Marilyn Monroe (34 page)

‘The detective said: “Don’t go telling your schoolfriends where the house is, will you?” I promised I wouldn’t.’

On 9 July, shortly before the Millers arrived in England, Vivien and Laurence Olivier sent a letter to ask if the couple would like to attend a party given in their honour. The get-together eventually took place on Tuesday, 24 July, and was hosted by Terence Rattigan at Little Court, his home in Sunningdale, Berkshire. It was a lavish affair that included a hundred guests, twenty chauffeurs, waiters, a porter, a chef and a huge candelabra hired specifically for the occasion. The garden was adorned by fairy lights and the whole atmosphere was one of romance and enchantment. The drinks bill, which came to £103, included forty-two bottles of champagne, seven bottles of Gordon’s gin, two bottles of sherry and various other items.

The guest list for the party consisted of such luminaries as Alec Guinness, Dame Margot Fonteyn, John Gielgud, Richard Wattis and Douglas Fairbanks Jr, but the person everyone had come to see was, of course, Marilyn Monroe. Everyone that is, except a policeman by the name of PC Packham, who had been asked to stand at the gate of Rattigan’s house to check invitations and prevent gatecrashers.

Unfortunately for PC Packham, the young constable hadn’t been told Marilyn was on the guest list, so when her car pulled up, he treated it like any other and asked to see the invitation. Newspapers took great delight the next day in describing how the policeman had never heard of Marilyn Monroe and hadn’t recognized her in the back of the car. However, PC Packham’s version of events differs greatly from the exaggerations of the
newspapers: ‘The peace was shattered when what was clearly a VIP limo travelling from the Sunningdale direction, swung into the drive to stop abruptly at my feet. Some lunatic immediately leapt from the nearside front passenger seat and, actually brandishing an empty wine glass in my face, told me aggressively to get out of the way. It was, to say the least, an unusual greeting; neither did his arrival inspire confidence regarding the other occupants of the car. I relieved him of the wine glass and was desirous of knowing what precisely he was up to. “It’s Marilyn, you fool,” he hissed, “Get out of the way.”

‘Of course! In a blinding flash of the absolute obvious the penny dropped. Everyone in England must surely have known that Marilyn was in town. The tabloids were full of it.

‘I looked in at the open door of the limo. It was, of course, Marilyn and, had any further proof been necessary, she was accompanied by her then husband, Arthur Miller. I told the driver to carry on, closed the door, and they sped away without the little dogsbody, or whatever he was. He was last seen hoofing it up the long drive to the house, muttering as he went dire imprecations on all coppers.

‘Press cars which had tailed the limo down the A30 had by then been bumped up on to the grass verges at the side of the main road, their occupants coming hot-foot to join the fray. They were a trifle late, for their real quarry had by then sped off, but they were not too late to weave their usual fairy tales. The tabloids’ following day’s accounts were founded principally on the story of one of “yer ole tyme rural bobbies” who spoke with a rich West Country accent, called men “Zur”, and didn’t know Marilyn. Any semblance of accuracy in their reports was purely coincidental.’

An exaggerated version of the night’s events soon reached PC Packham’s boss, Sergeant Gray, who was told, incorrectly, that his constable had been threatened with a broken wine glass. This led Terence Rattigan to send a letter to Sergeant Gray, thanking him for the handling of the difficult situation, and enclosing a £10 cheque to be donated to a charity of his choice.

Thankfully for everyone who had come to see her, Marilyn finally entered the party, wearing a dress very similar to the one she was to wear in
The Prince and the Showgirl.
Looking happy and relaxed, Mr and Mrs Miller made a big impact on the other party guests and danced cheek-to-cheek during George and Ira Gershwin’s ‘Embraceable you’. Sir John Gielgud remembered: ‘Marilyn wore an Edwardian dress – she had, I think, worn it in the tests for the film – and she held court in a tent in the garden, where everyone queued up to shake her hand. As I was speaking to her, a rather formidable-looking lady in black suddenly appeared at Marilyn’s side and introduced herself as Louella Parsons. Arthur Miller kept at a discreet distance. I had no opportunity of talking further with Marilyn, but remember how graceful she looked, dancing with Terry Rattigan as I took my departure.’

