The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story (26 page)

It had been a truly frantic week. But this was nothing compared to the calamitous events which were set to unfold on Monday 23 April, when shooting of Marilyn Monroe’s latest movie was finally set to roll . . .

Chapter Six

Something’s Got To Give
(part one)

Monday 23 April 1962–Saturday 19 May 1962

O
n Monday 23 April 1962, following five months of setbacks, work on Marilyn Monroe’s new movie, her first since
The Misfits
15 months before, was finally set to begin. It was shortly before 7am and 104 extremely eager Fox technicians and stagehands were busily preparing themselves for the start of shooting. Lights were in place and the CinemaScope cameras were in position to capture the first scenes. Sound Stage 14 was a hive of activity and excitement impregnated the air. The film’s leading man, Dean Martin, fresh from make-up, was already on the set, as were the movie’s director, George Cukor, and producer Henry T. Weinstein. Everyone was geared up and raring to go – everybody that is apart from the film’s leading lady, the great Marilyn Monroe.

As the minutes sluggishly ticked by, Cukor began pacing around the expansive staging, Weinstein sauntered around the set’s swimming pool, looking ready to throw himself in, and Martin sat motionless in his chair, deliberating whether he should rehearse his lines or practise his golf swing. The film’s current scriptwriter, Walter Bernstein, arrived on the set just after 9am. Noticing Monroe’s absence and the distinct lack of activity, he approached the movie’s assistant director, Buck Hall, and was immediately informed the movie’s leading lady would not be coming. ‘She’s sick,’ Hall announced incredulously. ‘She caught a cold from Lee Strasberg.’

Although Weinstein had already subconsciously prepared himself for the inevitable – after all, colds and flu had brought about severe delays on many of Marilyn’s previous films – he was still taken aback by the actress’s
no-show; not by what had happened but by how it was done. ‘I didn’t sleep all weekend,’ the fatigued producer remarked to Hall. ‘I was on the phone with her [until] two, three, four in the morning [reassuring her about the movie]. My wife is ready to divorce me. I asked her where her analyst [Dr Greenson] was and she told me he was preparing to go to Europe and it’s not even August!’

Following Monroe’s call late on Saturday evening, Weinstein dispatched Fox’s staff physician, Lee Siegel, the so-called ‘doctor to the stars’, over to her home to ascertain the severity of her illness. Since he had been treating her for over six years now, he was conversant with the actress and her ailments. ‘Marilyn throws so much of herself into her work,’ he once remarked to Hollywood columnist Mike Connolly, ‘it’s lucky we’re able to salvage her at all.’

That night, the doctor found Marilyn to be suffering from laryngitis and headaches, which in turn had precipitated blurred vision. His diagnosis should have postponed the movie for a month, but because of her past history of successfully feigning sickness, studio executives instantly began questioning Siegel’s analysis. Nevertheless, he was adamant: the actress
was
ill. His joy in the role as Monroe’s doctor diminished when he learnt that studio executives were intending to force her on to the set whether she was healthy or not. In an interview with show business writer Maurice Zolotow, Siegel remarked, ‘They were only interested in finishing that film, and in finishing it quickly. Their attitude seemed to be, “Let Marilyn collapse after we finish.” They were aware it was her last film for them in any case.’

Monroe’s call to say she was unable to start shooting came in shortly before 7.30am. She partly reiterated Siegel’s prognosis by announcing she was indeed suffering from a sore throat and a severe sinus infection. But to George Cukor, after working with her on
Let’s Make Love
, this scenario was all too familiar. So, just as he had on their previous film together, he decided to reorganise his filming schedules and press ahead with shooting anyway. He announced firmly that he intended to shoot scenes
around
his leading lady.

Shortly after receiving Monroe’s call, Weinstein phoned actress Cyd Charisse at her home and requested she come to the studio post-haste. She agreed and, just four hours later, the very first scenes of
Something’s Got To Give
were captured on celluloid. The sequence involved Dean Martin’s character, Nick, and Bianca, played by Charisse, returning to his house after their honeymoon and encountering his two young children, played by Alexandra Heilweil and Robert Christopher Morley, as they assembled a tree house in their back yard.

