The Genius and the Goddess (13 page)

After she became a star, Marilyn became increasingly difficult to work
with. But many outstanding directors were willing, even eager, to
benefit from her luminous quality on the screen and her enormously
profitable films. Fritz Lang and Otto Preminger were authoritarian,
angry and explosive, while Joshua Logan and Laurence Olivier were
astonishingly patient, kind and tolerant.

Though Marilyn attracted first-rate directors, she rarely got serious
roles. (Fox lent her to RKO for her first dramatic part in
Clash By
Night
.) She began as a decorative secretary in three early movies; was
a model in two other pictures; and ended up as a singer and dancer
in almost all her starring roles from 1953 to her last film in 1961:
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
,
River of No Return
,
There's No Business Like
Show Business
,
Bus Stop
,
The Prince and the Showgirl
,
Some Like It Hot
,
Let's Make Love
and
The Misfits
. In four cliché-ridden, thematically
similar pictures –
How to Marry a Millionaire
,
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
,
The Prince and the Showgirl
and
Let's Make Love
(1953–60) – she plays
a poor girl who attracts and snares a millionaire. Her four great films
–
The Asphalt Jungle
,
All About Eve
,
Some Like It Hot
and
The Misfits
– all shot in black and white, were infinitely better than the Technicolor
and Cinemascope extravaganzas that made her a star.

Apart from her performance in her best film,
The Misfits
, Marilyn
was one-dimensional, melodramatic, even hysterical in her serious
roles:
Don't Bother to Knock
and
Niagara
. But she had a subtle knack
for comedy. She could be both sexy and naïve, blatant and vulnerable,
semi-serious and amusing, and created distinctive comic effects
by speaking her lines as if she didn't quite comprehend them. Miller
noted that "she was both able to feel what she was doing and comment
on it at the same time. So that irony made her sexuality funny."

Though Marilyn's success as a comedienne was based on her sexy
image, which she carefully cultivated, she bitterly resented being treated
as a mere sex goddess. The movie Production Code, which at first
inhibited her impact, began to break down after Otto Preminger's
liberating sex comedy,
The
Moon is Blue
(1953), which was banned
(but screened anyway) for using shocking words like "virgin" and
"mistress." When interviewed by the press, Marilyn threw out provocative
one-liners like "I do not suntan because I like to feel blonde all
over" and, when daringly asked if she wore falsies, replied, "Those
who know me better know better."
¹⁰
She usually wore, and sometimes
had to be sewn into, very tight, low-cut, shimmering dresses,
and attracted rabid attention by contriving to have a vital dress strap
break during a packed press conference.

Contrasting Marilyn to a famous predecessor, a critic observed that
Jean Harlow was "tough, wisecracking, even masculine in type. With
a slight, lisping voice, a soft curvaceous body, and a seriousness about
life, Marilyn Monroe projected an intense femininity and an inner
vulnerability." Marilyn puckered and twitched her lips like a fish
coming up for air. She swayed her hips as if trying to balance on a
tightrope. But she never learned (or never wanted to learn) how to
suggest sexiness in a subtle way. She always appeared, all guns firing,
with the sensuous appeal of a
Playgirl
bunny: breasts projecting, bottom
wiggling, mouth half-open, eyes half-closed.

In March 1953 Marilyn appeared in all her glory to receive the
prestigious Gold Medal for the
"Fastest Rising Star" at the
Photoplay
awards ceremony.
Joan Crawford, inappropriately assuming the role
of grande dame, condemned her behavior with an insulting remark:
"The publicity has gone too far, and apparently Miss Monroe is
making the mistake of believing her publicity. Someone should make
her see the light. She should be told that the public likes provocative
feminine personalities; but it also likes to know that underneath
it all the actresses are ladies." Playing the orphan card and using her
insider's knowledge of Hollywood, Marilyn ironically praised
Crawford, long before her adopted daughter exposed her sadistic
acts in
Mommie Dearest
: "I've always admired her for being such a
wonderful mother – for taking four children and giving them a fine
home. Who better than I knows what that means to homeless little
ones?"

