by Colin Clark
Milton masterminded the plot to break MM’s contract with 20th Century and ‘set her free’. I suppose these two are the up-and-coming Louis B. Mayers.
SLO was brimming over with bonhomie – always a bad sign. When he is irascible is when he is sincere. Milton treats me like an executive, which is nice! He asked me all the details of the houses, the servants, Plod and the airport reception.
SLO absolutely promised Milton that Vivien and he would be on hand ‘to welcome Marilyn and Arthur’ and join in the press conference.
‘But let’s keep it low key, old boy.’
SLO wants the minimum publicity of course, and Milton says he does too. I wonder if both men have the same definition of ‘minimum’. I suspect SLO really means ‘none’ and Milton means ‘front page of every paper in the world – but no scandal’. There is a new publicity man around who has been ringing newspapers all day – ostensibly to notify everyone about the press conference even though this has already been done by the Pinewood press office.
Whenever they have a chance, Milton and SLO go into very private conference, talking fast and low. ‘MM worries’ I suppose, that even Mr P and I are not allowed to know about.
WEDNESDAY, 11 JULY
Milton rang from Tibbs Farm – could we all go down there for lunch. He was tired after the flight. Mr P was delighted. He is more curious than he lets on! I drove down in the Bristol, behind Mr P and Tony in the Princess. That way Milton can meet the chauffeur MM will have. SLO met us there as it is nearer Notley. Everyone agreed that Tibbs is perfect – out of Milton’s earshot that is. Nouveau-riche – bathrooms smelling of pot pourri and towels so thick and soft that they don’t even dry your hands. SLO gazed round in genuine horror. He is used to Vivien’s exquisite taste.
Gilman said, ‘This is a bit of all right, Colin,’ loudly enough to embarrass me and please Milton who thinks it is typically ‘English’.
There was a huge bunch of roses in the Bentley from Vivien which Gilman took through to the kitchen to find a vase. A buffet lunch had been prepared by the Cotes-Preedy cook – mainly reheated delicacies from the Ascot shop which I recognised from my stay here. Milton had ordered salad and cold white wine, which made it seem American. SLO had also brought a lot of Olivier cigarettes.
‘I get them free, dear boy,’ he said with much pride, but I don’t think Milton smokes. Perhaps he is a health and fitness addict.
After lunch Milton and SLO went into conference again, this time allowing Mr P and Tony in too. I hope Mr P has some gossip for me later.
At teatime we drove over to Englefield Green to see Parkside House. The Moores have left and only the servants are waiting for MM and her party. Plod will move in on Friday and the chauffeur will live out. Parkside really is too pretty for words. It is right on the edge of Windsor Great Park and has its own private entrance to the Royal Gardens – or so I’m told. It is in quite different taste to Tibbs – much more elegant and feminine thanks to Joan. The master bedroom has been repainted white. I never saw it when Joan was in it. (I wish I had though!) Everyone was delighted. Milton praised me very highly for both houses and Mr P beamed, for once.
SLO hadn’t come, of course. He’d been to the house as a guest of Garrett and Joan’s. I don’t think SLO likes Garrett any more than I do. Garrett is famous for sneering at people less clever or less titled than himself – which means pretty well everyone. I must admit that I am pleased with the arrangements so far, but everyone warns me that the day MM arrives, the rules will all change. She is the most famous woman in the world, though, so I would expect her to be pretty wilful. The worst thing is to have all that clout and not know your own mind. If she says her favourite colour is beige, that has to be a definite possibility. Then she will be as dangerous as a Chinese Empress. We’ll see in three days’ time.
THURSDAY, 12 JULY
The press are really getting worked up about MM’s impending arrival. They phone me up hourly, demanding interviews with MM and SLO. I tell them that there will be a press conference at the airport and another at the Savoy Hotel on Sunday but of course they already know this and they want more. Any request for MM has to go through the loathsome Arthur P. Jacobs who is coming back to the Savoy tomorrow. It isn’t that MM wants to avoid publicity – publicity more than anything else has got her where she is. But you have to control how much money you print. Even publicity has to be rationed out to get the maximum effect. APJ is meant to be the expert on this.
