Marilyn Monroe (20 page)

Marilyn strutted out onstage to wild cheers. She caressed the microphone, holding it close to her moist red lips. She talked to the troops in a baby voice. Singing “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend,” “Do It Again,” and other songs, Marilyn seemed oblivious to the piercing cold. It might have been the hottest day of the year.

That night, Marilyn was the guest of honor at a dinner attended by some fifty officers. The Signal Corps had hooked up a telephone connection to Joe, with the conversation to be broadcast on a public address system. As Marilyn spoke to her husband, she was still keyed up after the performance. “Do you still love me, Joe?” Marilyn purred for all to hear. “Do you miss me?” Though he said that he did, DiMaggio, who hated being made to look ridiculous, sounded tense, measured, subdued. He remained that way when Marilyn returned to Japan, exuberant about her experiences in Korea.

“Joe, you never heard such cheering,” she told him.

“Yes, I have,” DiMaggio answered ruefully.

Marilyn was running a fever, a prelude to the fully fledged pneumonia that would keep her in bed at the Imperial Hotel until it was time to go home.

After a few days of Marie’s pampering in San Francisco, Joe went to New York on business. Marilyn, her voice still a bit raspy, flew to Los Angeles for the
Photoplay
Awards ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel. This year, she was to be honored as Hollywood’s most popular actress.

“I can’t even say I’m glad to be home, because home is with my
husband and he isn’t here,” Marilyn told reporters at the airport on March 5, 1954. As she talked she waved her left hand, calling attention to a glittering diamond bracelet. “Joe’s in New York and he’ll be here in a few days. He’s the head of our family and I’ll live wherever he decides, but he doesn’t know yet what city it will be.”

As always, Marilyn came to the ceremony late. There was considerable awkwardness when she entered wearing a white satin dress with a wrapped top, her hair tinted a Harlow-esque platinum. This year, however, it wasn’t Marilyn’s costume that caused a stir, but her position on the dais four seats from Darryl Zanuck. As the date required by her tax situation had finally passed in her absence, Feldman had begun negotiating her contract in earnest. The talks were still in progress. Marilyn and Zanuck did their best to ignore each other, though he appeared to listen as she answered a reporter’s question.

“I am still under suspension,” said Marilyn, blowing away a strand of platinum hair that had fallen over her face. “I have no idea when the suspension may be lifted, and consequently can give no definite answer about my return to pictures.”

Feldman waited until Joe arrived in Los Angeles to convey to Marilyn the details of his discussions with Twentieth. They met in his paneled office on March 15. Sitting under a Renoir painting, the agent reviewed all he had accomplished so far. At such moments Feldman tended to be self-effacing.

He had convinced Zanuck to abandon
The Girl in Pink Tights.
He had convinced him to pay Marilyn a lot more money. He had convinced him that she must be required to do no more than two films a year. And he had convinced him to buy
Horns of the Devil
for $225,000, whether or not Marilyn actually appeared in the film. On all these issues, the production chief had moved swiftly because, thanks to Joe, Twentieth had no backlog of unreleased Marilyn Monroe films beyond
River of No Return.

On one issue, however, Feldman had been unable to budge Zanuck. He emphasized that from the start, he had repeatedly insisted on Marilyn’s right to approve scripts, directors, and cameramen. But Lew Schreiber had been quick to point out that Twentieth would never consider such a request. Zanuck alone decided what scripts were made on the Fox lot and who made them. This was the hot-button issue for
Zanuck. Certainly, all his statements to the press had signaled that he had no intention of giving Marilyn a voice in such decisions.

Though he certainly never told her so, Feldman didn’t believe Marilyn was equipped to have that kind of responsibility anyway. Her own agent was certain that if only Zanuck would make a small, symbolic concession in this area, she would forget all about creative control and focus on the one really important issue: money. But Feldman failed to understand that this was not just a whim of Marilyn’s. It went to the very heart of what she wanted. Winning the right to these controls would confirm that Marilyn finally had the respect that, she believed, came with stardom. She needed a sign from Zanuck that her childhood dream really had come true.