Marilyn's public and professional image as a stupid sexpot clashed
with her desire to become a serious actress. She first wanted attention,
then demanded respect. In 1950 she'd do anything to get a part;
by 1954 she was understandably weary of dumb blonde roles. Ezra
Goodman showed how Marilyn had followed the trajectory of a
typical Hollywood glamor girl:

—If only I could get a part.

—They like me! I wonder if I'm gonna get another part?

—I should be getting bigger and more important parts.

—How can I get more money?

—[I've] become surrounded by sycophants and suckerfish.

—I have to make lots of money now. How long can I last?

—[I've] reached the first plateau. Everybody wants interviews
with me.

—[I've] become a mature star and accept everything.

—[I] break from the friends who disagree with me.

—[I] need help from someone, so change agents and boyfriends.

There's a feeling of constant insecurity.

—[Finally, I] get culture.
¹¹

Marilyn was best when playing a character who was essentially like
herself. When demanding serious roles, she rather naïvely asserted that
the movie studio was not a "manufacturing establishment" and should
be making artistic rather than commercial films. It
was
, however, a
huge money-making corporation, knew that high art didn't produce
profits and constantly remade successful formulaic films.

Not satisfied with her achievement as a comedienne, Marilyn hoped
to gain respect and recognition by playing Grushenka in
The Brothers
Karamazov
.
Dore Schary, a producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, had
for years planned to film
Dostoyevsky's novel with Marilyn and Marlon
Brando, and had commissioned a screenplay for these stars. But Marilyn
was under exclusive contract with Fox, whose executives did not
believe she could be a serious actress and refused to lend her to
MGM. Marilyn sounded foolish when she told reporters, "I don't
want to play the brothers. I want to play Grushenka. She's a girl."
But very few reporters had read the novel. She was familiar with it
and may well have stated the obvious because of
their
ignorance, not
hers. She understood Grushenka's character and quite properly said
that Grushenka is much more than a sexpot, that "she grows and
develops because of her love for [Dimitry]."A beautiful and bewitching
"fallen woman" who's been seduced by a lecherous Pole, Grushenka
is loved by both the crude buffoon, Father Karamazov, and by his son
Dimitry. At the end of the book, when the son is wrongly sentenced
to Siberia for the murder of his father, she remains loyal to Dimitry
and is prepared to accompany him to prison.

Billy Wilder confirmed that "Marilyn knows what she's doing. She
could play a good Grushenka. People think this is a long-hair, very
thick, very literary book. But there's nothing long-hair about
Grushenka. At heart she is a whore." Like Marilyn, she is also in search
of redemption and tells the saintly Alyosha: "I've been waiting all my
life for someone like you, I knew that someone like you would come
and forgive me . . . would really love me, not only with a shameful
love!" Marilyn said, "She's very erotic, you know," and Joshua Logan
agreed that she was well prepared to play this demanding role: "The
only thing she felt herself an authority on was eroticism; therefore,
anything that suggested sensuality or sexuality gave her instant, joyful
confidence."
¹²
In the end, the demure Maria Schell got the coveted
part.

Natasha Lytess observed that Marilyn had "an almost frightening
perception of what was right for Marilyn Monroe." The actress now
realized that her contract with Fox exploited her and was determined
to do something about it. In the first four years of her seven-year
contract (1951–54), she began at $500 a week for forty weeks a year,
rose to $1,500 a week and earned a total of $160,000, or an average
of $40,000 a year, while her movies made a total of $15 million for
the studio. By 1954 she was an international celebrity, admired by millions
of people, yet (as DiMaggio noted) Fox still treated her shabbily. As
the actor
Robert Stack wrote, "The prevailing view at Twentieth
Century-Fox was that actors were children and the parent (the studio)
had to keep the upper hand. Marilyn Monroe was denied a [star's]
dressing room on the set because . . . a pocket-sized executive with a
peculiar set of priorities didn't want her to develop a big head."
¹³

Unlike most actors, Marilyn was not intimidated by the formidable
chief of production, Darryl Zanuck, who'd pace up and down
during interviews in his vast office, chomping a cigar and whacking
his polo mallet against his high polished boots. She wanted not only
a fair contract, but also revenge for a long and bitter list of grievances:
her suddenly terminated short-term contracts at Fox and
Columbia; her predatory couch-casting, sexual exploitation and public
humiliations. Producers had shown contempt for her as a woman,
disdain for her supposed stupidity and scorn for her as a slut. Tyrannical
studio executives had typecast her in mediocre movies and refused
to give her serious roles or lend her to other studios for better parts.
And her pay was grossly unfair.

