Marilyn Monroe (46 page)

April had the beginnings of a busy month. On 6 April Marilyn heard news of someone who had meant so much to her years before – Milton Greene. She received a telegram from Kathleen Casey, the editor-in-chief of
Glamour
magazine, asking her to join other famous women and the famous hairdresser, Kenneth, for a portrait Greene was taking on 13 April. Although she could probably have gone if she wanted to, she asked Pat Newcomb to send her regrets, and busied herself with other things, such as giving her consent on 9 April to become a Founder Member of the Hollywood Museum, sending her (tax-deductible) fee of $1,000.

On 10 April she attended costume tests at Fox, then on the morning of 11 April Marilyn spoke with photographer Bert Stern about a session he wished to shoot for
Vogue.
She was delighted with his ideas for the shoot. She gave her suggestions as to which designers they should use, and then told him she’d be happy to dedicate an entire weekend to give him ‘all the time
you need’. There were also plans afoot to film a Christmas Seal charity trailer, which Newcomb thought to be an important public service for Marilyn to take part in, and on 11 April urged Henry Weinstein to film it whenever possible.

Everything appeared to be looking up, but Henry Weinstein remembered a disturbing event on one particular day, when Marilyn was due to attend a production meeting with him. When she didn’t show up, he was worried enough to go to Fifth Helena Drive, where he claims to have discovered an unconscious Monroe, almost naked and sprawled across the bed. She had apparently taken an overdose, but Weinstein had arrived just in time, summoning Dr Greenson and Dr Engelberg for help. Both doctors had long-since been concerned with Marilyn’s sudden mood swings and her habit of mixing sleeping pills with champagne, to the extent that Engelberg had kept a key to Doheny Drive and both had access to keys at Fifth Helena. When Weinstein returned to Fox that day, he begged executives to postpone the production of
Something’s Got to Give.
They refused.

Picking herself up once again, Marilyn headed to New York where she studied with the Strasbergs and saw friends. Unfortunately, she also caught a cold and by 19 April, when she returned to Los Angeles with Paula in tow, she was in the grips of a bad case of sinusitis, which quickly turned into a bronchial infection.

On 23 April, the first official day of shooting, Marilyn did not show up and the schedule was quickly rearranged to shoot scenes between Dean Martin, Cyd Charisse and the child actors. They worked around her for a full week, until finally on 30 April Marilyn arrived on set, where she was greeted by a friendly telegram from Arthur P. Jacobs, wishing her luck for her new movie and signing it with love and kisses, ‘The Right Arthur’.

Despite running a 101°C temperature due to her persistent sinusitis, Marilyn worked a full day, shooting a scene in which she reacts to seeing her children for the first time in five years.
The next day, 1 May, she arrived once again with a temperature, only this time the studio physician Lee Seigel examined her, decided it was extremely unwise to expose the children to her contagious virus infection, and sent her home.

Taking to bed on the advice of Dr Seigel, Marilyn was absent for the rest of the week, while shooting continued at Fox, up to the point where executives declared that no more could be done without her cooperation. Adding to her problems was the re-emergence of old teacher Natasha Lytess, who had been found by
France-Dimanche
magazine, and had been paid $10,000 for her cooperation with a tell-all story. Some of the memories she shared with the magazine were so intimate they could not be published, but although the Arthur P. Jacobs agency offered to buy the article from them, the publishers refused, convinced that they could make at least $200,000 if they ever decided to publish.

However, for now Natasha Lytess was the least of Marilyn’s worries. At the beginning of production, Marilyn had received permission to travel to New York to perform at President Kennedy’s birthday party on the 19 May. She was committed to the appearance, having been specially invited to perform, and in May (while she was absent from the set), newspapers reported that she was ‘knocking herself out’ to rehearse for her performance.

On 11 May Fox’s Peter Levathes spoke to lawyer Milton Rudin to inform him that he would not consent to Marilyn attending the celebration, since they were now so far behind schedule. However, when she returned to the set on 14 May, Marilyn either did not know of this withdrawn consent or did not care. Either way, on 17 May she left Los Angeles for New York, telling reporters, ‘I told the studio six weeks ago that I was going. I consider it an honour to appear before the President of the United States.’