Marilyn was upset, but Feldman minimized the problem. He assured her that he was still trying to persuade Zanuck to give her some form of creative control. But, he emphasized, Marilyn would have to compromise as well. By the time the conversation was finished, Feldman had persuaded her to scale back her demands drastically. In the end, she asked only for the right to approve her own choreographer and dramatic coach. It was very little, but at least it would be a sign that Zanuck acknowledged Marilyn had earned the right to a voice in the creative process. Marilyn was certain that Feldman understood how much this meant to her. Surely, after all she had done in the past year, no one would refuse such a tiny request.

Zanuck was especially eager to settle, Feldman believed, because he wanted to cast Marilyn in
There’s No Business Like Show Business
, a backstage musical that featured the songs of Irving Berlin. It was scheduled to start in April, under the direction of Walter Lang. Feldman also mentioned the tantalizing possibility of using Marilyn in an independent production of his own. He had been talking to Billy Wilder about a film of the hit Broadway comedy
The Seven Year Itch.
Wilder and Feldman would produce together, with Wilder directing and George Axelrod writing the script. Though Feldman made no promises that Twentieth would permit him to shoot
The Seven Year Itch
there, if all went well he wanted Marilyn to star.

Marilyn may have been ambivalent about Feldman personally, but she respected his talents as a producer, especially his ability to choose prestigious projects.
The Seven Year Itch
would be Feldman’s first
independent production since
A Streetcar Named Desire.
The participation of Wilder, whose work Marilyn admired, made the project irresistible. This would be Marilyn’s first opportunity since
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
to work with a director of the first rank.

Joe and Marilyn returned to Feldman’s office three days later. As he was close to a deal with Zanuck, Feldman advised Marilyn to start
There’s No Business Like Show Business
even if she didn’t have a signed contract yet. The musical promised to require a lengthy shoot, and Feldman wanted Marilyn to be finished by the time Wilder, currently at work on
Sabrina
with Audrey Hepburn, was free. Wilder and Axelrod planned to work on the script sometime during the summer. Though Marilyn disliked the idea of another musical, she agreed to the assignment strictly because she was eager to do
The Seven Year Itch.

Feldman also urged Marilyn to accept the studio’s proposal that if a contract hadn’t been finalized in time, she begin the picture at her old weekly salary of $1,250. The moment a new salary and other terms had been agreed on and the papers were signed, Twentieth would retroactively pay the difference. That amount, Joe would be happy to hear, promised to be substantial. The studio was fast approaching Feldman’s target price of $100,000 per picture.

In the days that followed, Marilyn was euphoric. All these months of listening to Joe and to Charlie finally appeared to have paid off. Excited about
The Seven Year Itch
and confident that her new deal at Twentieth was nearing completion, Marilyn swept into Famous Artists on March 31 and signed the papers officially making her their client. As soon as she signed her new studio contract, Feldman would finally begin to be paid.

As the door to Marilyn’s luxurious, ground-floor dressing room in the two-story, beige stucco Star Building at Twentieth opened, the aroma of Chanel No. 5 perfume filled the air. The scent lingered when Marilyn was absent. Sunlight peeked through the edges of closed Venetian blinds. Marilyn had inherited dressing room M, said to be the best on the lot, from Betty Grable. An outer area was decorated with crimson-upholstered Queen Anne chairs and sofas. When the fluorescent lights were
turned on, a spacious dressing table was visible inside, adorned with a small framed photograph of Joe—gray-streaked hair growing to a widow’s peak—and littered with countless tiny prescription bottles from Schwab’s. Mirrors large and small hung on all sides.

Twentieth lifted Marilyn’s suspension on April 13 and she returned to the lot the next day. She hadn’t set foot in her dressing room since December 23. Afterward, at the studio’s request, she met with reporters in Sol Siegel’s office. Asked about her contract, Marilyn declared that she and Twentieth were still “working out details” but that she anticipated signing very soon.

