buy twelve linen napkins—silverware—for 12
buy birthday present for Helen—
have Kirt paint places for chandeliers also where railing broke
have Milton & Kirt put pictures in hallway—help me arrange room & place
have Kirt saw off legs of brass candle holders
dry clean comforter
have wash—bathroom rugs
send out laundry
call Moumulion
guest towels
paintings 2
coffee table
[indecipherable] glass bar
Notes:
Kitty and Clyde may have provided Marilyn with occasional help.
Kirt seems to have been a man who did odd jobs for Marilyn.
M. Moumulion: unidentified.
The reference to Milton Greene would mean this birthday dinner took place between 1955 and 1956. Marilyn stayed at Milton and Amy Greene’s property in Westport, Connecticut, when she first arrived on the East Coast and often visited them in subsequent months.
champagne? at least some kind of wine with dinner
buy—liquor—scotch—gin—vermouth—
hors d’œuvres—caviar—others?
two roasts—1—prime ribs of beef 1—turkey
have Hedda make dressing
large mixed green salad with endive hearts—avocado? (Also aspic?)
vegetables—frozen peas or in pod?—not done too well—Kitty’s squash? or something
Potatoes—of some kind—? ask Kitty
Celery hearts—olives—scallions?—Radishes
ask Hedda about fruit & ice cream for dessert—choc & vanilla
Coffee & cookies & danish pastry for later
Birthday cake for Helen—
Geo. Leslie & me 2
Hedda & Norman 2
Ettore & Jessie 2
Helen & Isadore 2
George Brusilla [Braziller] & wife 2
Guy & friend with guitar 2
Bloomingdales?
Wine glasses 12
linen napkins
6 or more guest towels
Murray Hill—25400
french prov. white
marble top 2 sizes
coffee table
buy for less than he says
Lloyds 116 E 60th
Ivory. Flakes or snow
Rinso Blue or detergent
Notes:
Geo. Leslie: unidentified.
Isadore Schneider (1896–1976) was born in the Ukraine and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1904. A novelist and critic, he was a friend of Norman Rosten’s, knew Arthur Miller, and worked as a reader for George Braziller at Grove Press. Helene Berlin Schneider was his wife.
Ettore Rella (1907–1988) was a poet and playwright. His wife was named Jessie.
George Braziller was born in 1916 and founded his own publishing house in 1955. His wife was Marsha.
Guy: unidentified.
LEE AND PAULA STRASBERG
When Marilyn arrived in New York at the beginning of 1955, she soon found her heart’s dream: the Actors Studio, which she hoped would open the doors to a new status as an artist. Just as quickly, Lee Strasberg saw how exceptional she was, bursting with a talent seeking to express itself fully. However, Marilyn had a major shortcoming: she was always late. Lee had his reservations about this, and when she admitted that she was absolutely unable to be on time, he replied cuttingly: “Well, be early then.” This explains the playful tone of the brief text in which she quotes a line from one of her early films that speaks of punctuation instead of punctuality…The fragile confidence she developed often shifted to anguish and despair. What would happen if she lost her concentration, the only thing that kept an actor from suicide, to repeat Lee Strasberg’s striking phrase? In February 1961, Marilyn thought she was checking into the hospital for a rest cure but instead found herself confined to a psychiatric cell at Payne Whitney in New York. Her friends couldn’t respond to her cry for help, as, legally speaking, they weren’t family members (Joe DiMaggio, whom she had divorced in 1954, would finally rescue her from this nightmare). In any case, Marilyn proved single-minded. Prompted by her sense of having escaped from quicksand, in a resolute letter to Lee Strasberg dated December 19, 1961, she laid out her plan for a new independent production company, which would make sense to her only if Lee were associated with it. To the very end, she wanted to be free of the studios, but this time she wanted to challenge them on their turf, in Hollywood.
Oh yes Mr. Oxley is always
complaining about my punctuation
so now I’m careful to get here
before 9:00. Mr. Oxley is on
telephone won’t you sit down
loose letting go
voice starts back theatre
[following is written by Lee Strasberg]
Don’t be nervous Marilyn
you are doing swell &
you look wonderful—
L.
Notes:
The chronically late pupil used this line from Monkey Business (the 1952 Howard Hawks film in which Mr. Oxley is Marilyn’s director) with no little humor when addressing her teacher (who may have been speaking on the telephone at that moment).
To judge by his reply, it is not clear that Lee Strasberg understood either the allusion or the quotation.
Dear Lee
One of the most personally helpful things I’ve heard so far in my life was what you said in class friday afternoon—it was helpful in that I feel as though I’m a little bit freer—also more—I can’t think of any I mean by that more relaxed 2 and 2 don’t necessarly make 4.
