The Genius and the Goddess

by Jeffrey Meyers

  Marilyn's public and professional image as a stupid sexpot clashed with her desire to become a serious actress. She first wanted attention, then demanded respect. In 1950 she'd do anything to get a part; by 1954 she was understandably weary of dumb blonde roles. Ezra Goodman showed how Marilyn had followed the trajectory of a typical Hollywood glamor girl:

  —If only I could get a part.

  —They like me! I wonder if I'm gonna get another part?

  —I should be getting bigger and more important parts.

  —How can I get more money?

  —[I've] become surrounded by sycophants and suckerfish.

  —I have to make lots of money now. How long can I last?

  —[I've] reached the first plateau. Everybody wants interviews with me.

  —[I've] become a mature star and accept everything.

  —[I] break from the friends who disagree with me.

  —[I] need help from someone, so change agents and boyfriends.

  There's a feeling of constant insecurity.

  —[Finally, I] get culture.11

  Marilyn was best when playing a character who was essentially like herself. When demanding serious roles, she rather naïvely asserted that the movie studio was not a "manufacturing establishment" and should be making artistic rather than commercial films. It was, however, a huge money-making corporation, knew that high art didn't produce profits and constantly remade successful formulaic films.

  Not satisfied with her achievement as a comedienne, Marilyn hoped to gain respect and recognition by playing Grushenka in The Brothers Karamazov. Dore Schary, a producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, had for years planned to film Dostoyevsky's novel with Marilyn and Marlon Brando, and had commissioned a screenplay for these stars. But Marilyn was under exclusive contract with Fox, whose executives did not believe she could be a serious actress and refused to lend her to MGM. Marilyn sounded foolish when she told reporters, "I don't want to play the brothers. I want to play Grushenka. She's a girl." But very few reporters had read the novel. She was familiar with it and may well have stated the obvious because of their ignorance, not hers. She understood Grushenka's character and quite properly said that Grushenka is much more than a sexpot, that "she grows and develops because of her love for [Dimitry]."A beautiful and bewitching "fallen woman" who's been seduced by a lecherous Pole, Grushenka is loved by both the crude buffoon, Father Karamazov, and by his son Dimitry. At the end of the book, when the son is wrongly sentenced to Siberia for the murder of his father, she remains loyal to Dimitry and is prepared to accompany him to prison.

  Billy Wilder confirmed that "Marilyn knows what she's doing. She could play a good Grushenka. People think this is a long-hair, very thick, very literary book. But there's nothing long-hair about Grushenka. At heart she is a whore." Like Marilyn, she is also in search of redemption and tells the saintly Alyosha: "I've been waiting all my life for someone like you, I knew that someone like you would come and forgive me . . . would really love me, not only with a shameful love!" Marilyn said, "She's very erotic, you know," and Joshua Logan agreed that she was well prepared to play this demanding role: "The only thing she felt herself an authority on was eroticism; therefore, anything that suggested sensuality or sexuality gave her instant, joyful confidence."12 In the end, the demure Maria Schell got the coveted part.

  V

  Natasha Lytess observed that Marilyn had "an almost frightening perception of what was right for Marilyn Monroe." The actress now realized that her contract with Fox exploited her and was determined to do something about it. In the first four years of her seven-year contract (1951–54), she began at $500 a week for forty weeks a year, rose to $1,500 a week and earned a total of $160,000, or an average of $40,000 a year, while her movies made a total of $15 million for the studio. By 1954 she was an international celebrity, admired by millions of people, yet (as DiMaggio noted) Fox still treated her shabbily. As the actor Robert Stack wrote, "The prevailing view at Twentieth Century-Fox was that actors were children and the parent (the studio) had to keep the upper hand. Marilyn Monroe was denied a [star's] dressing room on the set because . . . a pocket-sized executive with a peculiar set of priorities didn't want her to develop a big head."13

