The actor explained that he’d never actually been a member of the Communist Party, though he’d attended a few meetings, and he couldn’t with any certainty “name names,” which was the aim of HUAC. The Republican congressmen liked him and believed him and reported back to HUAC that he should be cleared, and no subpoena was issued after all. And if money was exchanged, it was cash, handed over discreetly from the actor’s agent to the entertainment lawyer. Possibly the Republican congressmen received some of this payment too. The actor knew, or seemed to know, nothing about the transaction except of course that he’d been cleared and his name would be excised from the HUAC master list. And I. E. Shinn’s role in the negotiations, as in similar negotiations in Hollywood in those years of unacknowledged “blacklists” and “clearances,” would remain a mystery, like the man himself.
“Why not out of the goodness of my gnarly dwarf heart?”
So two key men involved in the upcoming Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film were secretly indebted to I. E. Shinn. And each may have known of the other’s indebtedness. And the shrewd little agent with the explosive laugh and the calm calculating eyes and the perpetual red carnation in his lapel bided his time like any gambler, knowing precisely when to call the director, the day before auditions for the single role in the film that was a possibility for his client “Marilyn Monroe.” Shinn understood that the director, a Hollywood maverick, might be perversely impressed by the fact that the girl had been dropped by The Studio. So Shinn called and identified himself and the director remarked with good-natured irony, “This is about a girl, right?” and Shinn said with his usual abrasive dignity, “No. It’s about an actress. A very special talent who would be ideal for the role of Louis Calhern’s ‘niece.’” The director groaned with a hangover headache, saying, “They’re all special when we’re fucking them.” Shinn said, annoyed, “This girl is truly remarkable. She could be a major star if she’s given the right role, and I believe that ‘Angela’ is the right role for her and so will you when you see her.” The director said, “Like Hayworth? A gorgeous hick who can’t act worth shit. A girl with bouncy breasts and a sulky lower lip and she’s had electrolysis to improve her hairline and she’s a bottle redhead or platinum blonde and she’s going to be a star.” Shinn said, “She will be. I’m giving you the chance to discover her.” The director said, sighing, “OK, Is-aic. Send her over. Check with my assistant for the time.”
Not telling Shinn he’d already decided on a girl for the role. It wasn’t confirmed, he hadn’t spoken with the girl’s agent, but there was an indebtedness here, too, a sexual connection, and in any case the girl was a jet-haired beauty with exotic features, which was the type the screenplay indicated. The director could tell Shinn, if Shinn required telling, that his client just wasn’t the type. And he’d pay back the favor he owed Shinn another time.
As the story goes, the next day promptly at four Shinn shows up with this girl—“Marilyn Monroe.” A platinum blonde and gorgeous with an exquisite body in shimmering white rayon and so scared, the director sees, the poor kid can’t speak except in a whisper. The director takes one look at “Marilyn Monroe” and his gut reaction is the girl can’t act, she can’t even fuck, but her mouth might be useful, and you could use her for decoration like the classy prow of a yacht or the silver hood ornament of a Rolls-Royce. Pale luminous skin like an expensive doll’s and cobalt-blue eyes brimming with panic. And both her hands trembling, holding the heavy script. And her voice so breathy the director almost can’t hear her speaking to him, like a schoolgirl nerved up, to declare she’s read the script, the entire script, it’s a strange disturbing story, like a novel by Dostoyevsky where you feel sympathy for criminals and don’t want them to be punished. The girl says “Dost-ie-ev-sky,” with an equal emphasis on each syllable. The director says, laughing, “Oh, you’ve read ‘Dost-ie-ev-sky,’ have you, honey?” and the girl blushes, knowing she’s being mocked. And Shinn stands there, glowering, red-faced, spittle gleaming on his thick lips.
