Marilyn Monroe (25 page)

There has been a great deal of mystery regarding Gladys’ time at Rockhaven, with stories becoming wilder and more exaggerated as time goes on. However, in 2010 biographer Lois Banner interviewed Agnes Richards’ granddaughter Pat Traviss about life at Rockhaven and found that Gladys’ time there was not the horror story one has been led to believe. Pat worked at the institution herself, and became the administrator after her grandmother had retired. According to Banner, Traviss relayed to her that contrary to what previous biographers have reported, Marilyn absolutely never visited her mother. In fact Agnes remembered only one telephone call from the star, in which she asked Gladys if there was anything she could buy for her. The answer? A bar of ivory soap.

Gladys’ life at Rockhaven was a relatively solitary one. She was quiet, kept herself to herself and never talked about intimate or private matters with anyone – especially the medical staff. In fact, she especially disliked anyone who was considered a ‘nurse’ and it was only because Traviss wasn’t in the medical profession that she was able to become friendly with Gladys. The two would often go out for ice cream and at one point Gladys even knitted socks for a member of Traviss’ family.

Traviss disputed recent stories that Gladys Baker could hear voices in her head. She told Lois Banner that Gladys believed there was nothing wrong with her and would never have said she was hearing voices. ‘She didn’t really think she was ill,’ recalled Traviss. This would tie in with a letter Grace once wrote to a friend back in the 1930s, when Gladys was first admitted to a mental institution. In it she explained that Gladys didn’t know she was ill and even thought she would soon return to work. That she believed herself to be absolutely sane is also confirmed in a remark Gladys made to Grace that she believed she had only been sent to the institution because she was working as a nurse there. At no time did Gladys believe herself to be ill and, if there were voices in her head, she would never have dreamed of making them public.

There has been talk of many traumatic events while Gladys was confined, including staff selling their stories, but actually it seems that nobody ever gave any information for money, even when offered a large amount. There was one incident, however, that did stand out in Traviss’ mind, as she remembered: ‘I left Gladys alone in my office and I came back to find my furniture overturned and there was red ink spilled. I never left her alone again.’

Keeping thoughts of her mother to a minimum, on 18 March 1953 Marilyn moved into a three-roomed apartment at 882 North Doheny Drive, which Jane Russell and interior designer Thomas Lane helped her to decorate. The comfortable home was furnished with thick carpets, white and beige furnishings,
and, of course, her book collection. She also collected her black piano from storage, painted it white and installed it in the home, where she was to stay for almost all of 1953.

A new friend came into Marilyn’s life at this time, when she met actor and author John Gilmore during a party at neighbour John Hodiak’s house. Gilmore and Marilyn had much in common and spoke easily with each other. He remembered: ‘Marilyn told me she’d dreamed of waltzing through movies as another Jean Harlow. Even then she didn’t know she’d someday eclipse Harlow and emerge from a kind of imposed, personal cocoon as the most beautiful and important movie star in the world.

‘Marilyn was shadowed and strange; diffident yet vivacious, determined while fearful. She was intense and funny at the same time, and was very, very far from being “dumb”. I remember my conversation with her verbatim; how she looked, what she wore and how she smelled; what her hand felt like and how the aroma of her lingered on my hand after shaking hers. From that time on, Marilyn and I ran separately in and out and backwards and forwards through the Hollywood milieu ad nauseam, her career skyrocketing. We caught up again, encountering the same people, the same spots on the Strip; Mocambo, Ciros, etc.’

Marilyn’s next film was a comedy entitled
How to Marry a Millionaire,
in which she played opposite Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall. The filming followed an altogether familiar pattern: the press tried to create a feud between the stars (they failed); Natasha’s direction caused friction on the set; and Marilyn was continuously late, leading love interest David Wayne to describe the experience as, ‘One of the worst times I’ve ever had in my life.’

While Lauren Bacall could hardly disguise her impatience and irritation with the fledgling star, idol Betty Grable could not have been more patient and understanding. Knowing that Twentieth Century Fox expected her to resent Marilyn’s new popularity, Grable went out of her way to give advice and
help her successor. She encouraged her ambitions and the two became firm friends, especially when Grable commented, ‘Honey I’ve had mine; go get yours,’ to the excited young star. The two got along famously and Grable always remembered her time on the set with particular fondness.

