The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  In June 1957, The Prince and the Showgirl opened at Radio City Music Hall. Marilyn, of course, attended with Arthur. The reviews were favorable and it seemed as if there might be a new appreciation of her ability as an actress, which somehow made all of the angst in England worthwhile, or at least most of it. What’s perhaps most interesting about this film is the active role Marilyn took in its production and how far she had come as a thoughtful and, indeed, imaginative artist with a keen eye toward filmmaking. When she was unhappy with Fox’s final cut of the film, she expressed her dissatisfaction to Jack Warner, MCA, and Laurence Olivier’s production company. What she had to say and how she expressed it says so much about who she was at the time: “I am afraid that as it stands it will not be as successful as the version all of us agreed was so fine. Especially in the first third of the picture the pacing has been slowed and one comic point after another has been flattened out by substituting inferior takes with flatter performances lacking the energy and brightness that you saw in New York. Some of the jump cutting kills the points, as in the fainting scene. The coronation is as long as before if not longer, and the story gets lost in it. American audiences are not as moved by stained glass windows as the British are, and we threaten them with boredom. I am amazed that so much of the picture has no music at all when the idea was to make a romantic picture. We have enough film to make a great movie, if only it will be as in the earlier version. I hope you will make every effort to preserve our picture.” Does that sound like the critique of an empty-headed movie star? In the end, no changes were made to the picture. It came out as Fox and MCA saw fit, but not for lack of trying on Marilyn’s part.

  In July, Marilyn would learn that she was pregnant. She wanted nothing more than to have a baby, but now she wasn’t sure how she felt about this child’s father. However, she had to admit that the last six months with Arthur had been very relaxing. She wasn’t sure that she had his respect, but she knew he cared about her. Still, it was difficult for her to get past what she’d read in his journal. “My little girl is always going to be told how pretty she is,” Marilyn said when she learned of the pregnancy. She was sure it would be a girl. “When I was small, all of the dozens and dozens of people I lived with—none of them ever used the word ‘pretty’ to me. I want my little girl to smile all the time. All little girls should be told how pretty they are and I’m going to tell mine, over and over again.”

  Unfortunately, on August 1, Marilyn would be diagnosed as suffering from an ectopic pregnancy. She was about five or six weeks along at that point. She was extremely saddened by the loss of the baby. “My heart is broken,” she told her half sister, Berniece, in a telephone call from the hospital. She could, she said, “try again,” and she intended to—“but not now.”

  The first six months of the year had been peaceful, but that changed after Marilyn lost the baby. Some in the family say that a letter she received from Gladys set in motion a chain of events that could have proven deadly. Apparently, Gladys sent a heartless note to her daughter in which she in effect said that, in her view, Marilyn wasn’t ready to be a mother. She told her that along with motherhood came certain responsibilities, “and you, dear child, are not a responsible person.” One relative recalled, “Marilyn was, I think, as upset about that letter as she was about losing the baby. She began to drink a lot more after that, and with the pills it all got to be too much. She started to say that she was hearing voices in her head. This was very scary and very reminiscent of her mother and grandmother. ‘I could never be like them,’ she said, ‘because at least I know the voices are not real.’ She was acting very strangely. Arthur told me that he was at a restaurant one night and the maître d’ came over to tell him that he had a phone call. It was Marilyn. She was out of it and asked him to come home to save her. Luckily, he rushed home. She had taken an overdose. I don’t know if it was on purpose, or not. No one ever knew. Afterward, no one ever discussed it, which is why there’s a lot of mystery around it. It simply was never discussed.”

  Marilyn’s Depression

  The year after Marilyn Monroe’s ectopic pregnancy was difficult. August 1957 through about July 1958 found her in perhaps the deepest depression of her entire life. In her mind, she had already failed as a mother just by virtue of the miscarriage. Her marriage was not fulfilling. She had lost interest in her career, and especially, it would seem, in Marilyn Monroe Productions. Arthur Miller spent the year writing—or attempting to write—a screenplay, The Misfits, based on one of his short stories. He believed that it would have a plum role for his wife, if only he could pull it together. But faced with writer’s block, he found it impossible to break through, one draft after another ending up in the trash can. Frustrated with the work and exasperated with himself, he took it out on Marilyn. He was short and temperamental with her, despite regular visits to his psychotherapist to try to work his way through his own emotional problems. Marilyn—now thirty-two—gave as much as she got, if not more.

  “It doesn’t overstate it to say that she was never the same after the miscarriage,” said Edward Lovitz, a struggling screenwriter in New York at this time, who had known Arthur Miller for many years. “Arthur told me that he thought she needed psychiatric help, that she would start to scream at him for no apparent reason. He wasn’t sure if it was the drugs she was taking, the alcohol she was drinking, or just her mind breaking down on her. He told me that she had stopped going to her psychiatrist after she lost the baby. He wanted to try for another baby, but that was difficult if they weren’t even getting along. He slept in a guest room, he said, many nights if not most nights.”

