The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (39 page)

Mickey Rudin was both Frank Sinatra's and Marilyn Monroe's lawyer, and Rudin and his wife, Elizabeth Greenschpoon Rudin, were privy to Marilyn's intimacy with the presidential candidate, as of course were Marianne Kris and Miller's analyst, Rudolph Loewenstein. Marianne Kris and her late husband Ernst were good friends of Ralph and Hildi Greenson, as well as friends of Greenson's former Air Force commander, John M. Murray.
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It was an odd set of circumstances and relationships that had brought Marilyn Monroe into this close-knit circle of Freudian-Marxists, and when Greenson knocked on Norma Jeane's door he arrived with an uncommon knowledge of Marilyn's relationship with JFK and an insight into the problems that had led his patient into her “severe anxiety stress.”

Dr. Greenson found the film star heavily sedated. Marilyn slurred her words and had poor reactions. She seemed remote and failed to understand simple conversation. When she proceeded to recite the litany of drugs she had been taking—Demerol, sodium pentothal, phenobarbital, amytal—he became alarmed. Greenson's immediate problem was to bring her drug abuse under control. Later, he was to express his anger at the “stupid doctors” who had caved in to Marilyn's prescription requests. Marilyn had a long list of doctors in her phone book whom she could ply with her needs. In the future Dr. Greenson would try to make sure she used only one physician, and he strongly recommended a prominent Beverly Hills internist—Dr. Hyman Engelberg.

Dr. Greenson's visit to Marilyn's bungalow lasted several hours, and by the time he departed Marilyn felt much better. Impressed by Greenson's warmth and understanding, she asked him to return on a regular basis. So began what would prove to be a very unusual doctor-patient relationship which ended in Marilyn Monroe's death two and a half years later.

After several visits with Greenson, Marilyn returned to rehearsals for
Let's Make Love
. Although she was officially a patient of Marianne Kris's, while she was on the West Coast she was under Greenson's care. In the ensuing months, Greenson and Kris would correspond and compare notes. Greenson wrote that his goal was to wean Marilyn from her array of drugs and help her with her sleeping problems. He reported listening to her “Venomous resentment” toward Arthur Miller. She claimed her husband was “cold and unresponsive” to her problems and attracted to other women. He also noted symptoms of paranoia and observed signs of schizophrenia. He wrote, “As she becomes more anxious, she begins to act like an orphan, a waif, and she masochistically provokes [people] to mistreat her and to take advantage of her. As fragments of her past history came out, she began to talk more about the traumatic experience of an ‘orphan child.'” Undoubtedly they discussed the problems which had precipitated her breakdown, and he observed her acute sense of rejection.

Marilyn was very impressed by the analyst's knowledge and understanding. She began to refer to him as “My Jesus—My Savior.” When Marilyn telephoned Lena Pepitone in New York she raved about her new analyst and said, “Lena, Lena, I've finally found him. I've found a Jesus for myself!”

“A Jesus?” asked Pepitone.

“Yes, I call him Jesus. He's doing wonderful things for me.”

“What?” Pepitone inquired, “What does he do?”

“He listens to me.”

“What exactly does he do for you besides listen?” Pepitone asked.

“He gives me courage. He makes me feel smart, makes me think. I can face anything with him. I'm not scared anymore.”

However, Marilyn was unaware of the curious set of circumstances that had brought Dr. Ralph Greenson to the door of the fascinating woman who knew many secrets about the man who was destined to be president of the United States.

A case history for the files of the Kremlin was on the couch.

A
t a press reception held by Fox for Yves Montand in January 1960, Marilyn was the smiling, beautiful hostess. “She still has the old glamour, the magic,” wrote Sidney Skolsky. Making a toast to Montand, Marilyn stated, “Next to my husband and Marlon Brando, I think Yves Montand is the most attractive man I've ever met.”

When asked how he felt about working with Monroe, Montand commented, “Everything she do is, how you say?—‘original'—even when she stand and talk to you.” Montand added in his best manufractured Franglaise, “She help me, I try to help her.”

But he didn't know just how much help she needed. He didn't know that her marriage to Arthur Miller was all but over, and he didn't know about Jack Kennedy. Montand had a morphological resemblance to Miller, but none of Miller's coldness; he had the warmth and charm of Jack Kennedy, but none of the calculating duplicity. Montand didn't know that everything she do was, how you say?—on the rebound.

Shortly after the Millers moved into bungalow 21 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Fox arranged for Yves Montand and his wife, Simone Signoret, to move into bungalow 20—just next door. The two couples became im
mediate friends and joined each other for home-cooked meals and late-night discussions. The Montands had starred in the French production of
The Crucible
, and they shared Arthur's political convictions; Simone Signoret appreciated Marilyn's humor and eccentricities. She didn't see Marilyn as a threat.