I didn’t tag her as a hick. She looked pretty good. A sheltered girl out of Pasadena, upper middle class, lousy education, but somebody told her she could act. Catholic schoolgirl, almost. What a laugh! Shinn was in love with her, poor bastard. I don’t know why I thought this was funny, I just did. You had the impression she towered over him but in fact he wasn’t much shorter. Later I’d learn she was having an affair with Charlie Chaplin, Jr.! But right then, that day, it looked like she and Shinn were a couple. Typical Hollywood. Beauty and the beast, which is always funny unless you’re the beast.
So the director instructs the blond “Marilyn Monroe” to begin her audition. There are six or eight people in the rehearsal room, all men. Folding chairs, blinds drawn against the bright sunshine. No carpet on the floor and the floor’s strewn with butts and litter and the girl astonishes everyone by calmly lying down on the floor in her shimmering white rayon dress (neatly pressed with a narrow skirt, a cloth belt, and a boat-neck collar dipping to show just a portion of her creamy upper chest) before the director can figure out what she’s doing or anyone can stop her. On the floor, on her back, arms outstretched, the girl earnestly explains to the director that the character’s first scene begins with her asleep on a sofa so she has to lie down on the floor, that’s how she’s been rehearsing. The first time you see Angela she’s asleep. That’s crucial. You see her through the eyes of the older man, who’s her “uncle,” a married man, a lawyer. You don’t see Angela except through his eyes, and later in the script you see Angela through the eyes of police officers. Only through men’s eyes.
The director stares astonished at this platinum blonde lying on the floor at his feet. Explaining the character to me! to me, the director! She’d become as unself-conscious as a young willful child. An aggressive child. He forgets to light the Cuban cigar he’s unwrapped and stuck between his teeth. There’s absolute silence in the rehearsal room as “Marilyn Monroe” begins the scene by shutting her eyes, lying motionless in a mimicry of sleep, her breathing deep and slow and rhythmic (and her rib cage and breasts rising, falling, rising, falling), her smooth arms and her legs in nylons outstretched in the abandonment of sleep deep as hypnosis. What are the thoughts men think, gazing down upon the body of a beautiful sleeping girl? Eyes shut, lips just slightly parted. The opening of the scene lasts no more than a few seconds but it seems much longer. And the director is thinking, This girl is the first actress of the twenty or more he’s auditioned for the role (including the black-haired actress he’s probably going to cast) who has caught on to the significance of the scene’s opening, the first who seems to have given the role any intelligent thought and who has actually read the entire script (or so she claims) and formed some sort of judgment on it. The girl opens her eyes, sits up slowly and blinking, wide-eyed, and says in a whisper, “Oh, I—must have been asleep.” Is she acting, or has she actually been asleep? Everyone’s uncomfortable. There is something strange here. The girl with seeming naïveté (or cunning) addresses the director and not the assistant who’s reading Louis Calhern’s lines, and in this way she makes the director, still with the unlit Cuban cigar clamped between his teeth, her “uncle” lover.
It was frank and intimate as her fingers on my balls. I’d come away thinking that had actually happened. It wasn’t acting. She couldn’t act. This was the real thing. Or was it?
Eleven years later the director would be working with “Marilyn Monroe” on the last film of her career, and he’d remember this audition and this moment. It was all there, from the beginning. Her genius, you could call it. Her madness.
By the end of the scene the director has regained some of his composure and managed to light his cigar. In fact, he isn’t thinking that Shinn’s young client is a genius. He’s watching her with the masklike expression he’s perfected as a person at whom others are always glancing, hoping to read his mind. But he doesn’t know what he thinks right now. He won’t consult his assistants; he isn’t a man to take his cue from inferiors. So he
tells the girl, “Thank you, Miss Monroe. Very good.”