  “The fact that Arthur was not able to write at this time is probably not surprising, given the stresses in his life,” added Rupert Allan. “However, Marilyn blamed herself for his lack of vision. She told me that she feared she no longer inspired him. ‘If I inspired him at all, he would have finished by now,’ she told me after a few months of nonproductivity on his part. ‘Oh, the hell with it,’ she decided. ‘It doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m sick of him.’ What I think she was really sick of was his judgment against her. She felt it strongly.”

  The longer this cold war continued between spouses, the deeper into her depression Marilyn seemed to sink. Nothing had worked out for her the way she had hoped, she said. She desperately wanted this marriage to be a success. She told one relative that she believed there were “people out there” who felt they had “won” when her marriage to Joe DiMaggio had failed. “ ‘Ah-ha! See, she’s not happy at all,’ they said about me,” Marilyn observed bitterly. “ ‘She’s stupid and talentless and she can’t keep a husband.’ But this one is going to last,” she continued, “because I don’t want people to have the satisfaction of seeing me suffer.” She also wanted to prove to herself, as well as to the public, that she could be a good wife and mother. However, it now appeared that she could be neither. Her disappointment in herself combined with the drugs she was taking to sleep and then to awake caused her to exist in a clouded state of mind that made it impossible for her to reason out her problems. Add alcohol to the mix—champagne for the most part since most other drinks made her sick to her stomach, though that didn’t always stop her—and the combination was potentially lethal. She had gotten to the point where she would pour herself a glass of champagne with trembling hands, snap open a capsule, and then pour the contents right into the glass for a quicker high. Or, for an even faster effect, she would just pour the crystals under her tongue. Because she had lost interest in so much in her life, she began to gain weight. She didn’t care. She had been struggling to stay thin for so many years, she felt she deserved the right to be fat. She gained about twenty pounds during this time.

  There was no telling how one might find Marilyn—seeming happy and content or morose and depressed. Still, people obviously wanted to be around her, wanted to be in her presence.

  Two separate visits at this time tell differing stories:

  The first involved Marilyn’s hal
f sister, Berniece. Marilyn called her one day seeming desperate. “I tried all day to call you, yesterday,” she told her when she finally reached her. “And this morning I tried three times!” She made it clear that she needed to see Berniece. In speaking to her, she kept talking about how much she admired Berniece’s marriage to Paris Miracle. It was clear to Berniece, as she would later tell it, that Marilyn was having problems in her marriage. Berniece made plans to go, but then, at the last minute, her husband forbade her to travel alone. Paris later said that he had a trip planned for New York, where Marilyn lived. Berniece wanted to go with him, of course, and use that opportunity to visit Marilyn. Paris said no. It was a business trip, he said—no wives allowed. But then while he was in New York, he went to visit Marilyn, and took his business associates with him! At any rate, Marilyn could not have been nicer to Paris and his friends. She appeared after having bought flowers, her arms full of dogwood blossoms. Everyone had cocktails, which she served, and she signed pictures for the entire group—“Love and kisses from your sister-in-law to Paris.” One of Paris’s friends tried to sneak out of Marilyn’s home with a highball glass, which was apparently too large to fit under his jacket. In the midst of all this, Marilyn seemed fine.

  A couple of days later, Marilyn’s psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris, came to visit. The story was a very different one, as told by Barbara Miller (no relation to Arthur), the daughter of a friend of Dr. Kris’s. She, her mother, brother, and Dr. Kris all arrived at the same time to visit Marilyn and Arthur. “It wasn’t pleasant,” she recalled. “I was about twelve, but I remember it well. I was a big fan of Marilyn Monroe’s and couldn’t wait to meet her. She was a lot heavier than I thought she’d be, but still she was very beautiful. She came swooping into the living room to greet us in a floral-printed caftan that was just lovely. She had her hair long, to her shoulders—very blonde. I remember she had the most delicate hands with tapering fingers, her nails painted red. She was very nice, but seemed… I guess tipsy would be the word.”

  Barbara Miller recalls what happened after everyone was seated in the living room:

  “Would you like a Bloody Mary?” Marilyn asked the adults. “And a soft drink for you?” she offered, looking at the young girl. The adults said they would all prefer soft drinks. “Fine,” Marilyn said with a smile. “I generally don’t like to drink alone, but I’ll make an exception today.” She then called out the name of their maid. When no one appeared, she called again. Finally, she screamed out, “Arthur, where is the goddamn maid?” Still, no answer. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “My secretary, Mary [Reis], isn’t in today and my husband is somewhere trying to write,” she said, according to Miller’s memory. “He’s having a difficult time, though.”