Montand was so totally preoccupied with trying to learn English and master his lines that he was oblivious to
le piège amoureux
he had fallen into. “If I was thinking of falling in love with anything,” he said, “it was the English language. I was a million miles from thinking that anything whatsoever could happen between Marilyn and me. In the beginning Marilyn and I had only one thing in common—our obsession with our work. She worked, worked, worked.”

One evening in February after filming had begun, the Montands and the Millers had gone to La Scala for dinner and were driving back to the hotel when Marilyn whispered to Yves, “You know, Cukor's not such a hot director.”

“What?”

“Cukor's a lousy director.”

“Sorry, don't say that. Is not true,” Montand replied, already in a bit of a panic because he couldn't understand a word Cukor said. “Cukor great director—you look beautiful, but I think you're afraid of acting. You need—how you say?—rehearsals.”

“Yes, you're right. I think maybe we should rehearse,” Marilyn replied.

Montand recalled that was how they began to work together, seeking to calm their respective fears. “I would knock at her door, or she would come to me. We would sit facing each other and rehearse. She corrected my English, and I did my best to get her to trust herself. The image that comes back to me is of Marilyn in jeans, a plaid shirt open at the neck, and those incredibly blue eyes that maintained the clarity other women's only rarely possess.”

Arthur Miller observed, “I guess it [our marriage] was deteriorating…. Marilyn was looking at Montand rather idolatrously, and she couldn't realize that he was not this tower of strength. At any period of her life, the oncoming stranger was vitally important. He or she was invested with immense promise, which of course was smashed when this person was discovered to be human.”

Always in search of the man she could rely on, Marilyn found that Montand's assurance and
joie de vivre
had a way of giving her confidence. Montand took pride in his professionalism, and it soon became apparent
to those on the set of
Let's Make Love
that Marilyn was responding to his influence—becoming more cooperative and showing up on schedule. Her new punctuality came as a gratifying surprise to Cukor and producer Jerry Wald.

“She's got so she'll do whatever I ask her to do on the set,” Montand confided, “and everyone's amazed at her cooperation.” Much to Paula Strasberg's displeasure, Cukor noticed that Marilyn was often turning to Montand for approval after a take rather than Black Bart, who was now making two thousand dollars a week as Marilyn's coach.

There were bad days, however, when Marilyn would leave the set early in the afternoon to visit Dr. Ralph Greenson, and Cukor would have to shoot around her. Following the initial sessions with Greenson at the hotel bungalow in January, Marilyn continued her visits with the psychoanalyst at the office he shared with Dr. Milton Wexler at 405 North Bedford Drive—the libido lane of Beverly Hills. The doctor's office was conveniently located between Fox Studios and the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Marilyn visited it as often as her schedule allowed—sometimes on a daily basis.

In a letter Greenson wrote to Marianne Kris, he describes Marilyn as “such a perpetual orphan that I felt even sorrier as she tried so hard and failed so often, which also made her pathetic.” He encouraged her to telephone each day when she was out of town or unable to see him “so that she would understand his values and translate them into the things she needed to survive.”

Another Ralph in Marilyn's life was Ralph Roberts. While Ralph Greenson massaged the minds of the movie stars, Ralph Roberts was known as the physical “masseur to the stars.” He had studied physiotherapy and was familiar with the unique muscular problems of performers. An actor himself, Ralph Roberts had first met Marilyn at Lee Strasberg's apartment in 1955 when he was studying with Strasberg and appearing on Broadway in
The Lark
with Julie Harris and Boris Karloff.

In 1959 he traveled to Hollywood as Judy Holliday's masseur during the filming of
Bells Are Ringing
. Learning that Ralph Roberts was in Hollywood, Marilyn called him when the rigorous dance rehearsals for
Let's Make Love
began. They became close friends, and from the beginning she referred to him as “Rafe” (as in waif). Though he was well over six feet tall and had a rather forbidding appearance, Roberts was a gentle soul—a soft-spoken, cultured gentleman from North Carolina.

 

At the end of February, production of
Let's Make Love
was put on hold for several weeks by an actors' and writers' strike over television residuals. During the hiatus, Miller and Marilyn planned to fly back east for meetings with her attorney Aaron Frosch. “I'll miss you,” Marilyn whispered affectionately in Montand's ear—adding a special good-bye. Not understanding what she said, he noted down the words and later asked a friend what they meant. When the phrase was translated he was touched, but “thought no more about it.” Just before Arthur and Marilyn departed, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the Oscar contenders. Among the nominees were Shelley Winters as best supporting actress in
The Diary of Anne Frank
and Simone Signoret as best actress in
Room at the Top
.

