Marilyn Monroe (42 page)

‘It hit us like a bomb,’ Augusta Miller later told
Motion Picture
magazine. ‘We never interfered. They had their own lives to live. And we’ve always been very fond of Marilyn. She was just as fond of us too.’ Augusta was right. They had been a huge presence in Marilyn’s life and she determined to keep in touch not only with them but with her stepchildren too: ‘I take a lot of pride in [Joe Jr, Jane and Bobby] because they’re from broken homes. I can’t explain it, but I think I understand about them. I think I love them more than I love anyone; their lives that are forming are very precious to me and I know that I had a part in forming them.’

Back in New York on the day of Gable’s death, Marilyn was woken up at 4 a.m. in order to be told the news by a reporter. She was heartbroken and by the time she rang her friend Ralph Roberts, she was absolutely hysterical. Things were made no better when rumours began to circulate that suggested Marilyn was responsible for Gable’s death. She had become extremely close to both Gable and his wife Kay during the making of
The Misfits,
and these stories hit her hard, even though they did not have a kernel of truth in them. She was further disturbed to walk out of her apartment one day, only to be confronted by people shouting ‘Murderer’ at her on the street.

This event convinced her that she was to blame for Gable’s death and she spiralled into a deep depression, spending many days alone in her bedroom, refusing to see any of her old friends, and playing sad songs on her phonograph. In his book,
Marilyn: An Untold Story,
Norman Rosten described how, when his wife Hedda eventually got through to Marilyn, ‘her voice was blurred, distant, unhappy’. It was a desperate situation, and no one knew just how to help her. ‘I was completely run down,’ she later admitted, ‘and was more unhappy than I remember being at any time in my life.’

During this period of turmoil, May Reis took charge of the practical aspects of the separation, and packed up Miller’s books and papers, sending them on to Roxbury and a nearby hotel. Miller was given custody of the Roxbury house and also Hugo, the basset hound Marilyn had adored so much, while she remained in the 57th Street apartment they had leased at the beginning of their marriage. Meanwhile, on 23 November Miller officially resigned as a director of Marilyn Monroe Productions, and on 28 November, an emergency meeting was held at the offices of Weissberger and Frosch to discuss the resignation not only of Miller, but of Secretary John C. Taylor, and Advisory Committee members John F. Wharton and Robert H. Montgomery.

With the realization that both her company and marriage were in tatters, Marilyn found little to be happy about during
the run-up to Christmas, but New York publicist John Springer tried to cheer her by sending various requests for interviews, along with a tape of poet Robert Frost reading his own poetry. She even received a card from her mother, Gladys, addressed to Norma Jeane Miller though quite bizarrely signed, ‘Loving good wishes, Gladys Pearl Eley’.

Christmas day was spent quietly with Patricia Newcomb, the publicist who had worked briefly on
Bus Stop
and who had returned to work at the end of 1960. Despite any problems they had had in the past, Marilyn was happy to welcome Newcomb into her group, and gave her a mink coat as a Christmas present. That night, Marilyn was surprised to receive a forest of poinsettias from Joe DiMaggio, sent, he said, because he knew she would call to thank him, and ‘besides, who in the hell else do you have in the world?’ Despite the fact that the two hadn’t seen each other in a long time, Marilyn agreed to see him on Christmas evening, later saying, ‘I was glad he was coming though I must say I was bleary and depressed but somehow still glad he was coming over.’

On New Year’s Eve, Patricia Newcomb returned to Los Angeles wearing the mink coat Marilyn had presented to her, and during the flight wrote a heartfelt letter, urging her friend to ring any time, day or night; she sympathized with what she was going through and asserted what she hoped would be a lifetime friendship. It was a genuine gesture and one that Marilyn would appreciate during the bleak months ahead.

January 1961 started in a very positive fashion, with Marilyn announcing that she was to bring W. Somerset Maugham’s
Rain
to television for NBC. ‘I’m going to play Sadie Thompson,’ she told reporter Margaret Parton; ‘I’m really excited about doing the part because [the character] was a girl who knew how to be gay, even when she was sad. And that’s important – you know?’

Even Somerset Maugham was delighted with her plans and made no secret of letting her know: ‘I am so glad to hear that you are going to play Sadie . . . I am sure you will be splendid,’ he wrote in January 1961.