Another person who was happy to be there was a young man called Jim Gough, whose father worked at the studio, giving him the opportunity to meet Marilyn and Betty: ‘Meeting these two fabulous women was a teenager’s dream come true and it changed my life. Marilyn and Betty were not only beautiful, but also very kind and down to earth – without an ounce of pretension. One day, they invited me to have lunch in the “Commissary”. They were both made up and were in costume with dressing gowns over their costumes to protect them. My entrance into the restaurant, between these two women, was the answer to a young man’s prayers! During the meal, we chatted about school matters, friendships, and, most of all, about pets. Marilyn loved dogs especially. After the filming of
How to Marry a Millionaire,
I occasionally met Marilyn, who always seemed to remember me.’

The beginning of April 1953 was a busy time for Marilyn. On 7 April she attended a birthday party with Betty Grable in honour of columnist Walter Winchell, and then she signed a new agency contract, this time with the Famous Artists Agency. But by 14 April she was in hospital being treated for her ongoing endometriosis problem, which unfortunately would never be resolved.

Coming out of hospital, Marilyn rested at home on Doheny Drive, reading her books and talking to friends. Grace Goddard was still a big part of her life, especially now that Gladys had been re-institutionalized, and the two would speak on the telephone every day. ‘It used to drive me crazy!’ remembered Bebe Goddard. ‘It’s because she confided every minute of her night and day to Grace. Totally. Everything. And Grace would sympathize and advise, and believe me, Marilyn never took her for granted.’

However, although Grace was more than happy to listen to Marilyn’s problems, she had many of her own, including a dependency on alcohol and a heart problem, for which she was taking phenobarbital. In May Marilyn invited her to rest at the Doheny Drive apartment and the two enjoyed many hours in each other’s company.

Tragedy soon struck Marilyn’s life while she and Joe were away for a short break. He received news that his brother, Mike, had been killed in a fishing accident off the coast of Bodega Bay. A devastated DiMaggio went straight to San Francisco, while Marilyn returned to Los Angeles and spent her birthday quietly with Grace, Bebe and Bebe’s brother Fritz. She then travelled up to San Francisco to be with DiMaggio and his family during the mourning period and offering her support to the devastated Joe. She made a good impression on his entire family, and it was during this period that DiMaggio realized how much he was in love with her, while Marilyn confessed to friends that she knew at that time that she really did want to marry him.

On 26 June Marilyn received the recognition she had craved since a child, when she placed her hands and feet into the wet cement outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Together with Jane Russell, she stood in the very spot where she had admired the prints as a child. She later remembered: ‘I did have a funny feeling when I finally put my foot down into that wet cement. I sure knew what it really meant to me – anything’s possible, almost.’ Two days later, she walked to the theatre in the middle of the night to see how her footprints really looked. ‘It was like hearing all the applause in the world,’ friend Sidney Skolsky later observed.

By this time Marilyn was involved in the production of
River of No Return,
a lightweight Western which she was not impressed by, but agreed to do because she liked the songs. In it she was to play the part of a saloon singer, opposite Robert Mitchum, an old workmate of first husband, James Dougherty. She liked Mitchum a lot and the two immediately gelled, as she cheerfully
told reporters, ‘It’s nice when you hit the ball and somebody hits it back.’

From the beginning, Marilyn got along very well with producer Stanley Rubin, whom she had unsuccessfully auditioned for all those years ago, but the two had a common enemy in director Otto Preminger, who was known to be something of a bully. Rubin remembered: ‘The problems between Otto and I began when I told him he wasn’t my choice for director – he was the studio’s choice. Otto didn’t take kindly to that. Otto had something in him that made him capable of bullying, and he bullied Marilyn, but never Bob Mitchum because he knew he wouldn’t get away with it.’

In fairness to Preminger, while he was a tough director, he did have a reason to be upset with Marilyn, in the shape of none other than Natasha Lytess, who once again accompanied the star on to the set. ‘When the take was finished,’ remembered Rubin, ‘Marilyn looked past Otto to Natasha, who was standing a few feet behind the director. It was not a good arrangement – Otto was a very proud man and didn’t like Natasha being on set. The problem went all the way to the Head of the Studio – Darryl F. Zanuck – and for a while Natasha was banned from the set, but then Marilyn went to Zanuck herself and Natasha came back.’