Unfortunately, one day later, Tuesday 24 April, Cukor was once more
forced to rearrange his plans when Marilyn again reported in sick. Her time away from the set forced her to miss a visit to Fox by the Shah of Iran and his wife, Empress Farah Pahlavi, who were two weeks into their goodwill tour of the United States. The original plan had been to drop in on Stage 14 and watch Marilyn at work. She was, after all, the one star the dignitaries had expressed a real desire to meet. However, she was refusing to budge from her home. That morning, during the first of many visits that week by Weinstein to the actress’s abode, he informed her of the royal visit and suggested she come to the studio to meet the Shah and his wife. He reeled back in shock when she replied, ‘I don’t know whether I can. I don’t know what his relationship with Israel is.’

In a desperate attempt to learn, Weinstein hastily placed a call to a Hollywood synagogue and put Marilyn on the phone to Rabbi Max Nusbaum, the so-called ‘Rabbi to the stars’. He reassured her that Israel
did
have a good relationship with the Shah and it would be a very good idea indeed if she turned up on the set to exchange pleasantries with him and his wife. Unfortunately, his opinion failed to change Marilyn’s mind and she decided to remain cooped up in her home. Weinstein later admitted that Monroe’s belief that the Shah of Iran was ‘anti-Israel’ was just a lame excuse; he thought the real reason why she wouldn’t meet the dignitaries was because, compared to Empress Farah Pahlavi, she felt she wasn’t pretty enough.

In a last-ditch attempt to compensate for the non-appearance, Levathes decided to chaperone his guests over to the vast Sound Stage 14. Once inside, he stopped, pointed down at the set’s large, completely empty swimming pool and excitedly declared, ‘Marilyn Monroe swims nude by moonlight in one scene here.’ His grand announcement was met by a stony silence. The Shah and the Empress wanted to see the actress in person, not view a large hollow abyss where she was due to dip sometime in the future. With an icy awkwardness infusing the air, the Shah moved quickly to break the embarrassment by enquiring how the lighting technicians intended to recreate moonlight in the scene. Shortly after, the Shah and his wife bid their farewells and drove out of the studio to resume their goodwill tour. Thankfully, the unease soon passed. Fox executives had another worry on their mind: Marilyn Monroe.

The pattern of her calling in sick continued throughout the week. Bulletins on the actress’s current condition were issued daily. Tuesday’s optimistically (and perhaps sarcastically) read: ‘Marilyn’s fever is slowly sinking. It is now below 100 degrees.’ The very latest information was relayed to the Fox executives and those employed on the movie by Weinstein, who throughout that week regularly made phone calls to the
actress and scurried between the studio and the patient’s sick-bed. On each visit to Marilyn’s home he was bombarded with questions, most of which were focused on her female co-star and beauty rival in the film, Cyd Charisse. Best known for her spectacular dancing in classic MGM musicals such as
Singing in the Rain
(1952), Charisse was almost five years older than her co-star. But her impeccable beauty and unimpeachable, perfectly toned body made her look years younger, and Marilyn knew it.

Even though Monroe was away from the set, lying motionless on her bed under a thin covering of blankets, she still managed to keep up to date with matters regarding
Something’s Got To Give
. ‘I got a call from Marilyn and she said Cyd was padding her breasts,’ Weinstein recalled for Fox in 2001. ‘I said, “Marilyn, you haven’t been on the set. How would you know?” She replied, “I have people watching.” I said, “Well, how can she? She’s wearing this negligee. It’s a little negligee. You can’t do it.” She replied, “You don’t know anything.” And I said, “Well, if you think I’m gonna tell Miss Charisse to stop doing this, you’re mistaken.”’ Marilyn then informed him she was going to pad her breasts too and warned him that he would have redo all of her costumes. To this, Weinstein screamed, ‘You’re not going to pad your dresses. That would be
criminal
.’

In another conversation, Monroe wanted to know the exact colour of Cyd’s hair. As Weinstein announced in an earlier interview, this time from 1972, ‘She was convinced that Miss Charisse wanted to be a blonde like her.’ He assured her that Cyd was wearing her hair in its natural colour, which was light brown. Unfortunately his assurances fell on deaf ears. ‘Her
unconscious
wants it blonde,’ the clearly jealous and paranoiac actress retorted.

