by Colin Clark
(I haven’t bothered to put in all the swear words, but there were plenty.) The truth is that, once again, Vivien doesn’t let him get enough sleep. Fancy being tormented by both these women at once — Vivien Leigh and Marilyn Monroe. And I get the impression that he isn’t having sex with either!
TUESDAY, 6 NOVEMBER
We are still in Elsie’s dressing room at the theatre. The ‘girls’, Elsie’s companions, with minor roles to play, are what keep us all going. They are completely unspoilt, and are thrilled to be working with MM, which makes them a joy. MM is so famous that any actress could be forgiven for thinking that a little of that fame must rub off. Vera Day plays, and is, a cheeky Cockney. Her husband came to collect her this evening and we met in the long corridor. I soon found out why she bothered to introduce him to me. ‘I wonder if you could do me a favour Colin,’ he said immediately. I murmured that I’d be delighted to try. ‘Right then. Go to the editing room and get a few frames of film with Vera in the picture with Marilyn. I’ll see you all right,’ he added, and pressed a 2 shilling piece into my hand. ‘There’s another of those for you when you get the film.’ That was more naive than I thought.
‘No, no, that’s frightfully kind of you,’ I said, ‘but I can’t take it. I’ll certainly try to find the film, but Sir Laurence would never allow me to accept a reward. Thank you so much for such a generous offer.’ He looks like an Old Kent Road bruiser, and he wasn’t too pleased to have his ‘generous’ tip returned. I wonder what I would have done if he’d offered me a ‘fiver’? Actually it won’t be too easy to do what he asks. I’ll have to ask the ast editor for a trim. He will only let me have something shot before the clapper or after the cut and I don’t think Vera is in shot with MM very often, except in the middle of a scene.
WEDNESDAY, 7 NOVEMBER
A new film has started shooting at Pinewood with Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn. It is a comedy called The Iron Petticoat. Everyone was dying to meet Hope and dreaded working with Hepburn. Needless to say Hepburn is divine and BH is arrogant and unpleasant.
Hepburn says hello to everyone while Hope remains totally aloof. I met Hepburn today when she came to visit SLO. She is as gorgeous as Dame Sybil, only much younger, all red hair, and freckles, and a huge smile which she turned on me as often as on SLO. SLO did have a point when he said later: ‘Why couldn’t MM have been like that? What a lot of fun we could have had, making this film.’93
‘Yes, but MM’s had twice the publicity and half the training as an actress. That would derange anyone.’
‘No training as an actress at all,’ said SLO gloomily. And yet he is forgetting what Dame Sybil said about who the public will be looking at when the film comes out.
My main goal now is to keep SLO cheerful. But I have a dilemma. Do I stick to SLO when all this is over, and hope that he will take me to the theatre with him? Or do I stick to David, and the film gang, and try to get a job as a 2nd Ast Dir with them on their next movie? I haven’t talked it over with David yet and that is going to be hard to do without seeming to presume that he would help me.
David can be very touchy and he has always been ambivalent about having a 3rd Ast Dir with ‘connections’. I’d really have to dump those ‘connections’ completely to stay with him. The film world is ‘sauve qui peut’. It is dangerous to presume too much, even though David and Mr P are two people I really feel I can trust to help.
THURSDAY, 8 NOVEMBER
We are now back-stage at the Gaiety Theatre. The Grand Duke is making his visit to the cast in the interval, and they will all be lined up to be introduced. In the ‘rushes’ of yesterday’s footage, MM looked really embarrassing, as if she came from a different production altogether – the mad woman of Chaillot.94 Her hair was down and her eyes were wild. Her line ‘Oh gosh! I don’t have a thing to wear’ came out like the cry of a drowning woman – and, come to think about it, that’s really what it was!
Today she was more cheerful. She was among a whole group of actors and actresses who treated her pretty much as one of them – a bunch of players thrown together in minor roles in a musical comedy. As they all jostled round, pushing and chattering, she must have felt like she did in the Actors Studio, but tonight MM complained to Paula that she was feeling ill. Paula can no longer speak to anyone English but me, so I act as interpreter. I rushed the news to David first this time, so he could warn Jack and the crew. An early warning like this definitely means that she will not be in tomorrow. Then I went to SLO’s dressing room to break it to him gently over a whisky.