When the cast and crew travelled to Canada for location shots the problems were intensified whilst shooting scenes on a raft. On one occasion both Marilyn and Robert Mitchum almost hit rocks and had to be saved by a rescue boat, and on another Marilyn slipped and fell into the water, as remembered by make-up artist Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder: ‘We had a raft tied to the shore and Marilyn and Robert Mitchum were supposed to push it off. The river bed had a rocky bottom, and when she took two or three steps, she twisted her ankle and fell down.’

From then on Marilyn was to be seen around the set with a bandaged foot and crutches, but all the same, some people have disputed the sprained ankle story, stating that Marilyn did it in order to take her revenge on ‘bully’ Preminger. Producer
Stanley Rubin thinks otherwise: ‘I believe she did sprain her ankle badly. She had to hobble around and they shot around her for a few days and also shot scenes where she didn’t have to move. I find it very hard to believe it was fake. She did trip on the raft – either getting on or getting off – she did fall.’

The sprained ankle did give Marilyn a few perks, one of which was the arrival of Joe DiMaggio, who hurried to the location as soon as he heard the news. The other was some time off, which she spent relaxing beside the hotel pool.

Marilyn spent much of the summer of 1953 taking photographs with New York photographer Milton Greene, and then on 13 September she made her television debut on the
Jack Benny Program,
and was presented with a new car in lieu of payment. She was so proud of her new vehicle that she drove it up to show Uncle Sam and Aunt Enid. The Knebelkamps’ son-in-law, Forrest Olmstead remembers Marilyn’s relationship with the family, and her ability to leave her movie star image behind: ‘A new room had been added to the house and I was putting up button board for plaster on the wall; Marilyn would hand me the board so I could attach it to the wall. Then another time I was working on a new cess pool and she would hand me down bricks . . . She was the only woman there that wanted to help.’

She also went to great lengths in order to spoil her foster family, buying gifts and holding parties during special celebrations: ‘[Diane and I] bought a house in Long Beach,’ recalls Forrest, ‘and Cousin Pat and her husband Ben also bought a house. Marilyn gave both of us a house warming in Pat and Ben’s back yard. She came down in a limousine with her chauffeur and gave us both a gift; we had a whole tub of beer and got the chauffeur a little drunk.’

Unfortunately her relationship with the Knebelkamp/Goddard family changed when Grace Goddard was rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties, and passed away on 28 September 1953. ‘I was horribly sad and devastated,’ Grace’s stepdaughter Bebe remembered. ‘And Marilyn was 50,000 times as much.’

It has been rumoured over the years that Grace was suffering from cancer at the time of her death. This may be so, but the death certificate states that her death was suicide caused by barbiturate poisoning, due to the ingestion of phenobarbital. ‘She did have a whole box of pills like nothing you’ve ever seen before. And in those days they were much easier to get,’ remembered Bebe. Whether or not Marilyn knew the exact cause of death is unclear, but if she did it must have been extremely upsetting; for her whole life Marilyn had dealt with her mother’s emotional problems, and now to discover that Grace had taken her own life must have been truly disturbing.

‘I believe that Marilyn loved Grace more than anybody in the world,’ Bebe Goddard recalled. ‘Grace had been a second mother from the time she was born, and had been such a fair person, and as much a mother, or more so, than Gladys had been. Grace was the single most constant factor throughout Marilyn’s life.’

Many people have said that Marilyn refused to attend Grace’s funeral, but this is simply not true: ‘She absolutely was at Grace’s funeral,’ Bebe Goddard later told the ‘All About Marilyn’ fan club. This is also confirmed by Will Sykes, who was married to Aunt Ana’s niece, Sybil Louise Howland. ‘Marion said she met you at Grace’s funeral. How is Doc getting along?’ he asked in a letter to Marilyn in October 1954.

The funeral was a quiet, family affair and afterwards Marilyn travelled to Aunt Enid and Uncle Sam’s house, where she sat solemnly with the other family members. Diane Knebelkamp’s husband, Forrest, remembers: ‘I was sitting in Diane’s old room which had been turned into a den, when Marilyn walked in and sat down. She didn’t say much because she was so upset.’