How was married life?

“As far as I’m concerned baseball players make good husbands,” said Marilyn. “Joe and I want a lot of little DiMaggios.”

The journalists applauded. The studio executives winced.

“Am I expecting now? Oh, no, but I wish I were. We want children as soon as possible.”

Joe and Marilyn had rented a furnished, two-story, eight-room Tudor cottage on North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills. It faced directly onto the street, affording little privacy. A curved brick path, bordered by chrysanthemums and red roses, led to the front door. Behind were a large patio and a turquoise swimming pool. There were usually two Cadillacs on the driveway. By contrast with Joe’s immaculate blue car, Marilyn’s black convertible with black leather upholstery tended to be messy, the back seat cluttered with old clothes and unpaid traffic tickets.

On April 23, Marilyn, sipping a vodka on the patio, noticed an advance review of
River of No Return
in the
Hollywood Reporter:
“If
River
proves anything at all, it is that Marilyn Monroe should stick to musicals and the type of entertainment that made her such a box-office lure. If the film fails to bring in smash returns, Twentieth Century–Fox can attribute it to Marilyn’s inability to handle a heavy acting role. Most of her genuine values are lost here…. If Twentieth persists in casting her in epics calling for emotional histrionics and dowdy costumes, revealing as they may be, it is going to affect her box-office pull.”

Marilyn screamed. Crying, she raced upstairs to find the long, rambling letter Feldman had written from Switzerland back in December. Hadn’t he told her that he’d watched a rough cut of
River of No Return
with Zanuck? Hadn’t he assured her that they both thought she was
great? If Zanuck and Feldman really knew what they were doing, how could they have been so mistaken?

For the past few weeks, Marilyn, looking forward to
The Seven Year Itch
, had been certain that she’d made the right decision in putting herself in Feldman’s hands. She’d been grateful to Joe for devising the strategy that, apparently, had allowed her to beat the studio. But Friday’s
Hollywood Reporter
changed everything. Marilyn began to worry that her career was in danger. All weekend, she was nervous, brooding, uncertain.

On Monday, things got worse. Feldman informed Marilyn that he wouldn’t be making
The Seven Year Itch
at Twentieth after all, since Skouras had been unable to get a deal through his board. He apologized, but obviously he was going to have to make
The Seven Year Itch
without her. Marilyn reminded her agent that she had agreed to appear in
There’s No Business Like Show Business
, preliminary work on which had already begun, solely because she wanted to work with Wilder on
The Seven Year Itch.
Feldman was anxious to keep Marilyn happy as the time to sign her studio contract approached, so he agreed to go back to Skouras about
The Seven Year Itch.

Meanwhile, Feldman called Marilyn on May 5 to say that Twentieth had prepared the first draft of her new contract. He would send over a copy for her to review. When the papers arrived, Marilyn was shattered. In the draft, even the very minimal creative controls she had asked for were missing. At Feldman’s urging, Marilyn had made significant concessions. She had abandoned her request to control scripts, directors, and cameramen. She had asked only to be permitted to approve her choreographer and dramatic coach. Even Zanuck had to have seen that her demands were merely symbolic. Yet he would concede nothing which acknowledged that Marilyn had had a hand in her own stardom.

Marilyn grew furious. As she saw it, the contract meant only one thing. Twentieth did not respect her. She had created a great character whom the world adored. She had filled the studio’s coffers. She had accomplished everything she had set out to do, except in one important respect. From the beginning, Marilyn had always believed that if only she could become a star, the respect she longed for would be part of the package. But it hadn’t turned out that way. To her utter bewilderment, the long, desperate struggle had been pointless. She’d worked. She’d studied. She’d fought. She’d pushed herself beyond the limits. She’d
more than earned everything she wanted. Yet Zanuck and the others took credit for her success. They didn’t take her seriously. They saw her as no more than the dumb blonde she portrayed on screen.