My Week with Marilyn

by Colin Clark

  ‘Ooh, Colin.’

  Marilyn was beginning to cheer up. ‘So what must I do now?’

  ‘Give Arthur a great welcome home. No sex for a bit, though. Tell him how much you missed him. Tell him you’ve decided to settle down and finish the film as quickly as possible. Tell him that you won’t bother him when he is writing – Milton said he had some deadline now. Ask him to come and pick you up at the studio each evening when Paula is away. Whenever Paula is here, don’t let her stay with you past seven in the evening. All good, simple rules, Marilyn, and not too hard to obey.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Marilyn, giving a little salute. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. Never look at me, not so much as a glance. You may be a great actress, but I’m not, and my face could easily betray what I feel.’

  ‘What do you feel, Colin? Tell me.’

  ‘I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to spend a few days in the company of the most wonderful, brave and beautiful person in the world, but . . .’

  ‘“But”?’

  ‘But if Arthur ever mentions my name, you’ve got to shrug and say, “Colin? Oh, he’s just a messenger, nobody of any importance at all.”’

  ‘Oh, Colin. I couldn’t say that. But I understand about Arthur.’

  Marilyn stared gloomily at the quilt. Then suddenly she brightened up.

  ‘I’ll tell you what – I’ll wink. No one can stop me winking at you, and you’ve got to wink back. When things get tough at the studio, when Sir Laurence gets mad, I’m gonna look for Colin, and wink. And you’d better watch out. Paula is going back to New York soon, so I may wink quite a lot.’

  It was such a brave, childlike solution to a potentially tragic situation that I lifted Marilyn’s hand up off the bed and kissed it.

  ‘I’ll wink back,’ I said. ‘Never fear.’

  POSTSCRIPT

  And so it was over. A brief flirtation between a young man of twenty-three and a beautiful married woman, who was as innocent as she was mature.

  No one really seemed any the worse. Marilyn had lost the baby, of course, but I am not sure that was such a bad thing. I simply could not imagine her as a mother. There had been nobody to look after her as a child, and consequently she had no idea how to look after anyone else. Each time she had got married she had tried desperately hard to take care of her husband, but she always made a total mess of it, and they ended up looking after her. She was, I am afraid to say, just too self-obsessed.

  Marilyn always said that she had an ugly side to her character, but if she had, I can honestly say that I never saw it. Confused, frightened and totally lacking in self-confidence, she had not got that sense of her own identity which is so essential for a stable life. Like many celebrities she felt that she couldn’t cope with the demands that were thrust on her, and this made her quick to suspect the motives of people whom she had allowed to get too close. Luckily I never fell into that category, so we could remain chums.

  Marilyn’s idea that she had a dark side helped her to explain why everyone seemed to desert her in the end. She never knew whom she could trust, and this was because the answer was probably: ‘No one, no one in the whole world’ – all through her life.

  One reason she failed to take people with her was that she had no idea of where she was going herself. Nevertheless, she got there. No one can dispute that, and, basically, she did it on her own.

  Imagine how many blonde starlets were being abused by those horrible Hollywood moguls night after night – and still are, for all I know. They all faded away, but Marilyn did not. Nearly forty years after her death she is still the most famous film star in the world.

  After our adventure, the filming went on as usual on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl at Pinewood. Marilyn became a little more punctual and, compared to her behaviour on her subsequent films, she was very professional. All the dubbing and ‘post-sync’ work, for instance, was completed in a couple of days, far quicker than anyone had imagined possible. Marilyn seemed to have resigned herself to finishing the movie first, and being the perfect wife to Arthur Miller later, although she never ceased to gaze at him with awe and to obey his slightest command.

  She did sometimes wink at me in the studio, especially when it seemed that Laurence Olivier was about to explode. Because it could ease the tension, Olivier did not mind. Indeed, after filming had finished he took me with him into the theatre as his personal assistant. Two years later I was winking to his wife, Vivien Leigh, who had become just as unstable as Marilyn ever was, from the wings of the Burgtheater in Vienna. Perhaps I was born to wink.

  After Marilyn went back to America, I never spoke to her again – but I did hear from her once, or at least I like to think so. In early 1961, a friend of mine in Olivier’s office rang me in New York to say that Marilyn Monroe had telephoned the night before and left a number for me to call. He had not spoken to her himself, he said. He had just found a note on his desk. Of course, it could have been someone playing a joke. I was well known for supporting Marilyn, although this was increasingly hard to do as she became more and more unstable. The rest of Olivier’s circle, including Olivier himself, actually welcomed reports of her deteriorating condition as evidence that their opinion of her had been right all along. It was only towards the end of his life that Olivier was able to relent.

  When I got the message, I must admit that I hesitated. Apart from the possibility that it was a hoax, I was not sure that I could handle a distraught Marilyn on the line. She was famous for making long, rambling calls, and I knew that I would not be able to help her. It was clearly far too late to wink.

  In the end, I did dial the number, and I could hear it ringing away in the Californian night. But no one replied, and I am ashamed to say that I was relieved. It was not that I had abandoned her, certainly not in my heart. It was just that by now nobody could help her.

