Whore Stories (19 page)

MARILYN MONROE

PRO
FILE

DAY JOBS:
Miss California Artichoke Queen; actress

CLAIM TO FAME:
Being Marilyn f’ing Monroe

THEATER OF OPERATIONS:
Hollywood; sundry Kennedy compounds

Oh, Marilyn. What an odd specimen you were. Born Norma Jeane Mortenson (her mother had her baptized as Norma Jeane Baker—apparently there was some sort of paternal confusion), Marilyn entered the world in the charity ward of the L.A. County Hospital on June 1, 1926, and left it in a barbiturate blowout, just thirty-six years later. But Marilyn is still
the
defining icon of Hollywood, if not postwar America at large.

Marilyn may have gone in for a devil’s threesome with John and Robert Kennedy, but like much of Marilyn’s life (and death) the whole tragic affair is shrouded in myth and mystery. She was politically conscious, allegedly talking atomic apocalypse with JFK just weeks before the Cuban missile crisis. She appeared to have actually read
Ulysses
, something most of us only pretend to have done. But her legacy is that of the dumb blonde, a clumsy, clueless goddess astride a steam vent in
The Seven Year Itch
, her panties just out of eyesight and legions of fans straining to see as they silently or not so silently howl, “Blow steam, blow!” Marilyn was blessed with rare comic timing, and she had an undeniable screen presence. Contrary to popular belief, she also had smarts to go around, and would later prove herself more than worthy in dramatic roles such as
Bus Stop
and
The Misfits.

Norma Jeane’s early years were grim. Perhaps you know the stories: a lunatic mother and an absent father; raised in foster homes and ultimately declared a ward of the state; in a loveless marriage by fifteen and divorced by nineteen; plagued by incessant health problems real and imagined. With Hollywood showing little interest, she posed for nude photographs, made stag films, and allegedly worked as a high-priced call girl. The one bright light in all of this came when she was named the 1947 Miss California Artichoke Queen.

“Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.”

—P. J. O’ Rourke, American satirist, humorist

While Marilyn never confirmed her stint as a call girl, she readily admitted to engaging in another phyla of prostitution: the Hollywood Hustle. Here is Marilyn quoted by journalist Jaik Rosenstein in Sarah Churchwell’s
The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe
:

You know that when a producer calls an actress into his office to discuss a script that isn’t all he has in mind. And a part in a picture, or any kind of a little stock contract is the most important thing in the world to the girl, more than eating. She can go hungry, and she might have to sleep in her car, but she doesn’t mind that a bit—if she can only get the part. I know, because I’ve done both, lots of times. And I’ve slept with producers. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t.

One would like to think that the California Artichoke Queen would not have to succumb to such pressures just to get a leg up in Hollywood. Marilyn Monroe had the looks, the talent, the skills, and God knows she had the sex appeal, but apparently such gifts would only get you so far in 1950s Hollywood.

Maybe Marilyn cut corners. Maybe she was a self-absorbed star, frothing at the mouth from enough Nembutal to drop a rhino. Maybe she whored around to pay the bills. Who are we to judge? Consider the final, cryptic line from Osgood Fielding III, the eccentric millionaire in one of Marilyn’s most successful films,
Some Like It Hot
: “Well, nobody’s perfect!”

And how in the fuck does a candle in the wind cling to anybody? It’s metaphors like this that make me think Elton John is just lazy.

BARBARA PAYTON

PRO
FILE

DAY JOBS:
Starlet

CLAIM TO FAME:
Classic cautionary tale of rags to riches to rags

THEATER OF OPERATIONS:
Sunset Blvd., Hollywood

At one point Barbara Payton looked like she had a bright future in Hollywood. She made the obligatory “spec” shots (meaning she paid for them) that got her press in some of the higher-end 1940s and ’50s jack-off rags like
Spy
and
Brief
. Payton spent the obligatory amount of time bent over couches in casting agents’ and producers’ offices, and she finally wound up a leading lady, starring with James Cagney in
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
and Lloyd Bridges in the noir classic,
Trapped
, among other films.