Later that day, once back on the
Something’s Got To Give
set and following strict instructions from Monroe, Weinstein clandestinely checked Charisse’s hair for any tell-tale glints of blonde and, just to be sure, had her light brown hair darkened a shade or two. (Close examination of the surviving footage reveals that Cyd’s hair does indeed enigmatically turn darker midway through the shooting. In addition, to avert any possible further troubles, Weinstein also ordered the hair of the actress, Eloise Hart, who was playing a secretary in the film, to be blackened.)

The producer’s travels between Marilyn’s home and the Fox lot concluded for the time being on Friday 27 April. Three days later, on Monday 30 April, a week after shooting had started, Marilyn finally managed to make it to the studio. She was picked up from her Fifth Helena home by a chauffeur-driven black limousine funded by Fox and arranged by Henry Weinstein. At the wheel of the vehicle was Rudy Karensky. Clutching a wicker basket containing toast, hard-boiled eggs and a grilled steak for lunch, prepared by Murray just minutes before her
departure, Marilyn uncharacteristically arrived for her 6.30am make-up call 25 minutes early. But this punctuality did not prevent her from failing to appear on the set until 11.20am.

Keeping a close eye on developments was director Billy Wilder, who wasted no time in cracking jokes about the scenario. ‘It gets worse and worse,’ he said. ‘It used to be you’d call her at 9am and she’d show at 12 noon. Now you call her in May and she shows in October.’ He didn’t stop there. In another remark, he quipped, ‘I would like to do another movie with Miss Monroe, particularly in Paris because, while we were waiting for her to show up on the set, we could all learn how to paint.’

Once again, Monroe’s fear of cameras had kicked in and she remained holed up in her poky, freshly painted dressing room until she had plucked up enough courage to venture out. The bouffant blonde Hollywood actress Dorothy Provine explained, ‘Marilyn’s hairdresser once told me she was
never
once late for make-up. But because of some insecurity, she couldn’t make it out to the set. She was just frightened.’ Billy Wilder concurred, saying Monroe did indeed possess a fear of the camera. Behind the closed door of her dressing room, Marilyn would sit and repeatedly postpone the dreaded moment until she would have to face the director and cameras.

Other excuses were also forthcoming. ‘She sits at the dressing table nude, fascinated by her own beauty. She can’t bring herself to get dressed,’ explicated one former press aide. It wasn’t just in front of her dressing-room mirror that Monroe would encounter this problem. It was in front of
every
mirror. In a 1968 interview for the BBC, Arthur Miller explained, ‘Due to her upbringing, she felt self-display, beauty itself was evil. Because she was so attractive and beautiful, she felt guilty looking in the mirror.’ ‘When she goes into the powder room to wash her hands,’ one former press agent complained at the time, ‘I have to send someone in to hand her out. She’s just standing there, before the mirror, transfixed, as though trying to believe the beautiful dame staring back at her is really Marilyn Monroe.’

A graphic example of how insecure Monroe was on a film set had occurred during the shooting of
Let’s Make Love
two years earlier. In the scene where she, as a chorus girl, sits to one side and carries out homework for the courses she is taking in high school, she makes notations in a composition book. After the scene had been shot to Cukor’s satisfaction, Marilyn headed back to her dressing room, inadvertently leaving the pad behind. One of the cast members noticed this and glanced at the notes she had been making, all of which were addressed to herself. They read, ‘What am I afraid of? Why am I so afraid? Do I think I can’t act? I know I can act, but I am afraid. I am afraid and I should not be and I must not be.’ The
actor refused to read any more, declaring, ‘It made her seem even more naked than she did on those calendars she once posed for.’

‘I am nervous before a scene,’ Monroe admitted in 1961, ‘and I’d rather slight the people back screen than the audience who come to the theatre to see me. I’m not abnormally nervous. I want to do the best I can do and I have a lot of responsibility, so sometimes it makes me nervous. Louis Calhern told me in
The Asphalt Jungle
, “Being nervous is part of being an actor or an actress; never be ashamed of it.”’

Monroe, however, did agree to let photographers record her grand return to the set of
Something’s Got To Give
that morning. The sight of Cukor greeting her with a kiss on her cheek was among the many pictures taken. She worked for the rest of the day, shooting the scene where her character, Ellen, returns home and emotes silently at seeing her two young children for the first time in five years. Highly sensitive to facial features, Cukor insisted on filming the actress with her mouth slightly ajar since, in his opinion, she seemed ‘a bit less determined that way’.