by Colin Clark
I had a total surprise when I got back here to Tibbs tonight. Waiting on the doorstep in a hire car were Little David Tennant and Dommy Elwes.83 I knew at once that they must be desperate for money, and couldn’t but wonder which of them would end up paying the fare! They had found out where I was through Lockhart and Mr Cotes-Preedy at the Club. It turns out that they want me to share a flat with them when the movie is over, and they want to take the flat right now. It is at No 3, Mount Street and has a drawing room overlooking Berkeley Square. It sounded terrific but of course there was a catch. It is quite expensive – £24 per month (£8 each) – and I have to sign the lease, and I have to put up £300 for the privilege (to own the lease). David even insists that he has one of the bathrooms to himself, and Dommy and I share the other one. Dommy has to take what he can get of course. He hasn’t got a bean and, I suspect, has no intention of paying the £8 per month either. It seems a bit hard on me but David is so arrogant that one can’t argue with him. He found the flat, he is doing me a favour etc. Well, I have to live somewhere, and David and Dommy are very stimulating company. Also it is the only offer I’ve had, and I hate living alone. So I said ‘yes’ and duly wrote out a cheque. Dommy is going to start redecorating right away. He is very good at this, but he has very expensive tastes. Right now he tells me he is involved with the two ‘geniuses’ of interior decoration – a Mr Bonsack and a Mr Fowler.84 He says he will make the flat so beautiful that no girl will be able to say ‘no’ at the crucial moment! I gave him an absolute spending limit of £400, but limits mean nothing to Dommy. He can charm credit out of a stone. I have lived rent-free for most of the film, and I’ve spent very little of my wages. Even so it means dipping into GrandPapa’s trust – again.
FRIDAY, 26 OCTOBER
We are now at the exit of the ballroom. Elsie is scared of losing her love, but the Grand Duke has his mind firmly set on Lady Sunningdale. The little Ambassador re-appeared for this scene, talking to Lady Sunningdale in the background. I thought he only featured in the coach and the Embassy so I’d forgotten who he was and mistook him for an extra. Luckily I just stopped short of demanding his card when he did not immediately do what he was told. Then MM and SLO did a long scene together – one of the many ‘goodbyes’ that run through the script. I suspect MM cannot remember which is the last goodbye or which is the important one, so she tends to give them all a lot of heartfelt drama. In today’s, Elsie is meant to know that she and Jeremy are only going for a jaunt and that she will soon be back at the Embassy, so they are not saying goodbye for long. But that did not enter into her performance.
‘Oh, your Grand Ducal,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s been a great, great . . . well . . . goodbye.’ Luckily one forgets the script where MM is concerned, and it works. ‘She’s the only one the public will be looking at,’ Dame Sybil had said. ‘She’s really giving everyone else lessons in acting for the cinema.’ Nine weeks ago this observation made SLO cross enough. Now it might make a murderer of him, but it is still true.
Talking of Grand Dames, I hear that MM is going to see Dame Edith Sitwell85 tomorrow. I could hardly believe it, but Edith is as eccentric as they come and she also adores the limelight. I met Edith with Osbert86 at Rennishaw when I was in the RAF. She was hilariously funny and witty and I was in stitches all through lunch. She told how she was on a driving tour of Italy, when they came across a herd of bullocks in the road. ‘Drive on’ she ordered. Then one bullock stuck its head through her open window, just as the car began to accelerate. ‘Stop!’ she shrieked, but the driver could not hear, and the bullock had to gallop alongside, its big frightened face an inch from Edith’s. Luckily it wasn’t a very fast car. I do hope she tells stories like that to MM. It will cheer her up no end.
I didn’t say anything of this to MM, or to Milton. Indeed, SLO looked grimly at me as if to say ‘Don’t you dare.’ He knows Edith is a great friend of Mama’s, but he clearly conveyed ‘Don’t get involved, Colin,’ and I’m sure he was right. Those two ladies can be as crazy as they like to each other. Neither will understand a word the other is saying, that’s for sure, and probably neither will even listen. A highbrow MM is not.