Ms. Payton lived fast and died young (1927–1967), but during the 1940s and ’50s she was a paparazzo’s wet dream. She got her swerve on with Howard Hughes and tore up the Sunset Strip like a riled-up hell-spawn of Christina, Lindsay, Britney, and the rest of those half-assed party girls combined. She owned luxury cars and mansions, and she made $10,000 a week on the movie set. Then it all came back to bite little old Barbara Lee Redfield from Cloquet, Minnesota, in her steepled Nordic hindquarters.

It’s a familiar story—one that every aspiring young actor and actress should bear in mind before becoming swallowed up by the Hollywood machine, addicted to drugs and alcohol, and dispensing rim-jobs for ripple wine outside the 7-Eleven. Here’s Barbara in her 1963 tell-all autobiography,
I Am Not Ashamed
, summing up her meteoric rise and equally meteoric crash, from the glitz and glamour to fat and drunk:

I went out with every big male star in town. They wanted my body and I needed their names for success. There was my picture on the front pages of every paper in the country. . . . I live in a rat infested apartment with not a bean to my name and I drink too much Rosé wine. I don’t like what the scale tells me. The little money I do accumulate to pay the rent comes from old residuals, poetry and favors to men. . . . Does it all sound depressing to you? Queasy? Well, I’m not ashamed.

For an ex-starlet who used to date Bob Hope (there is speculation that Barbara was his “kept” woman), this kind of admission was unorthodox and career-ending—a testament to how desperately she needed the $1,000 book advance. In those days there were no reality shows to exploit one’s addiction and cultivate a new, equally annoying yet sober personality.

In just a few short years, Barbara Payton went from super-stardom to squalor, with arrests for, among other peccadilloes, passing bad checks, public drunkenness, shoplifting, drunk and disorderly conduct, and prostitution. Living in abject poverty, fraught with dipsomania and morbidly obese, Barbara moved in with her alcoholic parents, clearly not a good idea. Payton died at the dawn of the sexual revolution (she would have enjoyed it) at the age of thirty-nine of heart and liver failure. And, like so many of our finest talents gone to meet their reward too early, Barbara Payton’s life came to a close while sitting on the shitter. I mean
damn
, y’all.

CLARK GABLE

PRO
FILE

DAY JOB:
Actor

CLAIM TO FAME:
“The King of Hollywood”

THEATER OF OPERATIONS:
Hollywood

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn; I’m going to scrub my penis until it bleeds, go gay-for-pay, and bang my way to the top of Hollywood despite my chronic bad breath, hepatitis, and false teeth,” is something Clark Gable never said, but certainly may have thought, if we are to believe some of the reports. These Hollywood transformations can be amazing. The cosmic volte-face that propels some people from lowly civilians like us who are just trying to get through the day without cutting our boss with scissors to iconic screen stars like Clark Gable is something I’ll always be bitter about—especially since I gargle regularly, I don’t think I have hepatitis, and my grill contains 100 percent real teeth.

According to numerous reports, Gable allegedly compensated for his shortcomings by having sex for money and other favors in various bathrooms, bedrooms, and boudoirs of Beverly Hills. In fact, Clark was a fixture in the men’s room at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (not an actual bathroom fixture, like a urinal), as well as the seedier area around Pershing Square, where an up-and-coming actor could get into some “rough trade” and disaster capitalism hawking his hindgut with the career cruisers.

Are you telling us that Clark Gable . . . “The King of Hollywood” . . . Rhett Butler . . . was a man-whore? Don’t look so devastated. Would you feel any better with some tasteless details? Me too. “In those days,” writes Gable biographer David Bret in his
Clark Gable: Tormented Star
, Gable was “not averse to charging for his services.” In fact, his colleague and sometime paramour, the silent-screen star Billy Haine, is quoted as telling Gable’s frequent costar Joan Crawford, “Cranberry [Crawford’s nickname], I fucked [Gable] in the men’s room at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. He was that desperate. He was a nice guy, but not a fruitcake.” Let’s savor this awkward silence for a moment.

