Marilyn Monroe (37 page)

As she emerged from the cinema, Marilyn declared that the evening had been one of the nicest things that had ever happened to her, adding that she wasn’t at all nervous and found the Queen to be warm-hearted and sweet. She even joked with reporters about her curtsy, giving them an impromptu replay in order to prove she could do it correctly.

Unfortunately, by the time the next day arrived, Marilyn had forgotten all about the success of the night before, and instead was highly agitated and angry on set. Complaining to Gordon Bond, she revealed the basis for her anger was another blonde star – Brigitte Bardot – who had been at the Royal Command Performance too. Upset that the French starlet had upstaged her, Marilyn was heard to call her ‘that silly little girl’ and ask, ‘Who does she think she is?’ The star’s anger was completely unfounded, however, and a look at the morning’s newspapers would have shown her that although Brigitte was mentioned in the stories, the bulk of articles were dedicated to Marilyn.

By this point the production of
The Prince and the Showgirl
was almost at an end. Marilyn was given four official days off in early November, and her last days on set were the 15–16 November. Eager to end filming as soon as possible, she managed to get to the set for her 6.45 a.m. call-time on both days, although she did keep everyone waiting for two hours and twenty minutes on the 15th.

Still, despite the hold-ups and lateness, the film finally wrapped for Marilyn on 16 November 1956, eleven days after it was scheduled to end. Before leaving the set, she found herself apologizing to the cast and crew for her behaviour, claiming poor health as the reason for the delays and begging them to forgive her. This proved to be a worthwhile thing to do, and although some members of cast and crew would never hold Marilyn in high regard, others proved very forgiving and would always speak of her in a respectful and honourable way.

Although Marilyn’s part in the film may have been complete, she did not leave England immediately. Miller had recently spent several days away from his wife, meeting Simone Signoret and Yves Montand in Paris, but now that he was back the couple spent a quiet few days together at Parkside House.

On 18 November, during a last public appearance in England, the Millers attended an intellectual discussion at the Royal Court Theatre. The event was supposed to be dedicated to the state of British drama, but was quickly transformed into a war of
words between authors Colin Wilson and Wolf Mankowitz. The two writers had opposing views on most subjects, leaving the other members of the discussion panel, Arthur Miller, Kenneth Tynan and Benn Levy, lost for words. Sitting on the fourth row and dressed demurely in a black suit, Mrs Miller looked tired but calm as the discussion took place on stage. Wolf Mankowitz remembered there being a great deal of excitement when Marilyn entered the building, as once again there were rumours abounding that the star was pregnant. He recalled that there was a lot of fuss in order to find her a seat, and many people were ‘running around as if she were about to have a baby on the spot’.

Having been brought in to discuss great British drama, Mankowitz was disappointed to discover that Marilyn’s presence destroyed the point of the occasion, as the audience was far more interested in trying to see her, and Arthur Miller seemed so preoccupied that he could hardly concentrate on the discussion at all. Still, Mankowitz managed to say a few words to Marilyn at the end of the discussion, although he remembered she wasn’t too communicative – something he put down to the rumoured pregnancy.

Colin Wilson also remembered meeting Marilyn in the backstage of the theatre, after the discussion had ended. By this time the crowds had become huge outside, so Wilson found himself helping the Millers make their escape by the back door, and recalled Marilyn grabbing his hand during the ensuing escape.

A few days before Marilyn was due to leave England, she bid farewell to her pianist Alan, and presented him with a pen and pencil set and a card. But while Alan would forever hold his brief friendship with Marilyn in his heart, it wasn’t all a positive experience for him. ‘Working for Marilyn caused so much spite for my home life, with people asking “why him?” so my family clammed up about it. I went to see
The Prince and the Showgirl
but nothing else – we just didn’t talk about it; it was a non-subject.’

On 20 November 1956, the events of the previous four months finally came to an end for Marilyn, too. She said goodbye
to her staff, bid farewell to the baby fish she’d befriended in the Parkside fish tank and climbed into her car for the last time.