Paula dear,
You asked me yesterday why—
I felt somehow (I’m only conceiving of it this morning) that if I didn’t have the control or the will to make myself do anything simple & do it right I would never be able to act or do anything—I know it sounds crazy—maybe it was even superstitious—I don’t know—I don’t know anything.
Something has happened I think to make me lose my confidence. I don’t know what it is. All I know is I want to work.
Oh Paula I wish I knew why I am so anguished. I think maybe I’m crazy like all the other members of my family were, when I was sick I was sure I was. I’m so glad you are with me here!
Marilyn Monroe with Paula and Lee Strasberg, New York, 1955
Dear Lee & Paula,
Dr. Kris has had me put into the New York Hospital—psychiatric division under the care of two idiot doctors—they both should not be my doctors.
You haven’t heard from me because I’m locked up with all these poor nutty people. I’m sure to end up a nut if I stay in this nightmare—please help me Lee, this is the last place I should be—maybe if you called Dr. Kris and assured her of my sensitivity and that I must get back to class so I’ll be better prepared for “Rain.”
Lee, I try to remember what you said once in class “that art goes far beyond science.”
And the scary memories around me I’d like to forget—like screaming woman etc.
Please help me—if Dr. Kris assures you I am all right—you can assure her I am not. I do not belong here!
I love you both.
Marilyn
P.S. forgive the spelling—and there is nothing to write on here. I’m on the dangerous floor!! It’s like a cell can you imagine—cement blocks. They put me in here because they lied to me about calling my doctor & Joe and they had the bathroom door locked so I broke the glass and outside of that I haven’t done anything that is uncooperative
Note: Rain, adapted from a Somerset Maugham short story, was a TV project that Lee Strasberg hoped to direct. Marilyn Monroe and John Gielgud were to have had the main parts. The film was never made because of a disagreement between NBC and Lee Strasberg.
Marilyn Monroe and Lee Strasberg in a café near Carnegie Hall in New York
LETTER TO DR. HOHENBERG
1956
Before accepting Marilyn as a stu
dent of his “Method,” Lee Strasberg made it a condition that she start psychoanalysis. From the spring of 1955, therefore, three to five times a week, the actress consulted Dr. Margaret Hohenberg at 155 East 93rd Street in New York. Margaret Hohenberg was born in 1898 in Slovakia and had studied in Vienna, Budapest, and Prague before having to flee Austria in 1938 after the Anschluss. She first went to London for a year, then settled in New York in 1939.
Milton Greene, one of Dr. Hohenberg’s patients, recommended her to Marilyn, and, curiously, the doctor accepted her as an analysand in spite of the obvious risk involved in treating two patients who not only knew each other but also had very close professional links. In fact, shortly after Milton Greene was fired from Marilyn Monroe Productions, the actress stopped seeing the analyst and never returned to her consulting rooms. Nevertheless, a bill for $840, drawn up by Dr. Hohenberg on August 1, 1962, indicates that Marilyn had gotten back in touch with her former analyst for telephone consultations.
Dear Dr. Hohenberg,
I’ve been wondering myself why I don’t write to you. I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve been feeling I was taken away from you (with your consent) or that you sent me away from you—
On the whole, things are going along rather well so far
M.C.A., our agents, and Stein, our lawyer are dealing have dealt with Natasha but—we’ll see—
I have a strange feeling about Paula. I mean—she works differently than Lee but she is a wonderful and warm person—which also bewilders me
Anyway I keep feeling I won’t be able to do the part when I have to it’s like a horrible nightmare.
Also I guess I didn’t write you before this because I was waiting to see if I would get shot first.
Arthur writes me every day—at least it gives me a little air to breathe—I can’t get used to the fact that he loves me and I keep waiting for him to stop loving me—though I hope he never will—but I keep telling myself—who knows?
Notes:
In January 1953, Marilyn left the William Morris Agency, whose vice president, Johnny Hyde, had died in 1950. She signed a contract with the powerful talent agency MCA, Inc. (Music Corporation of America). George Chasin attended to Marilyn’s interests at MCA until her death. In her book Marilyn and Me, Susan Strasberg quotes a story dating back to 1962 as told by Marilyn’s masseur, Ralph Roberts: “She asked me if I had heard any rumors about Bobby Kennedy and herself. None of it is true, she told me. Besides, he is too skinny. Bobby is trying to dismantle MCA and has asked me to help him.” Indeed, MCA had to wind down its agency work and concentrate on production after an action brought against the corporation by Attorney General Robert Kennedy in July 1962.
Irving Stein, along with Frank Delaney, was one of the lawyers who worked for Marilyn Monroe Productions.
In 1948, Natasha Lytess was appointed by Columbia, as was their usual practice, to help Marilyn prepare for her part in the Phil Karlson film Ladies of the Chorus. The two women worked together on about twenty films until Marilyn chose Paula Strasberg to assist her during the shooting of Bus Stop in February 1956. Natasha Lytess found it difficult to accept this break.