  Unlike most actors, Marilyn was not intimidated by the formidable chief of production, Darryl Zanuck, who'd pace up and down during interviews in his vast office, chomping a cigar and whacking his polo mallet against his high polished boots. She wanted not only a fair contract, but also revenge for a long and bitter list of grievances: her suddenly terminated short-term contracts at Fox and Columbia; her predatory couch-casting, sexual exploitation and public humiliations. Producers had shown contempt for her as a woman, disdain for her supposed stupidity and scorn for her as a slut. Tyrannical studio executives had typecast her in mediocre movies and refused to give her serious roles or lend her to other studios for better parts. And her pay was grossly unfair.

  Marilyn naturally turned to her new agent, Charles Feldman, of Famous Artists, for help in dealing with Fox. She was surprised to find that his first loyalty was to the studio, where he also produced pictures, and that he did not always work for her benefit when renegotiating her contract. But she was as tough with Feldman and Fox as she'd been with Ben Hecht, and staunchly defended her own interests. As early as December 1, 1953 – the month before she married DiMaggio, who took an active part in the negotiations – Feldman's colleague at the agency impatiently told him that "she was getting kind of antsy pantsy about not wanting to do any more pictures for 'those coolie wages.'" Feldman was then in Switzerland to make deals with European directors for Kirk Douglas and several other stars. His wife had fallen ill and was in the hospital, and he soon became distracted and exhausted by all the long phone calls and cables about Marilyn's unfair pay and poor screen roles. Feldman was also concerned that Famous Artists had lent her $23,000 and if she left them it would be difficult to recover it. In fact, after she'd left the agency, it took five years to collect the money.

  Matters heated up again in June 1954 when Feldman's colleague anxiously reported that Marilyn had learned how to use her newly acquired power and stubbornly confronted the hard-nosed president of the studio about her contract:

  Once again I had a meeting with Miss Monroe and Mr. Skouras this evening to try and find some solution to this problem, but I am afraid we reached an absolute impasse. In a talk I had with Marilyn afterwards, she seemed even more adamant and would only listen to her own point of view. Mr. Skouras at the same time does not feel it is possible for Fox to go any further. . . .

  She has made up her mind that unless they give in on the particular point she is requesting she will sit it out for four years.

  The following month the colleague was also troubled by Marilyn's intransigence about her choreographers – and distrust of her agents. He tried to persuade her to negotiate, but she was convinced she was right and gave no ground: "She was absolutely rigid and adamant in her position; despite the fact that I told her very firmly that from a practical point of view the two or three points that bothered her in the contract would automatically be overcome. . . . She said she was tired of having to fight the studio and all she was interested in was getting great parts." Marilyn ground them down in a battle of wills, and astonished both the agents and the studio. She maintained that if she didn't get exactly what she wanted, she was willing to break with Fox, give up making movies at the height of her career and wait until her contract expired.

  Marilyn continued to distrust Fox and Feldman. In April 1955, after she'd carried out her threat and left Fox, the studio tried to win her back. At one point her lawyer Frank Delany asked the photographer Sam Shaw to intercede on her behalf with Fox. Shaw, who wisely refused to get involved, explained the prickly situation to Feldman (who may also have been his agent):"I told Marilyn . . . that you gave her the best deal and lost money by putting her in [The Seven Year Itch] – as good as she is. . . . She is sore as hell at me – and personally I don't care, exc
ept the publishers want her cooperation for my book. . . . What really pissed me off on this dame is her intense animosity towards you."14

  In 1954 Marilyn was besieged with offers to star in movies and sing on records, appear on television shows and radio programs, be interviewed for magazine and newspaper articles, make public appearances and contribute to charitable events. As her marriage broke up and she quarreled with her agents and the studio, she couldn't bear the intense pressure. Though spontaneous and intuitive, she had found it difficult to make professional decisions. She had to consider her image, her publicity and her relations with Fox as she weighed the possibility of forming her own production company. Charles Feldman, an astute attorney, agent, producer and powerful Hollywood insider, would have made an excellent business partner, but she associated him with Fox and did not trust him. Norman Mailer, alluding to River of No Return and There's No Business Like Show Business, described her complicated situation at the end of that year: "on the edge of separating from her husband, she has two atrocious films behind her, is . . . drinking too much, and all the while thinking of breaking her contract and beginning a new life in New York to make movies with a photographer who has never produced a film."