She surprised everyone by arriving at the airport on time, and a scheduled press conference was held at 6.15 p.m., but contrary to the huge excitement that erupted when Marilyn arrived, her departure was treated in very unflattering terms. There were comments about her untidy hair; snide observations about the lack of autograph hunters at the airport; and absurd remarks about her intellect, with one newspaper commenting that she mentioned Charles Dickens ‘as if she read books every day’.

Photographer Horace Ward, who snapped two pictures of Marilyn that day, recalls: ‘I remember a crowded press conference in the old tin-hut terminal with dreadful drab green curtains they had up as a backcloth, which everyone moaned about. There were hardly any fans around; it was mostly airport staff and a few police.’

Before Marilyn climbed the steps, she told reporters how reluctant she was to leave the country, that she had enjoyed meeting the Queen, and took pleasure in attending the opening of Arthur’s play. She even tried to dampen the rumours of a rift between herself and Olivier, by stating that there had been difficulties on the set, but no more than usual.

Olivier returned the compliment by declaring that Marilyn was a wonderful girl; he was delighted with the film, and he’d do it all over again if he had to. Whether or not this was true is another matter, since when he later travelled to New York to show the film to Jack Warner, he made it very clear that the event was to be completely private, and Marilyn herself did not receive an invitation.

Perhaps it is best left to Marilyn to sum up her experiences of the England trip. When asked about it some years later, she exclaimed, ‘It seemed to be raining the whole time. Or maybe it was me.’

1957 was to be a year of new beginnings for Marilyn and Arthur. After a brief honeymoon in Jamaica, they decided to modernize a home in Roxbury, just down the road from Miller’s old house, and also leased an apartment at 444 East 57th Street, New York, where they settled down to a ‘normal’ life. In fact so ‘normal’ was their time in New York, that Marilyn later commented to columnist Elsa Maxwell that, ‘No one ever notices us, no one pays any attention to us any more. Arthur and I can walk in the streets and no one bothers us.’

The new apartment was located just yards from her old home at Sutton Place, and Marilyn began redecorating: painting almost every room white; taking out the wall between the living and dining rooms; hanging a portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the wall; and making sure her childhood piano had pride of place.

She threw herself into the role of housewife: ‘I get up every morning and fix his breakfast. It’s a wonderful thing to know you’re looking after somebody. There’s this wonderful cookbook I’m reading called ‘The Joy of Cooking’. I read it every day. Oh, I’m learning!’

The result of all this was that her husband gained eighteen pounds during the first six months of their marriage, leading his doctor to request he cut down on his intake of fatty foods. When asked why he had gained so much, Miller declared, ‘Her cooking and general contentment.’

‘I’m mad about this man,’ Marilyn told reporters in 1957. ‘I never felt before that I had roots; that I had a home life. Fine
discovery to make at my age! Arthur has caused me to change. Playwrights are interested in everything about life, and all people. Since I’ve been married to Art, life’s a lot bigger for me.’

As well as playing housewife, Marilyn also spent time writing poetry, riding her bicycle along the East River, playing tennis and pottering around the household department at Bloomingdale’s. ‘I have no sales resistance when it comes to anything for the house – especially when there’s a sale,’ she later said. ‘I’ll go absolutely berserk buying furniture, garden implements, seed for birds and clothes for Arthur.’ She also enjoyed seeking out his favourite foods, and was excited one day in Bloomingdale’s when she overheard two old ladies discussing the merits of a sausage shop they had once frequented on Third Avenue. Rushing from the store, she jumped in a taxi and headed to the shop, only to find that it had been demolished and replaced with a parking lot. Disappointed she returned home empty-handed.

But there were also more serious issues to attend to, such as continuing her acting classes with the Strasbergs; getting to know her secretary, May Reis; and taking therapy sessions with a new psychiatrist. Marianne Kris had been born in Vienna fifty-seven years earlier, and had lost her husband on 27 February 1957, just weeks before Marilyn’s first therapy session. Anna Freud had recommended her to Marilyn, but the relationship would be a volatile one, with devastating consequences just a few years later.

