Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love

by C. David Heymann

  Just as notable were the remarks Marilyn offered concerning the institution of marriage, a portion of which seemed directed specifically at DiMaggio as well as at the foster families the actress had experienced during her formative years: “I guess I was soured on marriage because all I knew were men who swore at their wives and others who never played with their kids. The husbands I remember from my childhood got drunk regularly, and the wives were always drab women who never had a chance to dress or make up or be taken anywhere to have fun. I grew up thinking, ‘If this is marriage, who needs it?’ ”

  Regarding her feelings for Arthur Miller, she said: “For the first time I have the feeling I’m going to be with somebody who’ll shelter me. It’s as if I’ve come in out of the cold. There’s a feeling of being together—a warmth and tenderness. I don’t mean a display of affection or anything like that. I mean just being together.”

  On June 29, the day of their planned civil marriage ceremony, Arthur and Marilyn were being driven along a winding country road by Morton Miller, Arthur’s cousin, when it became evident that they were being closely followed by another car. Morton sped up, as did the other vehicle. They were in Roxbury, Connecticut, where the playwright owned a small house he would soon sell, reinvesting the money in another Roxbury property, a 1783 two-story colonial farmhouse on 325 acres. Just as Morton rounded a bend, the driver of the second car lost control and careened off the road, crashing into a row of trees. Morton stepped on the brake. Marilyn jumped out and started running in the direction of the wrecked car. The driver looked dazed and badly injured. His passenger had been thrown through the windshield and lay unconscious by the side of the road in an ever-widening pool of blood. The driver eventually recovered. The less fortunate passenger died later that day. Her name was Mara Scherbatoff. She was a forty-eight-year-old New York bureau chief for the French magazine Paris Match. By chance, she’d attended the Sutton Place press conference and since then had been following Monroe and Miller for additional news on their imminent marriage. Marilyn took the tragic accident to heart. When asked by the Associated Press for a comment, she remarked: “It’s more than sad that Miss Scherbatoff should have perished in pursuit of a news story as trivial as my third marriage. It once again demonstrates the very arbitrary and futile nature of existence.”

  The civil wedding ceremony uniting Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe took place on Friday, June 29, 1956, at the Westchester County Court House in White Plains, New York. Conducted by Judge Seymour Rabinowitz and organized by Sam Slavitt, a lawyer friend of Arthur’s, the ceremony started at 7:21 p.m. and ended ten minutes later. Marilyn wore a casual sweater-and-skirt combination. Present for the occasion were Morton Miller and his wife, Florence; Lee and Paula Strasberg; Milton Greene; and Marilyn’s new friend, interior decorator/fashion designer John Moore.

  To satisfy Arthur Miller’s Orthodox parents and because she “yearned to belong,” Marilyn eagerly agreed to convert to Judaism and to participate in a religious wedding ceremony. Her conversion consisted of little more than a sixty-minute chat with a rabbi friend of the playwright, in the course of which they discussed the current political plight of Israel rather than anything to do with religion. The official double-ring, Jewish wedding took place on Sunday, July 3, two days after the civil ceremony. Rabbi Robert Goldburg of Congregation Mishkan Israel, in Hamden, Connecticut, conducted the wedding in the Waccabuc, New York, home of Kay Brown, Miller’s literary agent. Marilyn wore a beige satin and chiffon wedding dress and a matching veil. Miller wore one of the two suits he owned. (His total lack of sartorial splendor represented a radical departure for Marilyn from the always fashionably attired Joe DiMaggio.) Thirty friends and relatives attended the Miller-Monroe nuptials. Lee Strasberg gave away the bride, and Morton Miller served as Arthur’s best man.

  The matrons of honor were Amy Greene, Hedda Rosten, and Judy Kantor (a friend of the Rostens’). Reporting on the event, the New York Herald-Tribune noted that Marilyn “was said to look fabulously beautiful and completely content.” Conspicuously absent from the ceremony were all of Marilyn’s Hollywood friends and the usual array of photographers and reporters one would expect to find at a celebrity wedding. Because the wedding band he’d ordered wasn’t ready, Miller had to borrow his mother’s ring. The wedding band he finally gave Marilyn bore an inscription: “A to M. June 1956. Now is forever.” On the back of a wedding picture taken by Paula Strasberg, Marilyn wrote: “Hope, Hope, Hope.” In one of her notebooks, she penned the thought “A good marriage is a very delicate balance of many forces, but there is much more to it than that.”