Is the audition over? The director sucks on his cigar, leafing through the script on his lap. It’s a tense moment. Is it crueler to ask her to read another scene, or should he break off the audition now and explain to Shinn (who’s been watching from the sidelines, tragic gargoyle face and eyes limpid with love) that “Marilyn Monroe” is certainly an unusual, arresting talent, very beautiful of course, but not quite right for the role, which calls for a black-haired exotic girl, not a classy blonde? Should he? Can he?—disappoint Shinn who’s done him a good deed and made it possible for Sterling Hayden to escape the blacklist? Exactly what connection does Shinn have with HUAC and the strategies by which individuals can be “cleared” of subversion without testifying in Washington and risking their careers? You wouldn’t want to cross I. E. Shinn, the director knows. He’s thinking this, and brooding, used to respectful silence, when suddenly the girl says in that baby-breathy voice, “Oh, I can do better than this, let me try again. Please.”
He’s so surprised at her audacity, the cigar almost falls from his mouth.
Did I let her try again? Sure. She was fascinating to watch. Like a mental patient, maybe. Not acting. No technique. She’d put herself to sleep and out would come this other personality that was her yet also not-her.
People like that, you can see why they’re drawn to acting. Because the actor, in her role, always knows who she is. All losses are restored.
So, after the audition, as the story goes, the director informs I. E. Shinn he’ll be telephoning soon. He shakes the agent’s hand, which has a fierce grip but is chilled as if the blood has drained out of his fingers. He’d avoid shaking the girl’s hand, not wanting contact with her, but she extends her hand to be shaken and he finds it soft, moist, warm, and a stronger grip than you’d expect. A steely soul. She’ll kill to get what she wants. But what does she want? He thanks her again for the audition and assures her she’ll be hearing from them soon.
What a relief when Shinn and “Marilyn” are gone! The director puffs vigorously on his cigar. He hasn’t had a drink since his four-martini lunch and he’s thirsty and feeling strangely resentful because he doesn’t know what he feels. His assistants wait for him to speak. Or to make a sound, a joke. A gesture. He’s been known to spit on the floor in playful disgust. He’s been known to explode in a catalog of comic obscenity. He’s an actor himself, he likes attention. But not annoying attention.
The assistant director clears his throat, edging near. What does the director think? The audition was pretty bad, wasn’t it? Sexy blonde. Nice-looking girl. Like Lana Turner but too intense. Out of control, maybe. Not right for Angela. Or is she? No technique, can’t act. Or perhaps Angela who’s so confused doesn’t know how to “act”?
Still the director hasn’t spoken. Standing by a window, shoving the venetian blind aside. Sucking on his cigar. The assistant director comes to stand beside the director, though not exactly next to him. The director must’ve decided against Shinn’s girl. Trying to think how not to disappoint Shinn too badly. Trying to think how maybe he could assure the agent that, next film, he’d find a role for beautiful “Marilyn.” But, this film, it isn’t going to work—is it? The director nudges his assistant as, a floor below, Shinn and the blonde leave the building and walk away to the curb. The director says, exhaling smoke in pain, “Sweet Jesus. Look at the ass on that little girl, will you?”
In this way, Norma Jeane’s future was decided.
THE BIRTH
She would be born in the New Year of 1950.
In a season of clandestine radioactive explosions. Fierce hot winds rushing across the Nevada salt flats. The deserts of western Utah. Birds stricken in flight plummeting to earth like cartoon birds. Dying antelope, dying cougars, coyotes. Terror reflected in the eyes of jackrabbits. On Utah ranches bordering the government-restricted proving grounds of the Great Salt Lake Desert, dying cattle, horses, sheep. It was a time of “defensive nuclear testing.” It was a time of ever-vigilant drama. Though the war had been over since August 1945, and it was now 1950 and a new decade.
It was a time, too, of flying saucers: “unidentified flying objects” sighted predominantly in the western American sky. Though these flat, swiftly moving objects would be seen in the Northeast as well. Myriad blinking lights, near-instantaneous appearances and disappearances. At any hour, day or night, though more likely night, you might glance up and see one. You might be blinded by flashing lights, fierce hot suction winds that took your breath away. An air of danger, yet of profound significance. As if the very sky was opening up and what was behind, hidden until now, would be revealed.