But there is a new publicity/personal relations man who is very nice. He is an Englishman, who nevertheless works from Hollywood, called Rupert Allan34 and he is the opposite to APJ, quiet, dignified, polite. Perhaps he acts as the antidote to APJ’s type of poison.
MM’s personal make-up man has also flown in. He came in to the office this morning, unannounced, ‘just to say “Hi”’. His name is Allan Snyder but ‘Call me Whitey’ is his opening remark to everyone. Impassive, and courteous, he is a great contrast to the Hollywood types we were expecting. Evidently he used to be a great influence on MM and is still a great friend. She insists on his presence on each of her films. I wonder if he was ever her lover, too. In our case, he only has a limited work visa so he is doing her original make-up and then someone English will take over. Frankly I wish he was staying for the whole movie. He has a wonderfully calming presence which could be a great help. But he clearly doesn’t want to stay more than a few weeks anyway.
‘I love Marilyn,’ he said with a nice open grin, ‘but I do not want to find myself responsible for her behaviour.’
Now he has wandered off to explore London. He gives no address and simply says he will see us at Pinewood next Tuesday. Even Mr P, who deeply distrusts all Americans, seemed to like him. I hope he doesn’t come to any harm in Soho! He is probably not as naive as he seems.
FRIDAY, 13 JULY
Mr P’s distrust of Americans was justified. Arthur Jacobs went to London Airport and changed all our careful plans for MM’s arrival tomorrow. Once again the police there assumed the worst, jumping to the conclusion that all we all want is maximum disruption and publicity. In the end, one of them thought to telephone me. I didn’t even know APJ was out there so I got very cross. I pointed out that they had promised to listen to no one but me; that APJ was a publicity man whose job was to get publicity whether his client wanted it or not; that SLO and MM’s producers had both instructed me to arrange MM’s arrival with minimum fuss etc. But the papers are nerving everyone up and the police are edgy.
Luckily APJ is so loud-mouthed and overbearing that they would much rather disobey him. I have promised to get there really early tomorrow morning and go over the details again. I do remember from the days of Gaby Pascal and Jean Simmons35 that once show business retinues get on the move, it is very hard to influence them or deflect them. They are like rivers. They jolly well go where they want to, so you have to make the banks good and high. London Airport is very big and if we lose control there will be chaos. The police are efficient and charming, but like all men in uniform they will take orders from anyone in authority. It’s going to be a close-run thing.
APJ did have one success out there, I must admit. So oogle-eyed are the junior cops about MM that four motorcycle riders have volunteered to escort her car from the airport to Englefield Green. Evidently that is an honour never granted to anyone before except visiting royalty. I hope MM is impressed. It is not the sort of thing SLO and Mr P meant by minimum fuss, but I must agree it sounds exciting.
SATURDAY, 14 JULY
The first problem was that it rained.
After all the fine weather we’ve had, a light rain was falling when I woke up and it got heavier. I got to the airport early and went straight to the police office to make everything as clear as possible. But within an hour APJ and his minions were there trying to make everything as confused as possible.
Milton Greene arrived, very nervous, and was all too ready to listen to APJ’s panicky lies. Quite soon he too was trying to change the pla
ns around. Rupert Allan also had ideas of his own, even if they were expressed a bit more calmly.
Luckily I had Plod on my side, and he could speak to the police in their own language. But he is so unflappable and monosyllabic that we often did not get heard.
As the time of arrival grew near, everyone began to get very crazy. MM is like Desdemona: ‘It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont and makes men mad.’36
By the time the plane from New York actually landed there were reporters everywhere. The first I saw of them was a bunch of yelling waving men in raincoats in Immigration. The Customs officers had lost their heads and been swept away. I suppose the very thought of searching MM’s person had been too much for them.