Marilyn made an impression on everyone who attended the party, and Terence Rattigan received a great many letters after the event, thanking him for his hospitality and commenting on the famous guest. Marilyn herself was thrilled to have the party thrown for her, and wrote a very poetic letter on Parkside House stationery, thanking her host for the party, and commenting on the memorable Charleston, which she danced with him.

Rehearsals for
The Prince and the Showgirl
finished on 3 August, and filming began on the 7th. Marilyn later described her role as ‘an actress from six in the morning until noon, and a producer during lunch. Then I was an actress the rest of the afternoon – and a producer from 6.30 until 9 p.m. when we looked over the day’s rushes.’

For the first two-and-a-half weeks, Marilyn reported for work every day but her punctuality left something to be desired. At no time during those first weeks was she on time, and she repeatedly kept her co-stars waiting, so that by the time the film finally wrapped in mid-November, she had been on time on just three occasions, out of a total of fifty-three days on set.

That said, although she was continually late throughout the shoot, she doesn’t deserve many of the stories that have been written about her lateness over the years. Various tales have been woven about Marilyn keeping cast and crew waiting until late afternoon while she went cycling with her husband. However, on 9 January 1957, a document was written that detailed what time Marilyn arrived each day. Yes, she was continually late, but on most occasions it was less than an hour. Furthermore, according to the document, the latest Marilyn ever showed was on 30 October, when she arrived at 12.35 for a 10.30 call-time.

From the beginning, Marilyn’s ‘Method’ approach to acting clashed with Olivier’s classically trained ideas. When he apparently told her to ‘Be sexy’, it put her on edge; she had no idea what Olivier meant by this comment, and despite reassurances
from her friends, her confidence never recovered. From that moment on, she referred to him as ‘Mister Sir’.

Marilyn did, however, get one-up on Olivier when she discovered that someone in the crew – she suspected it was Olivier himself – was running a book on how many takes she would need for a fairly tricky scene. Pianist Alan remembers: ‘Marilyn got wind of this and was not amused at the overt insult to her capabilities . . .’

She went home and studied hard so that on the day of shooting she was more than prepared. She delivered the line and then left the room, closing the door behind her as directed. However, within seconds the door flew open again and Marilyn stuck her head through the gap. ‘Pretty good huh?’ she exclaimed, before shutting the door for a final time. This line was not in the script and was an obvious dig at those who doubted her ability to do the scene. However, it fitted in so well that it wasn’t reshot and can now be seen in the final cut.

Marilyn’s continued distrust of her director made her reliance on acting coach Paula Strasberg even more apparent, and completely alienated her from other actors on the set. Whenever Olivier cried ‘Cut’, Marilyn was ushered away to discuss the scene and to rest, and on one occasion, when the director was in mid-sentence, Marilyn turned to her drama coach to ask what he was talking about. At one point Olivier became so enraged by Strasberg that he had her removed from the set, but his satisfaction was short-lived when an enraged Marilyn stormed to her dressing room, refusing to return until Strasberg was reinstalled.

Writer Wolf Mankowitz remembered that he visited the set during a hiatus in shooting, which had been caused, ‘because the relationship between Olivier and Marilyn was very, very bad. He couldn’t stand her at all and found her acting – her way of setting about acting – and Mrs Strasberg’s presence, absolutely unbearable.’

Many of the actors who worked on
The Prince and the Showgirl
have passed away, but the few who remain remember the influence Paula Strasberg had on the set of the film. Strasberg was
witnessed telling Marilyn she was the greatest woman living, and that she was more popular than Jesus. Marilyn endured this kind of flattery, but the crew found it amusing if not a bit irritating, and as a result most of them didn’t attempt to befriend Marilyn, finding her inaccessible and remote.

Daphne Anderson, who played Fanny, remembered that she was often unable to speak to Marilyn because she was reserved and spent so much time with Strasberg; while Vera Day recalled there weren’t many amusing incidents on the set, as Marilyn was always surrounded by her group and kept strictly to herself. This sort of behaviour led many of the actors and crew to think of her as aloof, and it won her no points when it came to popularity.

But Paula Strasberg wasn’t the only person invading the set of
The Prince and the Showgirl:
Marilyn constantly telephoned Lee Strasberg (running up a bill that was still being discussed months after she’d gone home); Vivien Leigh popped in occasionally and even watched the rushes; and Arthur Miller visited on a regular basis, giving Marilyn a perfect excuse to stop everything and walk off set.