Pat Newcomb threw in her two cents’ worth by saying, ‘It was a democratic fundraising affair and she didn’t want to break her promise to such an important organization.’ Back on the set, no
one could believe she had gone: ‘It was like the roof caving in. It was awful,’ remembered Evelyn Moriarty.

Rumours of an affair between Marilyn and both Jack and Robert Kennedy have been rife since the 1960s. The general feeling is that she was romanced by Jack, then later passed along to Bobby when the President had become bored. There is no concrete evidence to prove or disprove these rumours, but she certainly met them both on several occasions, including at a party at the home of Peter Lawford and his wife, Patricia Kennedy, in October 1961, when she bombarded Patricia’s brother, Bobby, the Attorney General, with questions supplied by Daniel Greenson. Then Whitey Snyder drove Marilyn to the Lawfords’ home in February 1962, where there was a party held for President Kennedy, while Ralph Roberts was said to have received a call from her on 24 March 1962 as she was spending time with the President at the home of Bing Crosby.

Meanwhile, Vanessa Steinberg, daughter of Marilyn’s gynaecologist Oscar Steinberg, remembered her father sharing thoughts on the Kennedy relationship with her: ‘By the time my father saw Marilyn at Cedars hospital in Los Angeles
[c
.1961] she was well and truly having an affair with Robert Kennedy. According to him it was Bobby Kennedy whom she was madly in love with and she had no intention of returning to a relationship with DiMaggio.’ Interestingly, Steinberg also told his daughter that Marilyn had fallen for Kennedy whilst she was still with Miller.

Press representative Michael Selsman firmly believes she was having an affair with both Kennedy brothers at different times: ‘Of course she was and everyone knew it, but in those days, the press had a different relationship with celebs, both in showbiz and in politics. I usually gave reporters inside stuff on other clients to assuage their desire to publish something about Marilyn and the Kennedys.’

In the 1980s Eunice Murray affirmed that both brothers were important in Marilyn’s life, and certainly we know that she was
friends with Patricia Kennedy and Peter Lawford. But as for a romance, some people are doubtful. Certainly a friend of Bobby Kennedy’s later told reporters that there was not even the faintest romantic interest on either side, and that the relationship only consisted of Bobby providing a friendly ear for Marilyn’s numerous problems. Not everyone in Marilyn’s circle trusted the rumours either: ‘I never believed 90 per cent of what was written about the involvement with the Kennedys,’ remarked Whitey Snyder some thirty years later.

Regardless of that, Marilyn certainly caused a stir at President Kennedy’s birthday party, when she arrived with her ex-father-in-law Isidore Miller. Wearing a skin-tight, sparkling dress which was designed to make her look nude, Marilyn shimmered her way on to the stage, after being introduced by Peter Lawford as ‘The late Marilyn Monroe’, the running joke of the evening being that Marilyn was never on time. She stood for a moment, looking around her, before breathily reciting ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’, and a reworking of ‘Thanks for the Memory’.

In Nevada, old flame Bill Pursel was watching: ‘I saw this performance on TV and just shook my head in disgust. I don’t think I’m a prude, far from it actually . . . But there’s something about this type of public exhibition which lowers the respect for femininity. What in hell was she trying to prove?’

Marilyn was extremely nervous on the evening of the party, and certainly the grainy footage seems to show her a little ‘tipsy’, but she got through it all okay; prompting John F. Kennedy to announce: ‘I can now retire from politics after having had Happy Birthday sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.’

When Marilyn returned to Los Angeles, she spoke with reporters about her experience at Madison Square Garden: ‘I liked it. I like celebrating birthdays. I enjoy knowing that I’m alive; and you can underline alive.’ However, she was sad that she had lost a good luck charm – a pawn from her chess set – and felt extremely fatigued, which once again affected her work on the film, preventing close-ups and forcing filters to be used to hide her exhaustion.

On 22 May Marilyn refused to work with Dean Martin as he had a slight cold and she was afraid of catching it, but on the next day everyone’s spirits were raised when she filmed a nude swim scene, which was the first ever by a major American actress. Suffering from earache, Marilyn did not take the scene lightly: she banned most people from the set and demanded that Whitey Snyder look through the lens to make sure it was not too risqué. She was happy with the results, though, and delighted that the photos would ‘knock Liz Taylor off the front pages’.