MONDAY, 29 OCTOBER
MM was given the day off today, and quite rightly so. She is going to meet the Queen. First Dame Edith Sitwell and now the Queen! Not bad for a little girl from California. She will be at the first night of The Battle of the River Plate87 at the Empire Cinema, Leicester Square. Naturally she needed the whole day to get ready for this momentous event and I expect the Queen did too. (They are the same age, actually. The Queen looks a little older, but healthier.) Bumble helped MM to choose a suitable dress and was at Parkside all day overseeing preparations. Bumble is actually a very calming person. She always seems to be so wrapped up in her own nervous twitches that she doesn’t have time to take any notice of yours. The effect is very endearing and MM likes her. Plod is very thrilled about the whole affair. His protégée, as he thinks of MM, is going to meet his monarch. Of course he will be there in the car, protecting MM just as his friends protect H.M. If Plod is excited, MM is in a complete spin. Plod said she has been curtseying all over the house and even trying to talk in an English accent, goodness knows why. I suppose that meeting the Queen is a wonderful sign of success for every actor and actress. Even MM can’t ignore that, and any encouragement is so good for her soul that I am happy for her. More than anything, MM wants to feel accepted, and to her the invitation to a great Premiere like this, and shaking hands with Royalty, means that she has been accepted as one of the great actresses of her time. She is no longer just a sex symbol or a calendar girl. She is making a film with Sir Laurence Olivier. The Queen is not to know that the film is on the verge of falling apart because MM is always late and cannot remember her lines. Indeed, I’m sure that the Queen wouldn’t care two pins even if someone had told her. Film-making is as much a mystery to H.M. as it is to most people. It is only the finished movie that matters. All actresses throw tantrums and have done since time began. If the Queen did but know, MM throws fewer than most. Only someone very unkind would suggest that it is the Queen’s advisers who choose the latest Hollywood freak to amuse their mistress. Certainly not me.
TUESDAY, 30 OCTOBER
MM got rave reviews for her appearance last night. ‘MM Captures Britain’ was one headline. But in Studio A the drama continues. I suppose MM stayed up very late and so was extra tired today. The trouble is that she takes extra pills when she doesn’t feel 100%, without really knowing what effect the pills will have. If I take a pill and it makes me feel lousy, I don’t take it again. Not MM. She just takes another pill to counteract the first one. As a result she was at her most distant and remote. When she is like that, no one can talk to her. It just isn’t worth the effort. This is so sad, because she should be on top of the world. Drugs just spoil everything. I know how tempting they are and goodness knows I can’t preach. I take too much alcohol, and too many cigarettes. MM looks more and more vulnerable and I am sorry for her. But when a whole studio is waiting to do an expensive and complicated shot, going ga-ga is not the way to be popular.
This morning, during one of the inevitable long delays, I went up into the lighting grid. I was invited, I hasten to add. You never dare to stray into anyone else’s little kingdom here without being invited, especially the Kingdom of the Sparks. It is incredibly hot. All the heat of the studio lights is trapped up there. The extractor fans are turned off during filming, and then the place is airtight. There are far more men up there than I realised, mostly in string vests. I never thought they took any notice of what went on below them on the studio floor, but they know everything and everybody. They cannot stand MM. Even they get frustrated, waiting around for her to start work, and to remember a single line. They are real old pros, veterans of countless Rank films, and they think of MM as totally unprofessional. I tried to explain that it wasn’t fair to expect MM to be like Norman Wisdom,88 but they weren’t having it. ‘If it wasn’t for our loyalty to Sir
Laurence,’ said one, seriously, ‘I’d have edged a spanner off the grid and onto her head.’ I’m very glad indeed they haven’t gone that far.
When I went into SLO’s dressing room with the whisky and cigs this evening he was alone. Tony goes back to London now and Milton had dashed home with MM. SLO wanted to chat and even offered me a drink.
‘Can you believe it Colin? Am I doing such a bad job? Anyway it doesn’t matter.’ The poor man slumped in his make-up chair, wiping his face. ‘The bloody Strasbergs have won the day with Milton, and Paula will be back tomorrow.’
‘Maybe that will put MM in a better humour,’ I suggested.