  A week after the wedding, the US State Department notified Joseph Rauh, Arthur Miller’s lawyer (whose legal fees nearly bankrupted his client), that they were going to renew Miller’s previously suspended passport. Marilyn applauded the action by jovially offering it as final proof of what she had always contended: “Arthur Miller is more American than un-American.” As to her religious conversion, she would henceforth describe herself as a “Jewish atheist.” The term said it all. Following her marriage to Miller, Marilyn rarely discussed Judaism and never attended services. For that matter, she had little use for any form of organized or traditional religion.

  • • •

  In Marilyn Monroe’s eternal quest to be part of a family, she did her utmost to demonstrate to Arthur Miller’s parents that she could be a dutiful and loving spouse. Once in a while when she and Arthur were in the New York area, they would drive to Brooklyn to eat dinner at Isidore and Augusta Miller’s home. Except for a Knabe grand piano (which Arthur had played as a child), the small house had seen better days. The most inviting room was the kitchen. Just as the DiMaggio clan had tried to instill in Marilyn a desire to cook Italian food, Augusta Miller, Arthur’s mother, taught her new daughter-in-law how to prepare borscht, chicken soup, matzoh balls, and other Jewish delicacies. To better communicate with the elderly but proud Brooklyn hausfrau, Marilyn attempted to speak Yiddish and even managed a phrase or two. In truth, the two most important women in the dramatist’s life had nothing in common other than the dramatist himself. Interviewed by the press, Augusta said, “Marilyn is very sweet and obviously very beautiful. She opened her heart to me.” Marilyn offered the press a similarly perfunctory comment regarding Augusta, calling her “a wonderful cook and a caring person.”

  Marilyn’s relationship with Isidore, Arthur’s father, was far different. Formerly a manufacturer of ladies’ coats and a successful store owner until the Depression, Isidore had intense feelings for the actress, and she for him. “He simply lit up at the sight of her,” his son would write. She called him Dad, wrote him letters, sent him poems and sketches, and frequently spoke with him by phone. She also flirted with him, on one occasion placing his hand on her hip, which didn’t exactly please his wife. Marilyn told Lotte Goslar that where previously she had only Joe DiMaggio, she presently had no less than three “father figures” on whom to rely: Lee Strasberg, Arthur, and Arthur’s dad.

  Lotte Goslar visited the newlyweds at Marilyn’s Sutton Place apartment. “I gave them a lace tablecloth as a wedding present,” she said. “A year later Marilyn told me Arthur’s dog had chewed it to shreds. ‘Hugo likes lace,’ she said, ‘what can I tell you?’ But she didn’t say it in a nasty way. I think she felt lousy about it but didn’t know quite how to phrase it. She sort of made light of it.”

  Goslar’s sense of Arthur Miller at this stage was that he appeared to be conflicted. He seemed to retain a degree of guilt over his recent divorce on the one hand, but on the other he obviously took a great deal of satisfaction in “knowing he possessed a woman whom millions of men longed for. Joe DiMaggio had given off the same vibe when they were together. And like DiMaggio, Miller evidently felt he needed to protect and even save Marilyn, though from what I’m not sure—maybe from herself. Miller and DiMaggio were both a good deal older than Marilyn, and both were famous, though not as famous as Marilyn. They represented both sides of the Greek ideal: bod
y and mind. Marilyn told me Arthur Miller had a brilliant mind, and one of the reasons she married him was that through him she hoped to get out of being Marilyn Monroe, by which she meant she could begin playing legitimate roles. Presumably people would start taking her seriously. Other than that, Arthur and Marilyn were totally preoccupied. They were preparing to go to England so Marilyn could begin working with Sir Laurence Olivier and a predominantly British cast on The Prince and the Showgirl. She’d met Olivier earlier that year when he came to New York to discuss the project. I didn’t communicate my feelings to Marilyn, but in all honesty I couldn’t fathom the two of them appearing side by side in a film. I knew Olivier somewhat. In terms of temperament and personality, he and Marilyn were like oil and water. I couldn’t see it.”