Now, let’s move on to the following revelation from one of Gable’s friends, quoted in William J. Mann’s
Wisecracker
: “Billy fucked
him
in the men’s room. Billy was the
fucker
, never the
fuckee
.” First of all, what’s a fuckee? A yoga mat, or some new-age ethos? And secondly, Wow! This doesn’t do much for Gable’s macho reputation, but it does make him a more interesting character. Ultimately, if you’re a guy hung up on your leading men being big hunks of rough, oozing masculinity, and you refuse to acknowledge that most of the male stars you identify with and look to for inspiration are heavy into dudes, well, perhaps the homophobe doth protest too much.

At the end of the day, what we have is Gable’s work. Sure, he may have whored it out a little, but when you’ve got the talent, sometimes you’ve got to make your own luck. With a best actor Oscar in 1935 for
It Happened One Night
, and two more nominations for his performances in
Gone with the Wind
and
Mutiny on the Bounty
, Gable’s legend as an actor is secure. As for his sexuality, clearly there are some discrepancies. Doris Day once swooned
“
[Gable] was as masculine as any man I’ve ever known, and as much a little boy as a grown man could be—it was this combination that had such a devastating effect on women.” Day’s remarks stand in stark contrast to Bret’s assertion that before his star rose, “Gable’s more serious relationships had been with three homosexuals.” How could a figure as public as Gable manage to trick so many manly men into growing stereotypically gay moustaches? It’s almost like Gable was
two
people at the same time. Get used to it. It’s called “acting.”

KURT COBAIN

PRO
FILE

DAY JOB:
Musician

CLAIM TO FAME:
Grunge pioneer; unwitting Gen X spokesperson

THEATER OF OPERATIONS:
Seattle

At twenty-seven, Kurt Cobain, tentative spokesman for a generation and front man for Nirvana, once one of the biggest bands on the planet, killed himself, leaving legions of fans and admirers lost, bereaved, and confused. To date, Nirvana has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, and they continue to function as the flagship for the tortured and confused members of Generation X, who pine for the revolution that never happened and, it must be noted, are looking a little swollen and bald these days. In spite of it all, none of Cobain’s Gen X minions may have been more tortured, confused, and maniac than Cobain himself. Okay, Courtney Love—a solid point.

The “poet of grunge” was born in 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington, to a musical family. After his parent’s divorce when he was nine, Cobain moved between two different homes; made forays into born-again Christianity, homosexuality, and the junior high wrestling team; then dropped out of high school with only two weeks to go before graduation. This last vintage punk rock move caused Cobain’s mother to kick him out of the house, and he began in earnest his grunge odyssey, living under a bridge down by the river, probably smelling like teenage shit.

In one interview Cobain imagined an employment scenario straight out of an updated and grungy Seattle Dickens: “I always wanted to move to the big city. I wanted to move to Seattle, find a chicken hawk [an older gay man] . . . sell my ass, and be a punk rocker.” Of course, as anyone familiar with Cobain’s interview persona will recall, the young man was not reliable, especially when the subject turned to sex or sexuality. Some even claim that Cobain was the inspiration for River Phoenix’s character Mike, the gay hustler in Gus Van Sant’s movie,
My Own Private Idaho.
In fact Van Sant later chronicled events at the end of Cobain’s life in the aptly titled,
Last Days
. It does seem plausible that Cobain could serve as a model for the tortured gigolo. In Christopher Sandford’s biography,
Kurt Cobain
, we’re told how Kurt was said to have enjoyed numerous “dalliances in the back alleys of Seattle,” and this coupled with his willingness to sell his ass, presumably for money and drugs, makes him a likely candidate. But to say Kurt Cobain was at any time a full-fledged prostitute is a stretch, if not total crap. Sure, murmurs persist and the possibility is certainly there, but with every year that passes, Cobain’s legend devolves into more legend, leaving us with questions, speculation, and gossip—and, alas, Courtney Love, who appears here to stay.