That weekend Henry Weinstein tried to contact her to no avail and on Monday she phoned in sick. When she turned up on Tuesday, 29 May she was unfocused and repeatedly forgot her lines. On the morning of 1 June, Marilyn’s thirty-sixth birthday, Evelyn Moriarty went to Farmer’s Market to pick up her birthday cake. Arriving back on set, she was shocked to be told that under no circumstances must she bring it on to the set until 5.30 p.m. ‘She’s got to do a full day’s work first,’ she was told.

By the end of the day, the sparkle-decorated cake was wheeled out, along with a personalized ‘Happy Birthday (suit)’ card, which everyone had signed. Marilyn loved the gesture and stayed for a while to enjoy a small celebration, before heading to Dodger Stadium to attend a charity baseball game. For once all seemed to be well, but again it was a misapprehension; on 2 June, the Greenson children were shocked to find Marilyn depressed and inconsolable at her home in Brentwood, so much so that they called Dr Leon Uhley who was standing in for their father while he was holidaying in Europe. Uhley was so shocked to see Marilyn in such a state that he promptly confiscated her pills. Then by Monday she was unable to work once again, reportedly causing everyone on the set to ‘tear our hair out’.

By this time it became apparent that Marilyn was in a terrible state, and as a result, Dr Greenson was forced to leave his wife in Rome and return to Los Angeles. He arrived at Marilyn’s house to find her heavily drugged but feeling much better, and immediately went into a meeting with Fox executives, assuring them that he could get her back on to the set, and declaring that
although he did not want his relationship to be described as a Svengali one, he could persuade her to do ‘anything reasonable’ that he wanted. But unfortunately for both Marilyn and Greenson, Fox had had enough. Feeling the stresses and strains of delays on the set of Elizabeth Taylor’s film,
Cleopatra
, they just could not believe that Marilyn would complete the film without incident, and on 8 June, announced that she had been fired.

Almost straight away Fox took out a $500,000 lawsuit against their star, citing Marilyn’s failure and refusal to perform in
Something’s Got to Give
, and she even found herself lumbered with an invoice for $5,000 from the production photographer Don Ornitz, a situation that infuriated Pat Newcomb so much that she called in Marilyn’s lawyer, Milton Rudin. Meanwhile, people started to blame her for the loss of 104 jobs. ‘In my opinion, Marilyn cannot face reality,’ commented one crew member, while an extra was quick to tell the press that she took hours to get to the set, stumbled on her lines, then had lunch in her dressing room. Marilyn tried to counteract this backlash with telegrams hand-delivered to cast and crew on 11 June. In each one she explained that what happened was not her fault and that she had so looked forward to working on the picture.

She also confided to staff at the Arthur P. Jacobs Agency that she believed the studio was in a panic, choosing to blame her because it had overextended itself on
Cleopatra
, and pointing out that there were still scenes to be shot that didn’t involve her, and which had not even been written yet. In short, Marilyn was angry and for good reason; she had worked at the studio for sixteen years, was by far their biggest player and yet she had still been fired. ‘Remember, you’re not a star,’ they had told her in 1952, a philosophy still adhered to by various executives in the summer of 1962.

Marilyn’s representatives were keen to get the film back on track just as soon as possible, with 23 July being put forward as a possible start-date. They informed Fox of their wishes, and the studio replied with a stern letter, stating that if the film were
to go back into production on that date, there would have to be a number of strict rules in place: there would be no consultation or approval over co-stars, other players, director, script, number of takes, photos, crew (including make-up, hairdresser or wardrobe); Marilyn would have to arrive at the studio on time and take lunch breaks only at times specified by Fox; Paula Strasberg would not be allowed on set and neither would her PR representatives, agents or associates of her lawyer. In short, Marilyn was to have no control over any aspect of the film but in return, Fox would drop their lawsuit against her.

This letter did nothing for relations between studio and star, but fortunately for Marilyn, she still had her allies on set, with one player declaring that he could not feel bitter towards her: ‘I can’t forget the sadness I saw in her eyes.’ Dean Martin also proved to be a true friend, when Fox told him they were replacing Marilyn with Lee Remick; he shook his head, handed in his resignation, and walked off set, much to Marilyn’s delight.