  Poor Marilyn. Time had run out.

  APPENDIX

  Letter written by Colin Clark to Peter Pitt-Millward in Portugal, 26 November 1956

  Dear Peter,

  At last the filming is over and I am back in London again. You can’t imagine what a relief it is not to have to get up at 6.15 a.m. and spend the day in a hot, crowded film studio with a lot of quarrelsome prima donnas. It took a total of eighteen weeks to make the movie, including two weeks for preparation, and by the end we were all heartily fed up. I thought of you every night, and not always too tenderly either, because that was when I would write my daily diary, or journal, as I promised you I would. The trouble was that I was usually very tired, and I couldn’t type, or my clacking would have kept other people awake, so I wrote it by hand. My handwriting got worse and worse until finally it was virtually illegible, and the whole thing is a mess. I might transcribe it one day, but I doubt it. Who on earth would want to know the day-to-day details of how a film is made? Nevertheless, it was a great experience to work with Marilyn and Olivier. I don’t think the final film will be any better than my diary, but they are both ‘wonderful people to know’. I am going on working with Olivier in a few weeks’ time – this time in the theatre – and although I will probably never see Marilyn again, I will certainly never forget her. Well, even you are one of her fans, and you’ve never seen any of her films.

  The thing about Marilyn is that she is a mixture. She can be sweet and funny and innocent; she can be a tough and ambitious go-getter; she can be totally lacking in self-confidence; and she can do a pretty fair impression of Ophelia after Hamlet has gone. Since she is also an excellent actress in her own way – not like Olivier, of course, but I think she is better than him in this film – you will realise that she is a pretty hard lady to pin down.

  Poor old Olivier did not appreciate this at all. All he saw was a Hollywood blonde who was always late, didn’t learn her lines and refused to listen to his directions. I think that when he first met her, and agreed to do the film, he thought he could have an affair with her. But after a few weeks on the set, he would gladly have
strangled her with his bare hands. Marilyn is more astute than she looks, and she was well aware of how Olivier and his hand-picked English crew felt about her. She had her own supporters whom she brought from the USA – her partner Milton Greene, Lee and Paula Strasberg, a secretary called Hedda, and her new husband, Arthur Miller. They certainly were not the team I would have picked . . . They are all Jewish – as are her lawyer, her agent and her publicity men – while Marilyn is a typical California blonde; so how they can understand the way her mind works, goodness knows.

  No wonder the poor woman often looks so confused!

  When Marilyn first arrived, I wasn’t much bothered about her. After all, I know Vivien Leigh pretty well, and Marilyn had stolen Vivien’s part in the film and all my loyalty was to the Oliviers. But I found myself being seduced by Marilyn’s image; her aura is very powerful indeed. Gradually, just working on the film wasn’t enough. I was determined to get to know her more directly – although, given that as third assistant director I was the most unimportant person on the whole production, that looked very unlikely. However, it was not impossible. When I was working in the office it was me who had hired Marilyn’s servants, and her bodyguard (ex-Scotland Yard), and rented the house she was living in, so one evening I invented an excuse and went over there to try my luck. Imagine my surprise when I did meet the great star – but not at all in the circumstances which I expected. I was so absolutely stunned that I stopped writing my diary for a whole week, and when I started again I changed the dates in case anyone got their hands on it. I seriously thought that I might be sued or bumped off. It is hard to imagine, but there is so much money riding on Miss Monroe’s pretty blonde head that people get very, very ruthless.

  What actually happened was that after a few drinks with Roger (the ex-cop) I went out for a pee and stumbled right into Marilyn, sitting on the floor in a dark corridor outside her bedroom door. Whether she had had a row with Arthur Miller or not I don’t know. She simply stared at me and said nothing, so I backtracked as fast as I could and hoped I’d got away with it. If she had made a stink about it the following day, I would certainly have been fired. That she did not do, but it turned out that she had remembered, and after filming she called me into her dressing room and asked me if I was a spy. Luckily I could absolutely swear that I was not, and I must say that I felt jolly sorry for her, too. She hasn’t got many (any?) real friends, and Miller had told her that he was going away to Paris and New York for the following ten days. And they are meant to be on their honeymoon. I was so grateful to Marilyn that she hadn’t said a word to anyone about my foolish escapade that I swore my undying loyalty there and then – which was a little rash, since Laurence Olivier is my boss.

  I did not tell anyone what had happened, and I thought that was the end of it, but the next day Marilyn actually telephoned me in Olivier’s dressing room. She had not been in to work as she was seeing Miller off, and she asked me to go via her house again on the way home. I assumed she had more messages for Olivier or something. She found it very hard to talk to him directly by that time. Even so, I didn’t tell Olivier where I was going, in case he thought I was plotting something behind his back. Then, when I did get to the house, Marilyn asked me to stay for supper, and I could see that she was just lonely and wanted someone to chat to. I am six years younger than her, and I suppose I was one of the few people around who wasn’t trying to get something from her.

  Anyway, we were getting along famously when Miller – yes, I know, he’s her husband – had to ring from Paris. Marilyn immediately looked hunched and defensive, and I left toot sweet.

