproduce the family kitchen.

  Clearly, Marilyn missed the life, or more precisely the dream of a life, she had left behind in Roxbury. Her eyes would cloud over as she spoke of the white farmhouse that she and Arthur had redone. At the last minute, she seemed uncertain whether she wanted to go through with the purchase of the Brentwood property. She left the room, returning ten minutes later to sign. Later, she disclosed that she had been struck by the sadness of buying a house all by herself.

  On February 1, Marilyn attended a dinner party for Robert and Ethel Kennedy at the Lawfords’. Remembering the fiasco of her previous meeting with Bobby, she did everything to make a good impression. Marilyn, seated beside the Attorney General, interrogated him about civil rights and other issues. Dr. Greenson’s son had helped her prepare a list of political questions. Never one for memorization, she peeked in her handbag intermittently. Bobby, delighted, spent much of the evening in conversation with her. The next day, she wasted no time in writing about the dinner party to Isadore Miller in Florida. She had every reason to expect Isadore would tell his son. Her timing suggests she was sending a message to Arthur. If the Attorney General thought well of her, shouldn’t he?

  Marilyn flew to New York. She conferred with Lee Strasberg about Something’s Got to Give. While Johnson finished the script, she planned to go to Mexico in search of furniture and art for her new home. She seemed to be feeling pretty good about herself. Then she heard something that plunged her into despair. Arthur was to be married on February 17. Apparently, only a few people had been invited. The ceremony was to take place in a model home in New Milford, Connecticut, part of a development built by his cousin Morty. Arthur and Inge had been travelling in Europe together. She was now two months pregnant.

  Marilyn fired off a te
legram to Miami Beach, asking Isadore to meet her at the Eastern Airlines terminal that very evening. When she arrived, it was evident that he did not know his son’s plans. They dined at the Fountainbleau and took in a show at the Sea Isle. They strolled crowded Collins Avenue, her arm locked tightly in his. On Saturday, Marilyn took Isadore and a few of his friends to dinner. Afterward, she arranged to be alone with him in her suite at the Fountainbleau. They’d been sitting comfortably for a while when she disclosed that Arthur was getting married today. Marilyn, realizing the old man was upset, added that a letter must be on the way. She was there to comfort Isadore. She was there to seek comfort. But in spending the evening with Arthur’s father, she was also inserting herself, however indirectly, into his wedding.

  Four days later, Joe, then at the Yankee training camp, escorted Marilyn to Miami International Airport for her flight to Mexico. By the time she came home on March 2, she was in dreadful shape again. Only a few weeks before, buying and decorating her own house was supposed to have marked the start of a new life. In the aftermath of Arthur’s marriage, her attitude changed. Marilyn swallowed too many pills the night before she was to leave Mexico. At the airport, she had liquor on her breath. As she made her way to the plane, she could barely walk straight.

  She was still unsteady on her feet three days later at the Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles. She arrived drunk, a Mexican lover in tow. She wore a backless, green beaded gown. When it was time to collect a gold statuette as the World’s Favorite Female Star, she could scarcely get to the podium. Her acceptance speech was boozy and indistinct. The sight of her like this at a major industry event led some people to say Marilyn was finished. Yet the next afternoon, she kept an appointment with Peter Levathes at Fox. After the Golden Globes, the production chief had reason to be concerned. He asked if she was “with us.”

  “I guess I’m reporting back,” Marilyn replied.

  It was hardly an enthusiastic statement, but as far as Frank Ferguson was concerned, it meant that on March 6 Marilyn Monroe had reported ready, willing, and able to work. It meant that she had agreed to do Something’s Got to Give. At least, everyone at Twentieth hoped it did. Just to be sure, studio wardrobe people were sent to Marilyn’s apartment. They took her measurements so a form could be made to create her costumes. Marilyn seemed cooperative. But was she in any condition to work? The studio attorney, for his part, viewed the situation as precarious.

  Under the circumstances, Dr. Greenson had to rethink his own plans. Before Marilyn’s calamitous trip to New York, he had been looking forward to a trip of his own. In the spring, Hildi intended to visit her mother, who had recently suffered a mild stroke, in Switzerland. The Greensons hoped to do a bit of traveling in Europe together. On the way back, he planned to stop off in New York to see his publisher.

  Two days after the Golden Globes, however, he was not sure he should leave. Hildi had to go in any event. He still very much wanted to meet her there, but whether that could be arranged was another matter. Greenson, having diagnosed Marilyn as a borderline personality, was well aware of her fears of abandonment. Though his reasons for going abroad had nothing to do with her, how would she react to his departure? Her dependence seemed to have intensified. Marilyn had transferred certain of her feelings about her former husband to her doctor. Now it was Greenson whom she idealized and cast in the role of savior. Coming on top of Arthur’s marriage, Greenson’s departure could prove devastating.

  He kept changing his mind. Now he planned to go, now he did not. The trip seemed to be on again after Marilyn reacted favorably to Johnson’s script. She stipulated that it needed additional comedy. Otherwise, she was quite pleased. Greenson had reason to think everything was finally going to be all right. On March 21, he seemed utterly confident that he would be able to get away. Hildi was to leave in the middle of April. He intended to follow in May. He particularly looked forward to seeing Anna Freud in London.