  According to Miller, Dr. Kris studied Marilyn carefully and said, “Dear, is there someplace where you and I might talk? I’d like to speak to you alone.”

  Marilyn eyed the doctor suspiciously and said, “I think we’ve done enough talking, Doctor, don’t you? I’m fine, really I am. All I need is a Bloody Mary if I could just get the goddamn maid to come in here. Jesus Christ,” she concluded. “I’ll go get it myself, and the soft drinks too.” She rose.

  “You don’t seem fine,” the doctor said, while the other two guests sat in awkward silence.

  “Goddamn it,” Marilyn snapped, now standing and facing the doctor, her eyes blazing. “Why can’t you leave me alone? I’ve had it with you. I’m sick of going over and over and over the same things. I’m not going to do it anymore.” With that, she turned and walked out of the room, leaving her guests in stunned silence. They wondered whether or not she would return. Or should they just go? Ten minutes later—just as everyone was preparing to depart—Arthur Miller appeared. “My wife asked me to apologize to you all,” he said, looking very contrite. “She’s not been well. It’s just been awful, and I hope you’ll accept our sincere apologies and come back another time.” Then, turning to the doctor, he said, “Could you please call me later? I must speak with you. It’s urgent.” Dr. Kris said that she would certainly make the call. Everyone then agreed that it was best for the visit to end. However, just as the small group got to the front door, Marilyn came walking out from one of the back rooms. In her hands was a tray of drinks. “Wait,” she said, gazing at them with astonishment. “You’re leaving? But I have drinks! Wouldn’t you like to sit down and talk?”

  “She was a totally different person,” said Barbara Miller. “She was smiling and cheerful and it was as if she had no memory at all of what had occurred earlier. We said, no, we have to run. She looked disappointed. Then she gave each of us a hug. As we were departing, she smiled and told Dr. Kris, ‘Okay, I’ll be calling you tomorrow. Bye-bye.’ When the door closed, I remember the adults standing in the hallway looking at each other with worried expressions. Then, in the cab, no one said a word. Everyone just sat and stared straight ahead.”

  Some Like It Hot

  By May 1958, Arthur Miller had convinced Marilyn that she needed to return to work—or at least that’s what he told his friends. It’s also possible that Marilyn had come to terms with the fact that as she put it to one intimate, “someone needs to bring some money in this house,” so it might as well be her. She put her agents to work on finding the right project. After a few false starts, Billy Wilder submitted a two-page proposal to Marilyn for a film he was writing called Some Like It Hot. On July 7, Marilyn departed for Los Angeles to begin work on the movie.

  Every single person who contributed his or her talent to Some Like It Hot can be assured that it was the group collaboration that made it the comedy classic it is, and arguably one of the best pictures ever made. They can also be assured that without Marilyn Monroe and Billy Wilder, it would have been just another funny film. Wilder lifted the central premise from an obscure German movie musical, Fanfares of Love—that of two unemployed musicians who resort to cross-dressing in order to join an all-female band—and stretched it into two hours of unmitigated hilarity. Adding the subplot of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and its fallout is the engine that drives the train. (Wilder’s writing partner on this and many other scripts was I. A. L. Diamond, and the film earned them an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay.)

  Now that they had a script—or at least they had one in mind—the next concern was how to cast it. According to one source, Wilder early on envisioned Danny Kaye and Bob Hope as the drag duo. Tony Curtis received a verbal pitch for the film from Wilder himself and agreed to sign on. Then when Frank Sinatra expressed an interest in the project, Wilder toyed with the idea because he needed a “name” to get studio financing. He was actually relieved when Sinatra dropped out, though, because Ol’ Blue Eyes was well known for following his own rules—shooting nine to five, limited retakes, and other special treatment. Wilder was happy to keep it A Billy Wilder Film. Meanwhile, Mitzi Gaynor was being considered for the role of Sugar Kane, due mainly to her excellent showing in the recently released South Pacific. But then Marilyn launched a campaign for the part. Her box-office pull had placed her on Quigley’s list of Top Ten stars for three years, and though she had been absent from the screen for the two previous years, attending drama classes at the Actors Studio and trying to shore up her disintegrating marriage, her popularity with the fans was at an all-time high.

  Marilyn’s legendary reputation for causing delays apparently was overlooked and she was signed for the film for $200,000 plus 10 percent of the gross over $4 million. In its initial release, the movie earned $25 million, which comes to $215.4 million in today’s dollars, enough to place it at number 150 in the top-grossing films of all time. Marilyn’s share: $2.3 million