“Good luck! I know you're going to get it!” Marilyn shouted to Signoret as the Millers left for the airport. But she was in fact a bit jealous and disappointed that her performance as Sugar Kane in
Some Like It Hot
hadn't received a nomination. It was regarded by critics nationwide as one of the best comedic performances in years. But Hollywood Academy voters were somewhat peeved by what they perceived as the East Coast parvenu pretenses of the valley girl, and while Doris Day was nominated for her performance in
Pillow Talk
, Marilyn wasn't considered.

On the starry night of the Thirty-Second Academy Awards, Shelley Winters won the Oscar for best supporting actress, and later in the ceremonies Fred Astaire introduced Yves Montand, who sang and danced a tribute to Astaire, “
Un Garçon Dansait
.” As he took his bows to thunderous applause and went to the wings, Montand was told by director Vincente Minnelli to return to his seat. “No, no,” Yves said. “The next Oscar is for best actress, and Marilyn say my wife is going to get it.” Rock Hudson opened the envelope and proved Marilyn correct. Simone had a picture commitment in Europe, and several days later she flew off to Rome with her Oscar—and Marilyn was bestowed with her Yves.

Shortly after the Millers had returned to Hollywood, Arthur flew to Ireland for
The Misfits
preproduction meetings with John Huston, and Montand wondered if his halting English was playing tricks on him when Miller said good-bye to him and muttered, “What will happen will happen.”

Doris Vidor, a friend of Montand and the Millers, recalled that Montand telephoned her in “an absolute state.” Montand exclaimed to Doris, “He's leaving me with Marilyn, and our apartments are adjoining. Do you think that Arthur doesn't know that she is beginning to throw herself at
me?” Doris Vidor recalled telling Montand, “Yves, I think this is getting very complicated…. I would be suspicious of Arthur's leaving at this time. How do you know that he isn't deliberately going? Maybe he's tired of the burden that he's had, and maybe he's glad someone is around to step in.”

Montand recalled in his memoirs:

It soon became obvious on the set of
Let's Make Love
that the stars were taking the title seriously, and the love affair that developed between Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand quietly became a matter of Hollywood gossip.

Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen gave the first hint to the public when she commented, “An actress whose name came up at this year's Oscars is currently having marital problems.” Soon a Beverly Hills Hotel room-service waiter was telling bedroom stories to journalist James Bacon, and the Montand-Monroe affair became public knowledge. It was feeding time
at the paparazzi zoo. Some reported that the star turned up at bungalow 20 “naked beneath her mink coat.' Arthur Miller was reported to have left his pipe behind at the hotel and returned to discover the lovers in bed. Hedda Hopper confidentially advised Marilyn in her widely syndicated column, “You have still to prove that you are a great actress. Your success is due only to publicity. I beseech you, Marilyn, stop this self-destruction.”

Amid the tabloid feeding frenzy, Marilyn Monroe was presented with the Golden Globe Award as the Best Actress of 1959 for
Some Like it Hot
. And
Life
and
Look
were preparing stories on the on-screen/off-screen lovers of
Let's Make Love
.

By the time Miller returned to Hollywood and rejoined Marilyn at the Beverly Hills Hotel, news of the Monroe-Montand affair filled the gossip columns and had become a public drama. In recalling his feelings at the time, Miller stated, “I couldn't help her. By this time I represented betrayals and misplaced trust. And there was no possibility of erasing that from her mind. It was just there.”

According to Norman Rosten, “Montand wasn't the only one. There had been others. She hadn't been totally faithful to Arthur for some time. Marilyn had this terrible neediness. When she felt insecure she went with other men simply for something to hold on to.”

The extended shooting schedule of
Let's Make Love
was slated to end in mid-June, and Marilyn wanted to believe that her relationship with Montand was more than a passing affair scheduled to end with the production. But as filming neared its conclusion, Montand admitted hovering between “intoxication and panic.” Marilyn, he said, “clung to me…and the light in her eyes indicated such joy was meant to last.”

In his memoirs, Montand recalled, “I was touched—touched because it was beautiful, and it was impossible. Not for a moment did I think of breaking with my wife, but if she [Simone] had slammed the door on me, I would probably have made my life with Marilyn, or tried to. That was the direction we were moving in. Maybe it would have lasted only two or three years. I didn't have too many illusions. Still, what years they would have been!” But when the shooting schedule drew to a close and
Let's Make Love
completed filming, both the on-screen and the off-screen romance were a wrap.

Marilyn left Hollywood for
The Misfits
wardrobe tests in New York, while Montand stayed on the West Coast for contract negotiations. On June 30, Montand flew to New York on his way back to Europe. Marilyn
met him at the airport for what she hoped would be a rendezvous, but ended up being a tearful
adieu
. They said good-bye in the back seat of a Cadillac limousine parked at the terminal, while Montand waited to board his plane for France. He told her he had been happy with her and hoped that he had occasionally made her happy too, but he had no intention of leaving his wife.