  Three days later, Marilyn turned up at her doctor’s home. It was early Saturday morning, long before she customarily awakened. A water heater was being installed in her house, and the plumber had informed her that there would be no hot water for thirty minutes. Marilyn wanted to wash her hair at the Greensons’. Greenson was happy to accommodate her, but bemused as to why she was up so early, and in such a rush. She told him that Peter Lawford was coming to pick her up to take her to Palm Springs.

  President Kennedy was spending the weekend there, though not at the Sinatra compound, since in his brother’s view it would be inappropriate for the President to accept Sinatra’s hospitality at a moment when the Justice Department was engaged in a crackdown on organized crime. Sinatra, informed by a nervous Lawford that Chicky Boy would not be his guest after all, flew into a temper and wrecked his new concrete helicopter pad with a sledgehammer. Lawford, in the meantime, drove Marilyn to Bing Crosby’s house, where it had been arranged for Kennedy to stay instead. She spent the night in the President’s quarters.

  If Marilyn wanted to prevent Dr. Greenson from “abandoning” her, she could hardly have come up with a more effective scenario. The desert weekend was precisely the sort of situation that set off alarm bells, concerned as Greenson was about her being hurt and exploited. And that may have been very much Marilyn’s intention, in choosing Greenson’s house to wash her hair on Saturday morning before she left. She may have been playing the happy girl, but whether consciously or not she was letting her doctor know she was in trouble. Indeed, he was soon lamenting to Anna Freud that he was no longer certain he could break free.

  He had reason to be worried. Marilyn, from the start, regarded her relationship with Jack Kennedy as a good deal more serious than it actually was. “Well, it wasn’t a big thing as far as he was concerned,” said Senator George Smathers of his close friend’s involvement with Marilyn. According to Smathers, Marilyn was “like a lot of the pretty girls who had fallen very much in love with the Kennedys just by being around him a little bit.” But Marilyn wasn’t like most other women. She had known the most extravagant of her fantasies to come true. On the basis of only a few days’ acquaintance in 1951, she had captured Arthur Miller’s imagination, and eventually the great writer had left his wife for her. Now, she seemed to assume she’d have a similar effect on the President. Therein lay the seed of disaster.

  Arthur and Inge, who had been on honeymoon in Europe, came home on April 10. That night, Marilyn could not sleep. Her house was empty, the furniture and art not yet having arrived from Mexico. The living room had a chair and a low coffee table. Maf, never properly housebroken, had already stained the new white carpet. In the kitchen, cabinets, fixtures, and wiring were in the process of being ripped out. According to a nightly ritual, two phones, one white, the other pink, both with long cords, had been smothered with pillows in a guest bedroom. Shopping bags, a record player, and records littered the floor in Marilyn’s own bedroom. Marilyn once told Dr. Greenson that she did not know what nights were for. On this particular night, she tried Nembutal. She tried Librium. She tried Demerol. She tried chloral hydrate.

  A studio limousine came for her in the morning. The house, which had barred windows in front, looked deserted. No one answered the door. Afterward, Greenson discovered Marilyn, under her white satin comforter, in a drug coma.

  Two days later, she flew to New York to confer with Strasberg. She and Cukor were already at odds, the director having brought in yet another writer. Marilyn had agreed to do Something’s Got to Give strictly on the basis of Johnson’s draft. Her only stipulation had been that it needed some funnier lines and more comical situations. Strasberg concurred. Cukor and his writer Walter Bernstein pressed ahead anyway, and some forty blue pages of changes materialized. Marilyn found them unacceptable. Nunnally Johnson, she believed, had written first-rate “Marilyn Monroe.” The rewrite, in her view, failed to accomplish that.

  Marilyn declared she could not do the part as it had been revised. She was to play a wife believed to have been dead for seven years.
She objected to the character’s going after her husband when he remarries. Marilyn preferred to encounter him by chance. “Marilyn Monroe” would never pursue a man, she insisted; men pursue “Marilyn.” There was some puzzlement about Marilyn’s speaking of herself in the third person. Of course, she wasn’t really. She was talking about a comical character she had created, much as Charles Chaplin might have talked about the Tramp. It was the character Billy Wilder had once urged her not to abandon. At the time, she had rejected Wilder’s suggestion. Now, she seemed to have had second thoughts.

  Though Marilyn did not have script approval, Rudin informed Levathes that she would film only those portions to which she had no objection. So before the picture even began, Marilyn and Cukor were at war. At times, Cukor insisted that he liked Marilyn. But the fact was he loathed her. He described her as erratic, inconsiderate, ruthless, tough, and willful. In speaking of her, Cukor used language that, said Nunnally Johnson, “would have brought a blush to Sophie Tucker’s cheeks.”

  Suddenly, there were hints that Marilyn might not do the film after all. Rudin revived the claim that she was no longer under contract, since Cukor had not signed in time. The lawyer insisted that if Marilyn appeared in Something’s Got to Give, it was merely in an effort to compromise. Far more alarming to Twentieth was her lawyer’s refusal to bill the studio for Marilyn’s services. Ostensibly, she preferred to be paid in a lump sum, along with the bonus Levathes had discussed. But there were fears that the real reason was to avoid compromising the claim, should Rudin decide to press it, that her contract had expired.