On the far side of the world, remote as the moon, the mysterious Soviets detonated their nuclear devices. They were Communist demons, bent upon the destruction of Christians. No truces were possible with them, as with any demons. It was only a matter of time—months? weeks? days?—until they attacked.
These are the days of vengeance Norma Jeane’s lover intoned in his velvety tenor voice. Yet: vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
He insisted that Norma Jeane meditate with him upon the photographs. They two were soulmates, brother and sister as well as lovers. They were twins, born in the same year, 1926, and under the same sign, Gemini. From Otto Öse he’d acquired these grainy reproductions of secret Air Force photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs were dropped on August 6 and August 9 of 1945. These were suppressed photos that would not be released to the media until 1952, and how Otto Öse had come into possession of them, Cass wasn’t certain. The ultimate pornography Otto Öse said of these documents.
The devastation of cities. Burnt-out shells of buildings, vehicles. A hazy rubble wasteland through which human beings yet managed to stagger upright. There were close-ups in oddly rich, lurid colors of certain of these figures and their blank stricken faces and of the frozen hands of a clock recording 8:16 of a long-ago day and of human shadow silhouettes baked into walls. Quietly Cass Chaplin said, “None of us knew it then. The birth of our new civilization. This, and the death camps.” Cass was drinking, sprawled naked on his bed, which was in fact a stranger’s bed, for in their months of love he and Norma Jeane would dwell predominantly among the possessions of strangers, and he was running his sensitive fingertips over the photographs (which were only reproductions) like a blind man reading Braille. His voice trembled with both sorrow and satisfaction. His beautiful dark-brown eyes shone with feeling. “From now on, Norma, movie fantasies won’t be powerful enough. Or the churches. God.” Norma Jeane, distracted by the ugly photographs, didn’t disagree. Rarely did she disagree aloud with her lover, who was magic to her, a twin self far deeper and more worthy than she herself might ever be. Charlie Chaplin’s son! And Chaplin’s soul gazing out of his glistening eyes as out of the eyes of the long-ago hero of City Lights. But she was thinking No. People will need places to hide now. More than ever.
ANGELA 1950
Who’s the blonde? who’s the blonde? the blonde?
The voices were men’s voices. Most of the audience at the screening were men.
That blonde, Calhern’s “niece”—who’s she?
That good-looking blonde, the one in white—what’s the name?
The sexy blonde—who the hell is she?
Not murmuring jeering voices in a mock fantasy but true voices. For the name “Marilyn Monroe” hadn’t been listed among the major cast credits on M-G-M promotional material passed out at the screening. Her two brief scenes in the lengthy movie hadn’t seemed important enough to warrant it. Nor did Norma Jeane expect it. She was grateful to be listed at all (as “Marilyn Monroe”) among the credits at the end of the film.
It was not the real name of any real person. But it was the role I would play, and I hoped I would play it with pride.
But after the first public screening of The Asphalt Jungle, the question heard repeatedly was Who’s the blonde?
I. E. Shinn was there to inform th
em: “Who’s the blonde? My client ‘Marilyn Monroe.’”
Norma Jeane was shaking with fear. Hiding in the powder room. In a locked toilet stall, where after several anxious minutes she’d managed to pee hardly a half cup of hot scalding liquid. And her legs in sheer nylons, and her white satin garter belt twisting and cutting into her belly. And her elegant white silk-and-chiffon cocktail dress with the spaghetti straps and low-cut bodice and body-clinging skirt bunched now clumsily about her hips, trailing onto the floor. An old childhood fear of staining her clothing, pee stains, bloodstains, sweat stains, gripped her. She was perspiring and she was shivering. In the screening room she’d had to pry her icy fingers loose from I. E. Shinn’s strong steely fingers (the little agent was holding her tight, knowing she was nervous as a high-strung filly about to bolt) and flee after her second scene in which as “Angela” she’d cried, hidden her pretty face, betrayed her lover “Uncle Leon,” and set in motion an action that would result in the older man’s killing himself in a subsequent scene.
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