‘I have never been in a situation like this before, Colin and you can be bloody sure I never will again. It’s a f — ing nightmare. I thought this would be an exciting challenge, a renaissance, I thought Marilyn would make me feel young again. Some bloody hope. I feel dead. I look dead in the bloody rushes. It’s killing me.’
‘It won’t be long now, Sir Laurence,’ I said. ‘We must keep our nerve.’ He grunted.
I can see he feels completely smothered. If only he’d stuck to acting. He thought his role as Grand Duke was so easy, especially after the theatre, that he might as well direct too, and of course get the extra money. Little did he know what went on beneath MM’s famous bosom!
WEDNESDAY, 31 OCTOBER
SLO was late. He even arrived after MM for once. (‘F — her’ he said when I told him.) But he was still on the set long before MM. He is so professional that he can easily get made up and dressed in half an hour if he wants to, just as he does in the theatre.
MM’s retreat into a fantasy world is getting more common every day. It is both the cause of, and is caused by, MM’s growing unpopularity. If any of us talk to her she looks at them as if they belonged to a different species, and this does make it very hard to like her. Even the most kind-hearted members of the crew, who understand some of MM’s problems – and I like to think this includes me – still get frustrated and fed up.
The Digs scene we shot today should be a very nice one. Dicky W is sitting behind a screen – all elegant legs and blasé voice – while Elsie dashes round, choosing a dress. She is helped by her roommate, the divine Daphne Anderson. It is at the beginning of the story, and Elsie clearly thinks that she is invited to a big Embassy reception, even though she can’t think why. Daphne – who does know why, or at least can guess – clucks round with sisterly concern. Elsie didn’t seem to need any special ‘motivation’ except the obvious one of a girl trying to get the right dress on. But soon MM was dashing backwards and forwards to her recliner, shaking her hands like a dervish, even though you can’t imagine two more sympathetic professionals to act with than Dicky and Daphne.
THURSDAY, 1 NOVEMBER
Winter is almost here, but the film seems to go on and on. Are all films such agony? Those balmy summer days with my little Wdg seem literally years ago. But showbiz has its compensations. Tonight Milton had a wonderful dinner party. It is already 11.30 but I must make a note of it before I go to sleep.
The main guest was Gene Kelly, and he is quite incredible – friendly, positive, unassuming and fantastically witty. He can mimic anyone, dance on a sixpence, sing like an angel and tell endless jokes. At one stage I remarked to him how much I had enjoyed the Bolshoi Ballet89 – I was trying to impress him I suppose, since only a few people have been able to get anywhere near Bolshoi performances. He immediately jumped up and did an impression of Ulanova which was devastating – but also touching. After all she is about 45 and still dancing Giselle, albeit magically well. Gene Kelly managed to convey all this as he danced in the dining room of Tibbs Farm, humming his own rendition of the music. Most impressive, and there is no doubt what got him to the top – talent. The other star guest was a glamorous starlet. She is an Italian girl called Elsa Martinelli90 and she has had a special place in my affections ever since I was 15. I had a colour photograph of her pinned up inside my ‘bury’91 at Eton. In it she had on very short jeans and a revealing wet shirt. Attired thus, she alternately drove me crazy and stimulated me to action for two years. I suppose the ‘real thing’ could never quite match a posed pin-up. Miss Martinelli is still beautiful, but eight years older now of course. She is also very unpleasant. She is gratuitously nasty; she rarely smiles, and she loves to put people down (especially me), so that’s the end of that love affair! I’m certainly glad we aren’t making The Sleeping Prince with her playing Elsie Marina.
Even so, Milton is a wonderful host, and David Maysles is an excellent foil, so the whole thing went really well. It was almost impossible for me to get up and leave the room. GK and EM are staying the night. EM has a near perfect figure — or at least she had in that picture. Even so I didn’t want to sleep with her. Poison is poison, no matter which bottle it’s in.
FRIDAY, 2 NOVEMBER
Usually Milton controls his energy much better than I do. That is possibly why he is so successful. But today he looked very grey. Alas it looks as if he has finally fallen out with SLO. He – Milton – is fed up with being responsible for delivering MM to the studio every morning, and taking her bad temper all day. ‘I’m not her nanny,’ he said plaintively this evening. ‘Olivier should scream at Paula. She has more influence than me. Tell him to scream at Arthur, Colin. See if that helps.’