Negotiations began in earnest and newspapers were buzzing with the news that Marilyn could be turning her hand to television. On 6 January, executive producer Ann Marlowe told newspapers: ‘I started to work on the idea of ‘Rain’ and Marilyn Monroe a year ago. Although her agents never had been able to get her to do television, I talked to her about it and she said she was interested but would have to wait until she finished a picture and came back to New York. When she returned from the coast, we started working on it and now the lawyers are drawing up contracts.’

Marilyn’s press rep got in on the act with a statement declaring, ‘It is not firm yet but the deal is pretty sure,’ while newspapers reported that Marilyn herself was determined to include Lee Strasberg in the production and was considering giving her fee to the Actors Studio.

But it wasn’t all work. During January 1961, Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio began seeing each other on a regular basis,
and although they wished to keep their renewed friendship secret, it took only days for the press to start reporting reconciliation. The rumours became so persistent that on 11 January John Springer confirmed that they had been seeing each other again, but played down any romance. Marilyn herself later denied any romance to columnist Louella Parsons: ‘Believe me, no matter what the gossip columns say, there is no spark rekindled between Joe and me.’ For once Joe was happy to be just friends, and even admitted that he didn’t blame Marilyn for divorcing him in 1954: ‘I’d have divorced me too,’ he said.

Divorce was on Marilyn’s mind too, and on 20 January, she travelled with Pat Newcomb to Juarez, Mexico, in order to obtain a divorce from Miller. Choosing the day of John F. Kennedy’s presidential inauguration so as to avoid publicity, Marilyn cited ‘incompatibility of character’ at a special night session with Judge Miguel Gomez and her attorney Arturo Sosa Aguilar, before quietly returning to New York. ‘The plane was delayed and I got upset,’ she told reporters; ‘I don’t feel like being bothered with publicity right now, but I would love to have a plate of tacos and enchiladas.’

Back in New York, the weather was getting Marilyn down considerably. ‘New York was terrible last winter with so much rain and snow. It was depressing,’ she told Hedda Hopper in July 1961. But regardless of her depression, she continued her studies at the Actors Studio and one day was surprised to see W.J. Weatherby, a reporter she had met on the set of
The Misfits.
Being a fan of Miller, he wasn’t particularly impressed by Marilyn at first, but after seeing her again at the studio, he asked her to have a drink with him at a little bar on the corner of 8th Avenue. She agreed and, over the next few weeks, they met around four times to discuss all manner of subjects, including books, civil rights, actors and personal issues. They even touched upon politics when Marilyn declared that John F. Kennedy spoke a lot of sense, and that she admired his family’s zest for life.

But despite the interesting conversation, Weatherby noticed sadness in the actress, and was disturbed on one occasion to see that her hair needed washing and she had a faint body odour. There were times, too, when she would not respond when he spoke to her, something she attributed to the pills that made her feel ‘dopey sometimes’. She was certainly in a retrospective mood, confessing that she had put Miller through a lot, and even discussing her feelings when Gable had died, admitting that she had not attended the funeral because she was frightened of breaking down.

Marilyn also told Weatherby that although she had felt guilty when Gable died, she had now accepted he had a bad heart and it wasn’t her fault. However, she then read in a newspaper that Kay Gable had implied Clark’s death was her fault. There was not a grain of truth in the story, but it was enough to unlock the deep-rooted blame she felt, and sent her once more into a deep depression.

In just two months, Marilyn had reportedly visited psychiatrist Marianne Kris a staggering forty-seven times. None of the sessions was surely as disturbing as one held towards the beginning of February, when she confessed that after hearing Kay Gable’s quote, she opened her living room window as far as she could, and seriously thought about throwing herself out. The only thing that stopped her was the realization that a lady whom she knew was at that moment walking past the building.

Kris was obviously alarmed to hear this latest development, and that, coupled with her continuing drug problem, was enough to persuade the doctor that Marilyn needed complete hospital rest. On 6 February the actress telephoned Joe DiMaggio, then on the 7th, just as her lawyers were negotiating for her to have complete control over the
Rain
production, she checked into the Payne Whitney hospital as Mrs Faye Miller for what was described as, ‘study and treatment of an illness of undisclosed origin’. Unfortunately, and unknown to Marilyn, Payne Whitney was an establishment for disturbed patients, and this became quite apparent within hours of her admittance there.