Despite continuing to pose for Milton Greene’s still-camera, the gaps began to widen in their relationship and Marilyn decided she wanted him out of Marilyn Monroe Productions. The last straw came when she decided she disliked the idea of Greene being credited as executive producer of
The Prince and the Showgirl.
She held an emergency meeting with the directors of the company, then on 11 April she released a statement which said she was never informed that Milton had elected himself to the position of executive producer of
The Prince and the Showgirl.
She went on to say that the company was formed to make better pictures and improve her work, but instead she
had had to defend her aims and interests against the demands of Greene himself.

Quite unnecessarily, Greene had lost his job, but he refused to believe that Marilyn could have had anything to do with his departure, blaming Miller instead for her change of attitude. When they sat down to discuss the matter, Greene surprised everyone by only asking for the return of his original investment of $100,000, and when the contract was finally dissolved, he was devastated.

Speaking about a failed business relationship a little later, Marilyn said: ‘I went along with it as far as I could, but you get to a point where – well enough is enough! At that moment I couldn’t believe it was happening, but for the first time in my life I really yelled my head off!’ She had not been specific but everyone knew to what she was referring.

While all this was going on, rumours abounded that Marilyn was expecting Miller’s child, with both newspapers and magazines providing ‘exclusive’ details. On 22 March, after it had been rumoured that Marilyn turned down a part in the MGM film,
The Brothers Karamazov,
because she was pregnant, she released a statement: ‘I have nothing to say at this time. I am sure that everyone will agree that some things are private matters.’

Two months later, President of Twentieth Century Fox, Spyros Skouras, flew to New York to try and convince Miller to name communist sympathizers during his forthcoming court appearance. He was unsuccessful, and just days later the Millers travelled to Washington, DC, in order to fight the contempt of Congress charge, staying at the home of Arthur’s friend and lawyer, Joe Rauh, and his wife Olie. While Miller and Joe went to court, Marilyn’s days were simple and quiet: she would read; ride a bicycle; and occasionally iron Arthur’s shirts; but mainly she would potter around and wait for Arthur to come home.

By the time the trial was over, Miller had been found guilty on two counts of contempt and immediately launched an appeal. Federal Judge Charles F. McLaughlin withheld sentencing, but reporters were quick to declare that he could face up to a year in
prison and a $1,000 fine for each count. Marilyn faced reporters wearing gloves to hide her unmanicured nails, and told them she was, ‘pretty confident that in the end my husband will win this case.’ She refused to comment on the persistent rumour that she was pregnant, and instead left Washington with Miller, bound for their 57th Street, New York apartment.

In early June, Marilyn welcomed several reporters into her home, including Herbert Kamm and Hal Boyle, who both interviewed her on the subject of
The Prince and the Showgirl
and her life in New York. Marilyn instructed them that there were three subjects off-limits: religion, politics and pregnancy, but opened up about other aspects of her life. ‘The thing I’m scared of most is myself,’ she said, ‘But I do feel I’ve grown both as an actress and a person, and I hope I’ll keep growing.’

On 13 June Marilyn and Arthur attended the premiere of
The Prince and the Showgirl
at Radio City Music Hall, then shortly after left for a summer vacation to the town of Amagansett on Long Island. ‘We have a little house, right on the ocean,’ Marilyn described. ‘It’s just big enough for us and the children.’

The arrival of Marilyn, Arthur Miller and their basset hound, Hugo, sent the town’s people into a frenzy: three teenagers who met the Millers at the local gas station asked for autographs, although twelve-year-old Dicky Gosman made the couple laugh when he declared that he preferred Jayne Mansfield; Bob O’Brien, the delivery boy from Toppings grocery store, had his photograph taken with her; while Roger Mattei, owner of the Corsican restaurant, phoned numerous New York eateries to enquire after Marilyn’s favourite food.

Most townspeople were pleased to admire from a distance, but two enterprising youngsters, Stephanie Baloghy, and her cousin Maureen McArdle, had bigger plans, which they took pleasure in reminiscing about together, almost fifty years later.

Stephanie: ‘We set off on an adventure to see Miss Monroe. We waited outside the house for some signs of life and, finally, Marilyn appeared. My recollection of her at that moment was of a beam of sunshine. She was so gorgeous, that she looked
illuminated. She looked so fresh and delicate. Her whole being just said “star”.’