As happened on most film sets, Marilyn had difficulty remembering her lines, and her scenes often required many takes as it was discovered she never said a line the same way twice. One cast member commented that Laurence Olivier aged about fifteen years during the making of the film, and Marilyn’s continuing reliance on Paula Strasberg caused considerable irritation. All this soon gained Marilyn bad press among many of her colleagues: Jean Kent, who played Maisie Springfield, remembered that she was more concerned with the bust line of her dress than anything else, while Esmond Knight, who played Colonel Hoffman, described Marilyn as ‘an absolute cretin’, such was the level of his discord.

For the sake of everyone working on the film, Laurence Olivier ordered a closed set and banned all members of the press. Despite this, however, one eager fan dressed as a window cleaner and climbed on to the roof to try and catch a glimpse
of Marilyn in her dressing room. He failed, but several others succeeded, such as the
Daily Mail
reporter who bumped into her in the corridor. His colleague, Edwin Sampson, took the opportunity to snap the star and although his camera was quickly confiscated, it did lead Laurence Olivier to release two photographs in a bid to calm the reporters. It wasn’t enough though, and several months later, reporter Marcus Milne gatecrashed the studio and spent several hours pretending to be an extra before being removed by one of the third assistant directors.

The banning of the press both at home and at work just succeeded in making them even more determined to ‘dig the dirt’ and write whatever they could about Marilyn. When the Oliviers sent her a large bouquet of flowers, the press chastised her for not sending a thank you letter, but this particular rumour was unfair and untrue, as she certainly did write a note of thanks, which Olivier kept in his personal files until his death in 1989.

Still, few journalists were concerned with reporting on Marilyn’s grace and kindness and in August 1956 they were more concerned that the butler was the only person seen riding the bicycle presented to Marilyn at the Savoy press conference. When she was eventually spotted cycling, on 12 August, journalists were so pleased to see ‘that girl’ on ‘that bike’ that they failed to notice she was riding a completely different cycle to the one she’d been given by the press.

One person who spotted Marilyn on her bike was Gerald Searle, as he cycled home towards Egham one evening. As he arrived at the junction with Wick Lane, he was surprised to see the Millers turning on to the A30 road on their bicycles. Searle noticed that they were not accompanied by bodyguards or entourage, and both looked extremely happy together.

However, not everyone recalled Marilyn’s cycling outings with such warmth. Joyce Jackson was walking through Windsor Park with her husband, their three-year-old toddler and twelveyear-old nephew, when Marilyn and Arthur cycled up behind them. According to Mrs Jackson, her nephew was trailing a long
stick behind him, and this made Arthur Miller angry that his wife could somehow be knocked off her bicycle. Unconvinced, Mrs Jackson aired her concerns that the couple shouldn’t be riding in the park, to which Miller allegedly said, ‘But this is Marilyn Monroe, and I am her husband.’ The couple then went on their way, leaving Mrs Jackson very unimpressed with her ‘Marilyn encounter’.

Shooting continued until 22 August, when Marilyn was suddenly struck down with a mystery illness and was unable to work. Newspapers reported that she was suffering from a stomach illness and this led to rumours that she could be pregnant. The pregnancy rumour would not die down for the remainder of her stay, and indeed there is still discussion now as to whether or not she lost a baby whilst in England.

The idea of Marilyn miscarrying during the making of
The Prince and the Showgirl
seems unlikely. The actress was very open about subsequent miscarriages, and the official announcement of a lost baby would have won her a great deal of sympathy both on and off the set. But no official announcement ever came, and both Amy Greene and the daughter of the Strasbergs, Susan, denied any knowledge of her being pregnant. Arthur Miller rubbished all reports of a pregnancy at the time, made no mention of it in his autobiography and declined to comment when asked about it some fifty years later.

Furthermore, aside from the third assistant director, Colin Clark, no one on the set seems to have heard about any such pregnancy. There is no record or mention of a miscarriage in any of Olivier’s production files and the first Dolly Stiles, Marilyn’s housekeeper, heard of it was when she read Colin Clark’s book. It seems surprising that household staff wouldn’t have had at least some inkling of such an intense situation.