‘Quick. Warn the crew before they go home.’
‘Done.’
‘Well try to find Milton, and see if she’ll see a doctor. She might be off for five days.’
‘Milton’s already gone to Parkside to see what he can arrange.’
‘Oh. Good,’ SLO said doubtfully. He likes me to think for him, but I suppose sometimes it makes him feel old.
‘I’m afraid MM is a very healthy young woman,’ I said. ‘She’s just in bad condition. No regular meals, sleep or exercise. Pills one day, champagne the next. No wonder she feels ill but I don’t think she is ill.’
SLO growled. ‘Discipline is the most important thing for an actor. An actor can be permanently drunk, like Bob Newton or Charles Laughton, so long as they have discipline. Without it any actor just falls apart.’
‘MM is too spoiled now,’ I said. As long as everyone keeps telling her she is a genius and can do no wrong, she won’t understand why she should go to sleep, or eat, or turn up at the same time as normal people. It’s no good saying ‘Marilyn, you are a normal person underneath.’ She is completely convinced that her extraordinary fame exempts her completely. What no one dares to tell her is that her fame springs mainly – but not entirely – from her appearance.
‘You know, I actually fancied her when I first met her,’ said SLO. ‘She’s a freak of nature, not a genius. A beautiful freak.’
FRIDAY, 9 NOVEMBER
Since we knew MM wasn’t coming in, we were all prepared. Everyone is sympathetic to SLO, and tries to help if they can. He looks pretty gloomy all the time, and his performance gets less and less appealing. This is a special pity because what we are shooting now is his first appearance in the film, apart from his arrival in the coach.
MM’s first appearance was the mad scene with the powder puff, so they are a pretty sorry pair. (I wonder if that is why she was so nervous then. I hadn’t thought of that – but maybe, just maybe, she had.)
Tony B is not as friendly to me these days. That’s sad, after all the happy times we had together at Runnymede. I hope it doesn’t reflect something that SLO has said to him. Actually I think it is because he is slightly jealous. He is so very possessive of ‘Laurence’, as he calls him sternly. But he is still a lovely man, and mellows quite quickly when I pretend I haven’t noticed him being cool. I don’t know if he also expects to move on with SLO. Perhaps SLO has told Vivien — just to please her – that he is taking me with him into the theatre. Vivien’s world is built on ‘Chums’ or – in my case, as with Gilman — adoring slaves. Tony is a SLO man, not a Vivien man. He likes to go off with SLO while Anne stays with Vivien. Now the film is ending, Vivien’s influence is growing stronger every day. We will know in 10 days’ time.
SATURDAY, 10 NOVEMBER
This morning I just couldn’t resist doing a practical joke on Milton and David. The phone rang when we were all having drinks at lunchtime. I was sitting beside it so I picked it up.
‘Does Mr Greene need a car over the weekend?’ asked a voice. ‘Now, listen here Marilyn,’ I said crisply. ‘I’ve had enough of your bad behaviour. You’re late, you’re rude and you don’t learn your lines . . .’
By this time Milton and David M had both reached the phone, arms and legs flailing wildly.
‘Marilyn, Marilyn, we love you!’ they screamed at the startled hire car company. ‘Don’t listen to him. It was Colin. He’s gone crazy. We love you!’ I was laughing so much that they
began to smell a rat. ‘Marilyn? Marilyn?’
‘Is that the Greene residence?’ said the chauffeur at the end of the line.
I don’t know if they will forgive me. I suppose it was cruel of me after so much hospitality. They pretend to see the funny side, but Milton was badly shaken. Even David M ‘lost his cool’ for a minute or two. At dinner tonight Milton looked at me strangely.
‘I didn’t know you Brits had it in you,’ he said, whatever that means.