  Before departing for London, Marilyn called Joe DiMaggio Jr. in Los Angeles. “I knew she and Arthur Miller were dating, and then I read about their marriage, and I thought perhaps I wouldn’t hear from her for a while,” he said. “So I was a pleasantly surprised when I did. She called me at my mother’s house because I was on summer break from school. I only attended camp for a month that summer, having fallen off a horse and broken my arm. She sounded pretty much as she always did. She didn’t say much about her marriage, only that she’d be in England for several months making a new movie. She asked me how things were going. I told her about my arm, and she said, ‘Well, now you can relax and read a few good books.’ Then she asked whether I’d heard from my father. I said, ‘He calls me all the time these days because he knows you and I speak. I’m suddenly very popular with him. I have clout. I’m no longer in the shadows.’ She laughed, told me she loved me—as she always did when we spoke—and that she’d write from England as soon as she could. She only wrote to me once during her stay in Britain. She evidently had problems. But one thing she did was to send me a whole slew of magazine subscriptions. When I got back to school that fall, I started receiving National Geographic, Time, Life, and so forth. She even took out a subscription for me to the New York Times. I guess she figured I should be more up on current events. I remember her saying once that the California papers, including the Los Angeles Times, were full of it. I don’t know why she thought the New York Times was any better. I guess given her liberal Democratic political point of view, she had more faith in the New York Times.”

  Milton Greene and Irving Stein, an attorney involved with Marilyn Monroe Productions, left for England on July 9. Marilyn had several last sessions with Dr. Hohenberg and arranged to continue her therapy by long-distance telephone two or three times a week. She and Miller departed for London on July 13. Paula Strasberg, Hedda Rosten, and Amy Greene (with little Joshua) followed ten days later.

  Matters began to go awry almost from the start. The newlyweds were given the run of Parkside House, a luxurious Georgian mansion that belonged to the owner and publisher of the Financial Times. Situated on ten lush acres in Egham, an hour from London and even less from Pinewood Studios, where The Prince and the Showgirl was to be shot, the residence came with a full staff of household retainers. The moment the British press learned of the couple’s arrival, they camped out on the periphery of the estate and never left. Despite their presence and that of the household help, a pair of burglars gained access to the mansion and made off with a cache of Monroe’s jewelry, including several items that Joe DiMaggio had given her.

  Another early problem was the enmity that existed between Monroe and Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier’s British-born wife. A two-time Oscar winner, Leigh had played Marilyn’s role in the original stage version of the film. Titled The Sleeping Prince, the play, written by Terence Rattigan, had won wide critical acclaim. Milton Greene had purchased the film rights for Marilyn and MMP/United Artists. Laurence Olivier (wearing a monocle and adopting an austere Eastern European accent) would not only perform opposite Marilyn in this supposedly comedic film but also produce and direct. Vivien Leigh clearly resented Monroe for having taken over her role. She treated the American actress with such utter disdain that Marilyn soon stopped talking to her. One of Leigh’s statements to the press represented nothing short of a personal attack on Monroe. “That girl,” she said, “has the audacity to give herself top billing in the film, even over my husband, Lord Olivier. What hubris! What a laugh! I mean, what does that little tart think? She’s popular for two reasons, and it’s pretty obvious what they are.”

  Marilyn responded to the criticism by reminding the press that having purchased the project she was, after all, “Olivier’s boss.” The comment served only to further anger Olivier’s wife.

  As production on The Prince and the Showgirl began, Leigh announced publicly that, after years of marriage and at age forty-two, she was pregnant with Laurence Olivier’s child. The news placed Leigh on the front pages of England’s Fleet Street tabloids, knocking Monroe off. “She replaced me in the film, and I replaced her in the press,” said Leigh, whose fragile nature and ego-related uncertainties were as well documented as Monroe’s. In mid-August Leigh supposedly suffered a miscarriage, though rumors persisted that she’d never been pregnant and had confabulated the entire story only to annoy Monroe and perhaps to demonstrate that her marriage, long said to be troubled, had magically repaired itself.

  On the whole, Lotte Goslar had accurately surmised that the chemistry between Laurence Olivier and Marilyn would be lethal. Not long into the production, Monroe began showing up on the set hours late or not at all. When she did appear, she looked and sounded hung over from alcohol and sleeping pills. Her insomnia hadn’t ended with her marriage to Arthur Miller. If anything, it had intensified, though she insisted on hanging yards of black fabric over her bedroom windows to block out even the slightest hint of light. Moreover, she insisted on bringing Paula Strasberg along to the set, overruling Olivier, who didn’t want her anywhere near the set. Olivier couldn’t abide Paula, particularly since she repeatedly usurped Olivier’s directorial authority. As director, he felt if he cracked the whip, the actors were expected to jump. Furthermore, he totally rejected the Method style of acting. When Lee Strasberg arrived on the set during a three-day visit to England, Olivier asked him to leave. Laurence Olivier wasn’t Lee Strasberg’s sole detractor. Arthur Miller had nothing against him personally but criticized his professorial demeanor. He ridiculed Lee for his “endless lectures completely devoid of content,” and Marilyn’s quiet devotion to him—how awestruck she was when she whispered his name.