LETTER TO DR. GREENSON
1961
From January 1960 onward, following the advice of Marianne Kris (her analyst in New York at that time), Marilyn started analysis with Dr. Ralph Greenson in Los Angeles. She wrote him a long letter on March 2 and 3, 1961, about three weeks after her disastrous confinement at Payne Whitney, when she had had to confront one of her worst fears: the specter of hereditary family madness, the fear of ending up in a psychiatric hospital like her mother and grandmother before her.
At the time, Marilyn had been transferred from Payne Whitney after Joe DiMaggio’s intercession and was convalescing at Columbia University’s Presbyterian Medical Center. She was reading Freud, especially his letters. Bed-bound, she wrote describing the details of her confinement and all the misunderstandings that had led to her being placed in isolation. We can imagine her distress as she faced the guardians of normalcy whom she felt were ready to condemn her irrevocably. We are almost surprised at the moderate tone she used when discussing Dr. Kris’s involvement, and the sense of perspective she had when recalling a scene in Don’t Bother to Knock (directed by Roy Baker in 1952) that inspired her rebellion against the commitment and her (sham) suicide threat. We can find, too, in this poignant letter, the characteristic way Marilyn would suddenly change the subject to something positive in order to put her fears to one side: here her reconciliation with Joe DiMaggio, which had happened at Christmas.
Note: May Reis was Marilyn’s personal assistant from the mid-1950s onward.
Marilyn with Edith Sitwell, London, 1956
Marilyn with Carl Sandburg, Los Angeles, 1961
WRITTEN ANSWERS TO AN INTERVIEW
1962
Whereas Marilyn often established bonds of trust and complicity with photographers, she was much more on her guard with journalists. That was why she prepared for interviews and often insisted on seeing the questions beforehand. That was obviously the case here, where we can read short draft answers she wrote to about thirty questions (the first few are missing) to give herself a lead. She invoked the master-pupil aspect of her relationship with Arthur Miller, and her difficulty in being a member of a group. No wonder that among the people she admired we find Eleanor Roosevelt (who was to die soon after Marilyn in November 1962), who was famous for her early feminism and opposition to racism, and who headed the U.N. commission to draw up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No less surprising was Marilyn’s support for the Kennedy brothers, for their strength and youth and idealism. She also looked up to Carl Sandburg for his poetry, so sympathetic to the common man, as well as Greta Garbo, the other myth. A horrified vision of the H-bomb, support for all manner of persecuted people, a considered defense of psychoanalysis: the glamorous blonde was certainly no reactionary. From her reference to Payne Whitney (where she had been confined for five days in February 1961) and from the books that the photographer George Barris, one of the last to shoot her, states she was reading a few days before her death, we may judge that these notes were written in 1962.
6 – although this may be true in my estimation of a formal educational is never a basic cause for a material problem—it is the emotional background which matters
7 – (1) there was a pupil teacher relationship at the beginning of the marriage and when (2) I learned a great deal from it—a good marriage is a very delicate balance of many forces (3) but there was much more to the marriage than that
10 – experiences with any group of people is [illegible] one has to discriminate the different members of a group. I never been very good at being a member of any group—more than a group of two that is.
11 – Payne Whitney gives me a pain
It was often obviously an error of judgment to place me in Payne Whit. and the doctor who recommended it realized it and tried to rectify it. What the my condition warranted was the rest and care I got at Presbyterian Hospital
12 – the love of my work I love and a few reliable human beings the hope for my future growth & development.
13 – I have a strong sense of self of criticism but I believe I’m becoming more reasonable and tolerant realistic in this regard
14 – Eleanor Roosevelt—her devotion to mankind
Carl Sandburg—his poems are songs of the people by the people and for people Pres. and Robert Kennedy—they symbolize the youth of America—in its vigor its brilliance and its compassion
Greta Garbo—for her artistic creativity and her personal courage and integrity
15 – I am at ease with people I trust or admire or like the rest I’m not at ease with.
16 – At the present time I’m reading Capt. Newman M.D. and To Kill a Mockingbird—in times of crisis I do not turn to a book—I try to think and to use my understanding
17 – I love poetry and poets
18 – I constantly try to clarify and red
efine my goals
Notes:
Captain Newman, M.D. is a novel by Leo Rosten (no relation to Norman), published in 1961, based on the experiences of Ralph Greenson when he was a military officer at Yuma (Arizona) during the Second World War. To Kill a Mockingbird, the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Harper Lee, was published in 1960.
In Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words, the photographer George Barris describes the conversation he had with her on August 3, 1962, the day before her death, when she told him she was reading these two books.
Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters Page 5