Marilyn naturally turned to her new agent, Charles Feldman, of
Famous Artists, for help in dealing with Fox. She was surprised to
find that his first loyalty was to the studio, where he also produced
pictures, and that he did not always work for her benefit when renegotiating
her contract. But she was as tough with Feldman and Fox
as she'd been with Ben Hecht, and staunchly defended her own interests.
As early as December 1, 1953 – the month before she married
DiMaggio, who took an active part in the negotiations – Feldman's
colleague at the agency impatiently told him that "she was getting
kind of antsy pantsy about not wanting to do any more pictures for
'those coolie wages.'" Feldman was then in Switzerland to make deals
with European directors for Kirk Douglas and several other stars. His
wife had fallen ill and was in the hospital, and he soon became
distracted and exhausted by all the long phone calls and cables about
Marilyn's unfair pay and poor screen roles. Feldman was also concerned
that Famous Artists had lent her $23,000 and if she left them it would
be difficult to recover it. In fact, after she'd left the agency, it took
five years to collect the money.

Matters heated up again in June 1954 when Feldman's colleague
anxiously reported that Marilyn had learned how to use her newly
acquired power and stubbornly confronted the hard-nosed president
of the studio about her contract:

Once again I had a meeting with Miss Monroe and Mr. Skouras
this evening to try and find some solution to this problem, but
I am afraid we reached an absolute impasse. In a talk I had with
Marilyn afterwards, she seemed even more adamant and would
only listen to her own point of view. Mr. Skouras at the same
time does not feel it is possible for Fox to go any further. . . .

She has made up her mind that unless they give in on the
particular point she is requesting she will sit it out for four years.

The following month the colleague was also troubled by Marilyn's
intransigence about her choreographers – and distrust of her agents.
He tried to persuade her to negotiate, but she was convinced she was
right and gave no ground: "She was absolutely rigid and adamant in
her position; despite the fact that I told her very firmly that from a
practical point of view the two or three points that bothered her in
the contract would automatically be overcome. . . . She said she was
tired of having to fight the studio and all she was interested in was
getting great parts." Marilyn ground them down in a battle of wills,
and astonished both the agents and the studio. She maintained that
if she didn't get exactly what she wanted, she was willing to break
with Fox, give up making movies at the height of her career and wait
until her contract expired.

Marilyn continued to distrust Fox and Feldman. In April 1955,
after she'd carried out her threat and left Fox, the studio tried to win
her back. At one point her lawyer
Frank Delany asked the photographer
Sam Shaw to intercede on her behalf with Fox. Shaw, who
wisely refused to get involved, explained the prickly situation to
Feldman (who may also have been
his
agent):"I told Marilyn . . . that
you gave her the best deal and lost money by putting her in [
The
Seven Year Itch
] – as good as she is. . . . She is sore as hell at me – and
personally I don't care, except the publishers want her cooperation
for my book. . . . What really pissed me off on this dame is her intense
animosity towards you."
¹⁴

In 1954 Marilyn was besieged with offers to star in movies and
sing on records, appear on television shows and radio programs, be
interviewed for magazine and newspaper articles, make public appearances
and contribute to charitable events. As her marriage broke up
and she quarreled with her agents and the studio, she couldn't bear
the intense pressure. Though spontaneous and intuitive, she had found
it difficult to make professional decisions. She had to consider her
image, her publicity and her relations with Fox as she weighed the
possibility of forming her own production company. Charles Feldman,
an astute attorney, agent, producer and powerful Hollywood insider,
would have made an excellent business partner, but she associated
him with Fox and did not trust him. Norman Mailer, alluding to
River of No Return
and
There's No Business Like Show Business
, described
her complicated situation at the end of that year: "on the edge of
separating from her husband, she has two atrocious films behind her,
is . . .
drinking too much, and all the while thinking of breaking her
contract and beginning a new life in New York to make movies with
a photographer who has never produced a film."