Quite alarmingly, on her arrival at the hospital, Marilyn claimed a psychiatrist conducted a physical examination which included a breast inspection. This was something to which Marilyn quite rightly took great exception. Once that was completed, she was taken to her room: a depressing cell-like space complete with cement blocks, bars on the windows and the markings of former patients. Everything was under lock and key, including the bathroom, closets and electric lights, while the main door into the room came complete with a window through which she could be ‘observed’. There was no way of buzzing for assistance.

In a letter dated 1–2 March 1961, Marilyn told Dr Greenson that she had been encouraged to ‘mingle’ with other patients, and take up such occupational therapies as sewing, knitting and playing checkers. As a person continually reminded of the mental illness that plagued her family, Marilyn was appalled to be placed in such an establishment, and made no hesitation in saying so. ‘Why aren’t you happy in here?’ they asked, to which she replied, ‘I’d have to be nuts if I liked it in here.’

Deciding to telephone the Strasbergs for help, she stood in line with other patients waiting to use the phone, only to find herself forbidden to make any calls on the orders of a security man. Dismayed, she returned to her room and began thinking of the part she played in
Don’t Bother to Knock,
in which she had to threaten to hurt herself with a razor blade. This inspired her to do to her own version of this story, and before she knew it, Marilyn was banging on the door with a chair: ‘It took a lot of banging to get even a small piece of glass,’ she later wrote to Dr Greenson, but once she had achieved it, she sat with glass in hand, waiting for the doctors to appear.

Threatening to harm herself, the arrival of the doctors did nothing to calm Marilyn’s nerves, and quite disturbingly, the four medical staff picked her up by all fours and carried her, face down and sobbing, to the seventh floor – the ward for extremely disturbed patients.

Told she was a ‘very, very sick girl’, Marilyn was forced to stay at the hospital for four nights, during which time she
was able to write a letter to Lee Strasberg, begging for help. Unfortunately, the Strasberg family had no power to secure her release, but thankfully for Marilyn, Joe DiMaggio did. He arrived at the hospital and threatened to take it apart ‘brick by brick’ if they did not release her into his care. Later Marilyn took great pride in telling friends of DiMaggio’s rescue, and consulted her lawyer Aaron Frosch in order to draw up a document that ensured DiMaggio, Frosch and Reis would all have to be notified before she could ever be locked up again. Before she left the hospital she turned to the doctors who had ‘cared’ for her: ‘You should all have your heads examined,’ she told them, before leaving in the care of DiMaggio.

She was driven back to her apartment to confront Dr Kris, ‘like a hurricane unleashed’, according to friend, Ralph Roberts. Kris was shocked, frightened and deeply apologetic, but the damage was done. Marilyn never forgave her psychiatrist and in future turned to Californian therapist Dr Greenson for support.

Still emotionally disturbed and exhausted, Marilyn was persuaded to enter Columbia-Presbyterian hospital on 11 February, where she was admitted for ‘a rest and checkup’, according to a hospital spokesman. Her publicist, John Springer, elaborated by telling reporters, ‘She is here for a complete physical check-up. She’s had a hell of a year. She had been exhausted, really beat down.’ Trying to quash rumours of her treatment at Payne Whitney, he added, ‘More than anything else, this was just meant for her to go in and have a chance to rest and recuperate a little. It has been blown up all out of proportion.’

Meanwhile, NBC executives were becoming increasingly alarmed with the situation, declaring to her representatives that they wanted ‘concrete evidence’ that she could physically perform in
Rain.
This request left her lawyer in the unenviable and impossible task of trying to compile a detailed report of her condition, including whether or not she would be capable of showing up on set at all. On 15 February, a letter was sent from NBC to Marilyn’s reps at MCA, declaring that ‘in view of Miss
Monroe’s recent illness, it is perfectly clear that we do not have an agreement with respect to [her] services’.

But while negotiations were going on behind the scenes, Marilyn was still in hospital, where Joe DiMaggio was a frequent visitor: ‘She went to the hospital for what amounted to exhaustion and nothing more,’ he told reporters. ‘The girl has been working very hard with pictures she has done, and Clark Gable’s death did not help matters.’