We all know that it is no good screaming at any of them. SLO is getting very frustrated. After all Milton did promise to get MM to the studio for work. He did assure SLO that he was in control. He did promise to restrict Paula to MM’s dressing room and so on and so on. Milton is the only person SLO can scream at (except for Tony and me), and when SLO has to scream, he screams.
And Tony is being really short with Milton, which is a sure sign that SLO is being very rude about Milton behind his back. Tony would never dare to do that off his own bat. If filming goes according to plan – the new Mk III plan, that is, not the original Perceval cross-plot – then we will be finished shooting in two weeks. Surely we can last till then.
We were in the Elsie’s dressing-room set today, and MM was being very erratic. She grabbed a huge powder puff and covered herself in powder, and then she rearranged her hair in the mirror. This sort of behaviour is fine in a real music-hall dressing room, but on a film set it gives hysterics to make-up, wardrobe, wigs, continuity (Elaine), camera (Denys) and sound (Mitch). I suppose it did make a bit of a mess but the effect was like that of a hand grenade.
We had just finished a scene with old Gladys Henson as the dresser. She and MM had both got so nervous that we nearly gave up and went home. ‘My shoulder thing is busted’ was the best we could get for the essential reference to a pinned strap which will break again in front of the Grand Duke. We are saved by the fact that all the other actresses are absolute stalwarts, who never panic, no matter what. Take after take they produce the same flawless performances, as if it was the first. I suppose if they were all nervous Americans they could all have hysterics together, and get it over and done with. A sort of camaraderie might have grown up which would embrace MM instead of excluding her. These people would love to include MM, but they just do not speak the same language. The result is that she feels, and becomes, more and more remote. We all feel helpless and frustrated.
I must get some sleep. Stars can afford nervous breakdowns, senior crew are allowed to have a headache, 3rd Ast Dirs must stay in rude health. No energy, no job.
MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER
Guy Fawkes night, and no prizes for guessing where we would like to plant a bomb. But she didn’t turn up at all this morning, so we had a relatively peaceful day.
Milton is not quite so quick to go to SLO’s dressing room after ‘rushes’ these days, nor quite so welcome, and Tony heads off for London. This means that I can usually stay for a chat and a drink. SLO likes to unwind with big whiskies and Olivier cigarettes for half an hour before going home to Vivien. Tonight the poor man was already worrying about what he will do next. He has to continue working on the fil
m — editing, adding music, special effects etc. until after Christmas – but then he wants to find a new challenge. He is obsessed with the fact that he will be 50 next year, and sees this as a big turning point. Famous as he is, he is not interested in the successes of the past. He feels he has a far greater contribution still to make, and is not prepared to rest on his laurels. All the trappings of being a star he sees as hindrances – Notley, the knighthood, even, to some extent, Vivien. It is wonderful to be so ambitious – at 50! He very kindly said that he hopes I will stay with him, whatever he does. Of course he cannot guarantee anything. He may accept a job working for somebody else. That would probably be a relief to start with, although he is too experienced to be told what to do except by a very few, brilliant directors.
‘But you are part of the family now, Colin,’ he said, and that is what I wanted to hear more than anything else. Loyalty is what he demands and then he is fiercely loyal back. He certainly won’t go straight into another film — he couldn’t stand it – so that means the theatre. But which play? And for whom?92 Right now he has to get this film finished somehow. It’s much too late for him to find a new approach – to MM or to anyone else in her group. He does realise that Milton is trying his best, but he has lost some of his respect for him. He knows that AM is only too keen to get MM out of the house in the mornings, and for this reason alone is an ally. He can see that everyone else in the film is rooting for him, and giving all the help they can. But still: ‘Frankly Colin, I’ve had it’ is his constant refrain. ‘Vivien is being very difficult. She is clearly fed up with the whole thing. She never liked the idea – hated it in fact. She was jealous, I suppose, although she’d never admit that.’ Now she is bored. Doesn’t want to listen to SLO’s moans any more. She always hated early nights. She won’t respect film discipline. She’s started the old round of house guests and dinner parties and late nights at Notley. ‘I don’t like that, Colin. In fact I hate it.’