  Joshua Logan, who’d directed Marilyn in Bus Stop, also showed up on the Prince set. “Why didn’t you tell me it was going to be like this, what with that beast Paula Strasberg?” a chagrined Olivier asked him. “What did you do when you were explaining how the line should be read, and Monroe walked away from you before you were finished because Strasberg had told her otherwise?”

  To add to the professional differences that existed between Olivier and Monroe, there was a growing rift between Arthur Miller and Milton Greene. Miller accused Greene of “looting MMP,” buying English antique furniture for his home with corporate funds, whereas Greene accused Miller of essentially the same “crime,” namely “living off” Marilyn and basking in her fame and glamour. Miller and Greene argued incessantly. And just as Joe DiMaggio had lamented the existence of Natasha Lytess, Miller felt the same way when it came to Paula Strasberg. He told Marilyn that between “Larry Olivier and Paula Strasberg, there’s no question which one knows better how to deliver a line.” Paula, he ventured, “knows nothing about acting—you’re paying her all that money, and for what?” As to Hedda Rosten, her sole function aside from opening the five thousand fan letters MM received each week was simply that of a drinking companion. Although he generally liked the Rostens, he didn’t know why his wife should have to support them financially.

  Then, in the midst of the tumult, a potentially disastrous situation developed. Marilyn spotted her husband’s journal on top of the kitchen table. It had been opened to a passage relating to Marilyn. In a moment of doubt, with tension and
strife engulfing the production of the film, the playwright expressed his dismay with Marilyn, asking himself how he could have made the same marital mistake twice, further pointing out that he could think of no “legitimate response” to Laurence Olivier’s burgeoning “anger and resentment” toward the actress. The passage went on to say that he found Marilyn difficult to deal with, unpredictable, at times “out of control,” a forlorn “child-woman” whose endless emotional demands were more than he could handle. He feared his own creative efforts would be thwarted in the process of looking after her. He brought up one particularly painful incident: a recent suicidal threat Marilyn had made one night while inebriated and high on drugs—drugs that Milton Greene made available to her by the bucket-load. And when Greene couldn’t produce the desired pharmaceuticals, she could always count on Paula Strasberg, to whom Miller referred as “a walking apothecary.”

  Arthur’s journal entry came as a shock to Marilyn. She felt betrayed, stabbed in the back by one of the few people she thought she could trust. Lee Strasberg recalled a sobbing Marilyn calling him at three in the morning to report what she’d read. “It was something about how disappointed he was with me, how he thought I was some kind of angel but now he guessed he was wrong—that his first wife had let him down, but I had done something wrong. Olivier was beginning to think I was a troublesome bitch, and Arthur no longer had a decent answer to that one.”

  The following day, after Laurence Olivier viewed rushes of the film to date, he told Marilyn her teeth looked yellow and advised her to brighten them by brushing with lemon and baking soda. Marilyn fumed and walked off the set. Olivier called her “a professional amateur.” She mockingly referred to him as “Mr. Sir” and told Paula Strasberg she wouldn’t continue filming until he offered her an apology. She told Hedda Rosten she wouldn’t continue her marriage unless Arthur Miller gave her a suitable explanation for the comments he’d written about her. When Marilyn left Parkside House, she checked into the London Hilton, where she proceeded to wash down half a bottle of tranquilizers with a half dozen glasses of champagne. She returned to the Georgian mansion the following day and confronted her husband. Unable to respond, he withdrew. Marilyn asked Milton Greene to call Dr. Hohenberg. Greene not only phoned Hohenberg, he coaxed her into boarding the next flight for London. It marked the second time in as many films that Marilyn’s psychoanalyst had been summoned to restore Monroe’s equilibrium. The difference on this occasion was that Hohenberg had to return to London a second time. Two round-trip cross-Atlantic journeys—Arthur Miller termed it “mail-order psychoanalysis”; he might just as well have called it “checkbook psychoanalysis”—the two visits combined cost MMP in excess of $20,000.