In the middle of this rabble stood Arthur Miller, teeth clenched on an unlit pipe, grinning like an amiable crocodile. The girl he had his arm around was unmistakably Marilyn Monroe. She looked so exactly like her publicity photographs – blonde hair, white face, scarlet lips in a pout – that it was hard to see the person. Added to this she had on huge very dark dark-glasses.
Poor woman. She must have been very tired after the flight. I suppose her life is permanent chaos. As for Jacobs, on whom she depends for help and guidance, he clearly had only one aim – namely to create the maximum confusion and even physical danger. Then he could step in and appear to save her from the very problems he himself had generated. In the blur of faces and cameras, he would be the only one she would recognise, and turn to with gratitude.
AM had clearly decided to grin whatever happened and be steered by the crowd. He recognised no one, not even APJ.
Milton Greene was too small to have any effect. Plod and I are total unknowns. We flung ourselves into the crowd and only added to the confusion.
Somehow the police managed to steer this whole mad rabble into the hall set up for the press conference where SLO and Vivien were waiting. I left the main group and went to defend Vivien, with Gilman, as the riot spread all over the room. MM and AM were lifted bodily onto the podium, and I was glad to see one of the cops giving APJ a good jab in the solar plexus. (He later threatened to have all the police at Heathrow fired!) Everyone was shouting at once and MM just looked confused and frightened. Finally Rupert Allan got onto the stage and quietened them all down. He announced that MM would make a short statement and then leave for a private destination to rest, until the main press conference at the Savoy tomorrow. Then MM took off her dark glasses and gave that famous smile and every flash bulb in the room popped at once creating such a blinding flash that she put the glasses back on immediately.
In a breathy little girl’s voice, MM said that she was very glad to be in England at last, with her husband (looking fondly at Arthur), and how excited she was to be making a film with SLO. SLO got up to reply but no one took any notice and they all started yelling questions at MM. So he gave up and we literally strong-armed it to the exit.
MM and AM got into the Princess with Milton and APJ and they swished off with the four motorbike policemen in dangerously close formation. SLO and Vivien got into the Bentley with Gilman and followed right behind. I had to go to get the Bristol with Plod so the press cars got in between us.
When we arrived at Parkside House the press were lined up outside the gate with the four cops preventing them from going in. Plod persuaded them to let us through and we found AM and MM and SLO outside the front door on the gravel. MM had meant to thank the police outriders but who had got in and was trying to interview her but that little creep Donald Zec of the Daily Mirror. How did he get past the others? Plod and I moved across to chuck him out, but he suddenly put his hand round MM’s waist. His photographer jumped out of the shrubbery and ‘flash’, before they both raced off. I suppose MM is used to this sort of behaviour from total strangers, but it drove the pressmen at the gate crazy.
AM whispered in MM’s ear, MM whispered to Milton and he nodded. Then he sent me over to the reporters to tell them they could all come up the drive for one last photo. MM and AM stood in the doorway and smiled, arm in arm, before disappearing inside. Plod and I followed and Milton introduced Plod (but not me) to MM and AM. I don’t think MM took in a word, but as Plod is going to live in her house she will soon get used to him.
‘Well, we are going to bed,’ said AM with a huge leer.
I thought this pretty vulgar. I saw MM notice it without much pleasure, but she pretended not to catch on so perhaps she is smarter than she looks. AM certainly doesn’t behave like America’s most eminent intellectual. More like an overgrown schoolboy. But MM has a very appealing aura, even if physically she is not my type. A bit too exaggerated.
Before SLO left he had said: ‘I hope things are better organised tomorrow.’
I’ll do my best but I think that even he has underestimated the press hunger for MM.
SUNDAY, 15 JULY
Except for the large crowd outside – and who organised that I wonder — the press conference was orderly. In fact it was predictable and dull. SLO arrived without Vivien. He was already in a bad temper – nose out of joint, perhaps? Mr P came sniffing around to have a look at how things were going on and a squint at MM. Irving Stein and APJ were already there – what a pair. APJ had clearly lost centre stage to Milton, who arrived with MM and AM.