MONDAY, 12 NOVEMBER
Seven more days, and then we will all have to go back to the real world. For 15 weeks we have been hermetically sealed in a huge concrete box, like animals in a zoo. We are almost completely cut off from life outside. We arrive in the dark before anyone else is awake and leave in the dark after they are back home again. The average is 13 hours a day. Somehow we have all managed to get along, except, I suppose, for poor MM (and the little Wdg). No one can approach MM now. If you address her directly, you might as well talk in Swahili. She is, no doubt, more desperate to get out than we are. That, however, was not ‘motivation’ enough to get her to the studio today. Plod rang early – ‘Not a chance.’ SLO was in a towering rage. The whole cast of The Coconut Girl had been called, and there was only one scene we could shoot with them. This consisted of Jean Kent – the leading lady – lining up everyone back-stage ready for the Grand Duke’s arrival. As she is finishing she has to ask ‘Now. Who’s missing?’
‘Elsie Marina,’ calls Daphne.
‘Oh, can’t that girl ever make an entrance on time?’ Miss Springfield replies, crossly. The irony was lost on nobody.
After lunch we did the part of the Grand Duke’s progress down the line where he meets Vera Day. Up until now the film has only had one female in it – namely MM, if you don’t count old Dame S. I think SLO sometimes forgets what real girls are like. Little Vera Day gave off more energy than SLO expected. He seemed taken aback and almost forgot his lines for a moment – unheard of for SLO. Of course he is very tense, and perhaps he is so brainwashed by MM and Vivien that he expects all women to be difficult. Vera is simple, direct, and sexy. She radiates a different sort of life force to MM. It is lower voltage – and not so far reaching – but it is strong enough to give you a jolt. SLO is normally so wooden, Dicky so dry and Jeremy so discreet that it is little wonder that MM jumps out of the screen every night in ‘rushes’. She really has had no competition at all. No one could deny MM’s natural talents, and I’m not suggesting that Vera Day could carry the movie, but even so, SLO got a surprise. It was like a man who works in a power station getting an electric shock from his car battery.
I have certainly missed female company over the last 15 weeks. I suppose it’s not until you get to be a producer that you sleep with the starlets. I hope there are more opportunities in the theatre. If not, I have a dangerous tendency to fall in love with other people’s wives.
TUESDAY, 13 NOVEMBER
At last we have done MM’s entrance into the line-up. As the Grand Duke enters through the fire doors and walks onto the stage, Elsie Marina can be seen joining the line in the background. She is in full stage make-up with a feathered hat. MM had bolted in from her recliner next to her portable dressing room in such a hectic flurry that most of the cast, who were agog to see this incredible creature at last, were disappointed. Then the whole apparition vanished again just as quickly when Tony said ‘Cut.’ Up until now, the timing of her performance has been set throughout the film by her, and this is by design. SLO saw that was something that you could not alter. Today’s entrance required split-second precision of the kind she absolutely hates. There were many false attempts and too many people trying to ‘cue her in’. We only just had time to do the two-shot where Daphne tries to calm her down – on screen and in real life. MM looked overexcited to meet the Regent. It was as if Elsie was already wondering if he would be attractive and whether she could seduce him, and this is not the way the plot works. But SLO could not throttle her back. Perhaps she is happier hiding behind the heavy ‘stage’ makeup; perhaps she feels that the end is nigh; or perhaps she had had an extra glass of champagne. (It is not that MM drinks too much, but sometimes at unwise times.)
WEDNESDAY, 14 NOVEMBER
One last big scene with MM. The Grand Duke is coming down the line. MM is in the foreground. She is panicky.
‘What do I do?’
Daphne consoles her. ‘Just say “How do you do?”’ etc.
The manager of the theatre says ‘Miss Elsie Marina.’
Grand Duke: ‘And the little American friend of our heroine. How do you do?’
By this time MM is desperately trying not to anticipate what is about to happen. ‘How do you do, your Regent,’ she says. ‘Oops,’ and her shoulder strap breaks. As she nearly popped out of the low-cut dress, she instinctively turned from the camera, as if from a prying eye, but it worked well.
‘The damage, I trust, can be retrieved,’ says a delighted Grand Duke.
Elsie, panting for breath: ‘Oh yes, I can fix it with a pin.’
The GD looks round. ‘Has no one here a pin?’ All the men feel their lapels, where flower girls have pinned carnations on them in the past.
GD: ‘I would be most happy to assist you.’