  Marilyn refused the wise counsel of her own lawyers, publicists and accountants, who advised her to stick with Fox and improve her contract. Instead she unexpectedly formed Marilyn Monroe Productions with Milton Greene, a handsome New York fashion and celebrity photographer whom she liked and trusted. Born Greenholtz and four years older than Marilyn, he had had a brief affair with her at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles in 1953. (When I asked his son Joshua whether, as rumored, they resumed their affair during Greene's second marriage, he did not deny it but merely said "no comment.") Greene's contract with Marilyn stated that he would finance her for a year in New York, and allow her to live in high style and study acting. He would find new films and great parts for her, and she would finally have the power to guide her own career. Her contract with Fox was bad, but she exchanged it for an equally bad one with Greene, who knew almost nothing about film making and wound up owning 49 percent of the company and the most successful star in Hollywood.

  Marilyn traded a powerful studio and agent for a family who took her in as other families had. She spent many weekends at the Greenes' house in Connecticut, and they helped smooth the way for her new life in New York. Greene's second wife, Amy, a thin, elegant, high-fashion model with dark hair pulled straight back like a ballerina, had the uncomfortable task of being the new best friend of her husband's partner. The svelte Amy and the voluptuous Marilyn of the bountiful bosoms represented two ideal but contrasting images of American beauty. An indiscreet but unidentified lady-friend of both women said, "I got the feeling that Amy looked down on Marilyn Monroe as a stupid little bitch. Amy was better dressed, more chic, more sophisticated, and much cleverer than Marilyn. She even looked better. In fact, you couldn't believe that this queer little duck you saw sitting around the Greenes' was really Marilyn Monroe."15

  The striking difference between the two women came into sharp focus when they both appeared on a popular television show, Person to Person. Hosted by the distinguished, chain-smoking newsman Edward R. Murrow, who had sent stirring broadcasts from wartime London, it was filmed when Marilyn was living with the Greenes in Weston, Connecticut, and shown in April 1955. Other actors interviewed by Murrow, like Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, seemed happily married, confident, at ease and living in luxurious houses with swimming pools, while Marilyn seemed an uneasy guest, taken in by the Greenes as if she were still an orphan. Murrow's biographer noted that his "questions were dreadful. 'I saw some pictures of you the other day at the circus riding an elephant. Did you have fun?' 'Do you like New York?' 'Do you like Connecticut?' And to Mrs. Greene, 'Does she make her own bed?' And puzzlingly, 'Do you play a part to impress directors or please them?'"

  Murrow's questions did not allow Marilyn, who seemed nervous, passive and possibly stoned, a chance to respond with her usual wit. Amy, who was much brighter, prettier and self-possessed, sometimes answered for Marilyn and dominated the rather awkward program. Zanuck voiced the pervasive Hollywood response when he angrily wrote Feldman that Marilyn had thrown away a great chance for publicity and "made an idiot of herself on Ed Murrow's show last week with obvious repercussions."

  Miller, pretending to speak for Marilyn but actually expressing his own hostility toward the Greenes, condemned Amy's character: "[Marilyn] thought Amy was someone whose values were superficial and a little insubstantial; who married someone who was 'in,' who was successful and could help her meet the right people, the famous, the 'in' people. That's her whole life and interest. When Marilyn needed somebody, as she did then, [Marilyn] would seem to be powerfully connected with [the Greenes]." In fact, Marilyn admitted that she was not really close to them at all.