  Marilyn did not come in to the studio the next day – Olivier had given her a day off – but everyone seemed to know I had had supper with her. Olivier thought it was frightfully funny. He absolutely takes my loyalty for granted, and so he should. Milton Greene, as Marilyn’s partner, had a complete fit. To make matters worse, Marilyn had told Miller I was there when he rang – to make him jealous, I suppose – and the upshot was that I was forbidden ever to talk to Marilyn again, on pain of death. Sad, I thought, but what’s a boy to do! However, as I was soon to learn, you can’t get involved with Marilyn without getting involved with Marilyn. The following day was Saturday. I was staying with a very kind couple, called Tony and Anne Bushell, who are great friends of Olivier. Tony is Associate Director on the movie, and as such does not approve of Marilyn at all. Just before lunch, Roger, the cop, turned up in his old car and announced that he had come to take me out. As we drove away, Marilyn jumped out from under a rug on the back seat, nearly giving me a heart attack, to say nothing of Tony Bushell. She was bored of her stuffy house, she said, and she wanted an adventure.

  So I took her to Windsor Castle and we saw my godfather, Owen Morshead, who is librarian there. He gave us the grand tour, which Marilyn seemed to enjoy, and then we went and had a look at Eton. It was a glorious sunny day, and Marilyn could not have been jollier or more natural, but I felt rather apprehensive nonetheless. After all, she is the most famous film star in the world. Once she did demonstrate her power. ‘Shall I be “her”, Colin?’ she asked as we left Windsor Castle, and she gave her famous wiggle. Immediately she was recognised, and a crowd began to gather, until we had to get into the car and flee.

  When we got home, Marilyn’s lawyer was waiting for me, full of dire threats, but Marilyn rose to her full height and told him that if he lifted a little finger against me it would be him who got fired, not me. Even so, I kept my head down on Sunday. Everyone was talking as if Marilyn and I were having an affair, which was jolly flattering but complete nonsense. Milton Greene came over and gave me a long lecture about the dangers of getting involved – he seems to think Marilyn Monroe is his property – and I agreed to stop. Monday was just a normal day at the studio. Marilyn did not appear, and I thought it was all over.

  But in the middle of the night, there was little Milton again, outside my bedroom window. Would I get dressed and go back to Marilyn’s house at once? She had locked herself in her room and did not respond to anyone. ‘Why should she?’ I thought, but I suppose I was flattered to be asked to help. I went over and joined the little group of sheep bleating outside her door, but to no avail. Finally, I had an idea. I went outside to the garage with Roger-the-cop and found a ladder. I put this against the wall under Marilyn’s window and climbed up and in. All I meant to do was open her bedroom door from the inside so that her female companions could get in and check on her health. I could hear her sleeping, so at least she was alive. But she had taken the key out of the lock, so I couldn’t get out without waking her up and being caught in flagrante. I went back to the window but Roger and the ladder had gone, so there was nothing to do but take a nap and wait until dawn, when I could find the key and escape. An hour later, however, Marilyn woke up. There’s no doubt she was pretty startled at first, especially as she clearly remembered locking the door. I managed to calm her down, and then she suddenly decided that it was like Romeo and Juliet – me coming in by the balcony – and was very sweet and kind. She said she did not want to be left alone, so I spent the rest of the night there (No – I behaved impeccably) and I persuaded her to come in really early to the studio the next day. This she did, which went down very well with Olivier and the crew, and I was a bit of a hero.

  On the next night, I had decided that I better not sleep there again, but then Marilyn really did feel ill, so I said I’d stay until she fell asleep – she has a lot of trouble sleeping and often takes pills, like you – and then she got terrible cramps, and I had to wake the whole house up and call a doctor. (Can you imagine, he turned out to be the husband of Ninette de Valois, the head of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, who I know quite well. What a coincidence.) It seemed that Marilyn was not in any danger, so I fled. I mean, after two nights, people might have easily got the wrong impression and thought that I’d done something to make Marilyn ill. And it is not as if Marilyn was just a little wardrobe girl or something. Apart from anything else, she is MARRIE
D, and sure enough Arthur Miller came scurrying back from New York the next day, four days earlier than planned. I had to keep my head down as much as I possibly could for the next week, and go back to being the little messenger boy whom everyone could shout at. But what an adventure it had been.

  I’ve told you all this in lieu of the diary, because if it had been in the diary it would have been the best bit, if you see what I mean. It probably looks like a lot of crazy nonsense to someone so far away, but please keep it until I come out next time so that I can take it back and put it with the journal, however scruffy that is. I might want to write it all properly one day.

  As ever, Colin

  The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me

  For Christopher and Helena, with love

  PREFACE

  In 1943, when I was ten years old, my boarding school decided that my class should see Gone with the Wind. Film shows were a monthly treat then, and we had already seen several stirring black-and-white wartime epics, but Gone with the Wind was different. It was in colour, it was very long, and it contained some gruesome scenes of wounded soldiers, the sort of thing which was obviously never included in British films of the time. Our teacher took great trouble to explain to us that the film was just an illusion, made up of clever special effects. Nevertheless, watching it in that bare school hall had a dramatic effect on all of us.