Elsie, still confused (and MM even more confused!): ‘No, your Regency.’
Pause while she scrabbles to fix the dress.
GD: ‘Charming.’ He goes to shake hands. ‘Better not tempt Providence again.’ Laughs. ‘Charming. Good night!’ He exits.
Actually it is the same stunt that MM pulled at her original press conference with SLO in the USA and one that I expect she has often used to get attention. The hard part was to include it in a pre-rehearsed scene for the camera. But it’s all done now, and at one stage that was more than we dared hope. Of course this isn’t the end of the job, for us or for MM. She doesn’t fly home for a week. We have two days of ‘post-syncing’ in which MM will re-do her voice for the sound track. She must record any lines which were said off camera, and re-record sentences where her voice wasn’t picked up clearly enough. (There hadn’t been anywhere suitable to put a microphone when she was face down on the sofa etc.) But at least this means that she doesn’t need to be in until 9 a.m. – which she hasn’t been for a couple of weeks anyway – and she doesn’t need make-up and wardrobe before work. Having said this, Monday and Tuesday have been set aside for possible ‘pick up’ shots, and for those she will need to be dolled up exactly as before. Elaine will see to that. Jack Harris and his assistant are frantically assembling a ‘rough cut’ to see which shots need covering. There is no question that we might have missed a shot by mistake, but it is extremely hard, over all these weeks, to make a seamless pattern and overlook nothing. So they will work tomorrow and Friday and all weekend. One thing is for sure – once MM has caught that plane back to the USA, that is it. No chance for one more frame of film of her, no matter how great the crisis.
So there were no celebrations. Milton says that he has arranged a party for Tuesday afternoon, after the last retake. But actually David Maysles tells me that he has been left to organise it. And quite frankly he couldn’t care less.
FRIDAY, 16 NOVEMBER
It was as if a great weight had been lifted off everyone’s shoulders. SLO was looking relaxed and years younger. MM was cool and efficient. She never looks at SLO these days, or talks to anyone, but she listened intently to the sound editor’s instructions and obeyed them to the letter. As a result she got through far more than we could have imagined, and, I must say, did it extremely well. Post-syncing is a knack, like formation-flying or dancing the tango. MM picked it up immediately, and even seemed to enjoy it. Her face and her voice would appear on the screen and she would watch intently, two or three times. Then she would wave her hand and her face would appear without the voice. She put her words in so exactly that we couldn’t tell, in the director’s booth, that it wasn’t prerecorded. The song was the same. MM always enjoys music scenes and in the end
we were all rather moved by this quiet, shy, firm voice. Just for once, MM could go back to Parkside feeling good about herself, but I don’t think that is the memory which will endure.
TIBBS FARM, SATURDAY, 17 NOVEMBER
This evening we had a long post-mortem. I was surprised by how much the Americans resented us. I have to admit that I had always assumed that we were the charming well-behaved ones, and the Americans were the trouble makers. Of course they see things quite the other way. They think we are cold, unwelcoming and clique-y. ‘Not you, Colin,’ Milton put in, with a laugh, ‘or we wouldn’t have let you in the house.’ By and large, we have been as disappointing as hosts as they – well, some of them – have been as guests. In the end I felt sad and apologetic. We haven’t exactly behaved badly, but we have been very blinkered to other people’s needs – to Milton’s, to Paula’s, to Arthur’s and especially to MM’s. It’s not as if they had all been monsters in the Arthur P. Jacobs mould. Stupidly, I had assumed that we all had the same aim – to make a good film, on time and on budget. I see now that life is never as simple as that. Everyone, me included, has many other reasons for doing what they did. I really want to start a career, to make a good personal impression even if the film is a flop. I want to persuade SLO that he can’t do without me and that he must take me into the theatre with him. MM wanted to change the direction of her career, to be taken seriously in a ‘classical’ acting role, with a great ‘classical’ actor. She couldn’t expect to play Lady Macbeth straight away, but she wanted something that she could handle without relying solely on her sex appeal. For Milton, it was his first motion picture, his chance to prove to Warner Bros that he could deliver a film as executive producer. It was also a chance to make money. Being a photographer clearly hadn’t made him as rich as he’d like.