  Breaking with Fox and starting her own company was a bold move, and Marilyn was optimistic when she left Hollywood for New York. From then on, she alternated between the East and West coasts, and considered the rest of America a vast, unknown hinterland. Miller, who resumed their relationship when she reached the East coast and replaced DiMaggio in her life, explained why her film company was doomed from the start:

  The concrete reason was that they were both in an impossible position. [Greene] was acting as a manager, so to speak, and was very jealous of his authority, as he would have to be in such a situation, but their standards were different. He really was basically trying to upset her arrangement with Fox. . . .

  She had originally thought that his interest was in furthering her career, going about the world seeking the best properties. She had hoped that it would create a situation where she could pick and choose among the best available. But the way it worked out, Greene thought that he would be this big-shot producer and she would be working for him. . . . It was [supposed to, but didn't] work out that her salary would not be taxable, as it had been. . . . He never did anything about all that. He wasn't capable of that. This was all talk. You have to be a special kind of person to pull this sort of operation together. He just didn't have it.16

  Six

  Miller's Path to Fame

  (1915–1949)

  I

  While Marilyn was making her way as an actress in Hollywood, Miller was working as a playwright in New York and trying to maintain his precarious marriage. In contrast to Marilyn, he was stable, purposeful, educated and confident. He came from an uppermiddle- class Jewish family and his life, like his art, was firmly grounded in reality.

  Though Miller never knew the poverty and abandonment that Marilyn endured, he suffered the trauma of the Depression when his father lost his business after the stock-market crash of 1929. He expressed his ambivalence about his parents by simultaneously idealizing and denigrating them. He said that his father, Isidore, who came to America from Poland when he was five years old, "grew up to be six feet two inches tall with blue eyes and red hair and everybody thought he was an Irishman." But photographs of Isidore, slightly taller than Marilyn and only as high as Arthur's chin, reveal that he was only of average height. Miller also said that though his father "built one of the two or three largest coat manufacturing businesses in the country," he was completely uneducated and could not "read or write any language." Isidore's "Miltex Coat and Suit Company boasted a factory, showroom, front office and more than 800 employees." The family "lived on the top floor of a handsome six-story building at a very respectable address, 45 West 110th Street, facing the north end of Central Park just off Fifth Avenue." Isidore was driven to work in a chauffeured automobile.

  Despite her husband's astonishing immigrant's success, Miller's mother constantly humiliated his father, both before and after he'd lost his money and his business, demeaning his social status and self-esteem: "The children regularly overheard their mother belittling Izzy for his grubby ladies' clothing company, his coarse associates, his educational shortcomings and his inability to appreciate the finer things"1 �
� which of course he had provided. Though Miller loved his father, he inevitably adopted his mother's condescending and critical attitude. "I couldn't help blushing for him," he recalled, "when she made him her target, since I admired his warm and gentle nature as much as I despaired of his illiterate mind." For Isidore, after the crash, "there would never be a recovery of dignity and self-assurance, only an endless death-in-life down to the end." Arthur, as a teenager and young man, felt pity and contempt for his father and scarcely spoke to him. He said they were isolated "like two searchlights on different islands. I had no animosity toward him. I simply had no great relationship with him." But Marilyn, always in search of a father, would develop a powerful bond with her ignorant but warmly responsive father-in-law.

  Miller described his mother Augusta (known as "Gussy") as warm and nice, musical and a lively storyteller – as well as high strung and subject to sudden fits of depression. After Isidore's financial collapse and their descent from the luxurious life of Manhattan to a modest dwelling in Brooklyn, Gussy had to sell her furs and pawn her jewelry. The once glamorous and well-dressed woman turned into a slovenly and lethargic Hausfrau, shuffling around in crushed-back slippers. She only seemed to revive when condemning her husband for ruining her family and destroying her life. Like most modern American writers, from Hemingway and Fitzgerald to Lowell and Berryman, Miller had a strong mother and weak father.