The Savoy Hotel had organised itself much better than the airport police. MM’s party was 45 minutes late which allowed the flower of the nation’s press corps time to make many ribald jokes. D. Zec was telling everyone who would listen that MM was a personal friend of his.
MM still had on her dark glasses and barely spoke above a whisper. AM mainly grunted past his pipe. I would say that they both had hangovers of several different kinds.
SLO made a speech of welcome, which I thought was a little bit patronising – although I’m sure not intentionally. Cecil Tennant,37 SLO’s agent, was also on the stage. He is a bit of a bully and interrupted most forcefully if he didn’t like a question. Rupert Allan was much more diplomatic and more friendly. Tennant would not dream of acknowledging my presence, even though I am clearly attached to SLO’s party. It is true that I’m pretty inferior but I don’t like people who act as if they were ‘superior’.
Plod seems to be happily installed at MM’s right elbow. He is like a lovely gruff uncle and when MM finally wakes up, she will be jolly glad to have him. I notice that she gives her coat to AM and AM gives it to Plod, so AM has already seen the benefit.
It’s a bit like starting a new school. Everyone has to settle down and find out who the other boys are.
MONDAY, 16 JULY
Very quiet day after the hectic weekend. Only Mr P, myself and Vanessa. We will leave the Tibbs group and the Parkside group to themselves, although I am sure there will be a lot of traffic between the two (about six miles). Everyone asks me: ‘What’s she like? Is she beautiful?’
Well, she certainly looks like Marilyn Monroe, and not all film stars do look like their image. She has got a cute smile, but so far she only turns it on for the cameras. Her figure — and especially her bust – is fantastic but a little on the plump side. Problems – too much fakery: peroxide hair, dead white make-up, heavy lipstick, but that is her image. She looks confused too, lost, troubled. That’s the MM image too, I know, but even when she’s shut the door on the reporters, she still looks in distress, not just acting it.
She doesn’t seem to be able to shrug off the image in private, to throw off her coat, slump down on the sofa and say: ‘Phew, let’s have a drink.’
She gazes at AM as if he is a superhero, but I don’t think he is that nice. He’s clearly very handsome and very attractive, but good hearted, no. And she hasn’t really got anyone else to depend on. A girl like that really needs her mum, like Margot,38 but I’m told her mum is in a bin.39 Milton is clearly dependent on her, rushing round like all the others trying not to upset her, frightened of her even.
SLO is much too remote. He’s going to be her director and that should be a close rela
tionship, but he is quite clearly not in any way concerned with her personally. He is the supreme professional, expecting and assuming that everyone else will be professional too. (You can see why he and Vivien get on so well.)
MM does have the dreaded Strasbergs, one or both of whom are going to turn up any day now. (Their darling daughter Susan will not be coming for a month, I’m told. But Rupert Allan, who knows everything, says she is expected one day. Hooray – hope springs eternal.)
I wish SLO could be cosy with MM. He’s strong and romantic with most women but he only gets ‘cosy’ with men.
Speaking of which, Tony B is now permanently installed. He is delightful company, and he is going to be behind the camera most of the time. But I doubt if MM goes for that English charm stuff. She clearly adores the strong silent intellectual type, and Tony certainly isn’t that. He is SLO’s AdC at all times, and keeps his eye on him only.
I must admit it is exciting to be working on this production. The most famous film star and the most famous actor. But they should change the name. The Sleeping Prince always confuses people. They think I mean ‘The Sleeping Princess’, as in ‘Sleeping Beauty’, and they miss the slight Rattigan pun. If the film was called ‘The Naughty Chorus Girl’ it would be more dramatic and easier to explain, but I suppose that would be like the old MM image, the one she wants to shed.
TUESDAY, 17 JULY
Milton phoned in a nervous state. He has heard that MM’s dressing room at Pinewood is not ready yet (true) and he wants to show it to MM tomorrow when she will be there for the make-up test. (This is what is called the screen test, which I always thought was an audition. MM hardly needs an audition since MMP own half the film.)