Marilyn Monroe, page 11
She was silent for a few moments, and then resumed where she had left off describing her brief friendship with Jane Russell. “In June 1953, not long after Blondes opened, we were invited to dip our hands and feet into the wet cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. I suggested that Jane imprint her boobs in the concrete, and said I’d do likewise with my ass, but the owners wouldn’t allow it. Some people have no sense of humor. Like you,” she added, delighted as always to be teasing me.
“Although we were close friends, our attitudes were very different. Jane, who is a deeply religious woman, tried to get me to join the Hollywood Christian Group, a gospel quartet and weekly Bible study group which met in her home. I went—once. I tried to introduce her to Freud, but,” Marilyn added wryly, “Freud lost. Also, Jane was a staunch Republican, while my sympathies are with the Democratic Party. The differences didn’t bother me, but just made our conversations more interesting, and if they bothered her, she never said so.
“What a true friend Jane was! She learned from Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder, my make-up artist, a secret I’d kept from most everyone—that I suffered from extreme stage fright, and that’s the reason I was always late for shoots and scenes. From then on, she called me each morning on her way to the set, and I was able to be on time. I never even told her that I agreed with Igor Stravinsky, who said, ‘Hurry? I never hurry. I have no time to hurry.’ Jane understood me, as no other friend ever has.
“After the film was finished, we stayed friends for a few years. Jane’s husband was Bob Waterfield, a UCLA All-American quarterback for the Cleveland Rams. After I married Joe—Joe DiMaggio, my second husband—the four of us often double-dated. This was in 1954, I think. Anyway, the men got along great. In fact, I think they would have been just as happy if Jane and I had dined at another restaurant. I suspect we’d have been happy, too.
“Then, you know how things happen, Doctor. We saw each other less and less, until now we only exchange Christmas cards. It’s too bad. I could use some fun in my life. Which reminds me, Doctor, sometimes I actually have fun here with you.”
“I’m pleased,” I answered.
“Me, too.”
APRIL 8, 1959
“Speaking of having fun,” she began, “as I did at the last session, I had quite a bit of it in September 1952, when I served as the grand marshal of the Miss America Parade in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I was the first woman in history to be appointed the event’s grand marshal. It was a promotional event arranged by Twentieth Century Fox to publicize my new film, Monkey Business.
“I loved riding on the boardwalk, standing up in one of those carriages pushed by a man, with my décolletage down to my you-know-what, waving to cheering crowds. Everybody stared at me all day long, but I thought they were looking at my grand marshal’s badge. I don’t know if they knew who I was, or just cheered anybody who happened to pass by.
“It didn’t really matter. I enjoyed it either way. I had to pose separately with each of the forty-eight pageant contestants. Whew! By the time I finished with the forty-eighth, Miss Alabama, who ended up winning, I was ready to pull a Greta Garbo and say, ‘I tink I go home now.’
“We had only one real problem—my backless and almost front-less black dress, in which I was photographed between four service women: a WAC, a WAVE, a WAF, and a lady Marine. A photographer took our photo from a balcony, where he could see all the way down to my navel. Unfortunately, the prissy United States government wouldn’t allow the photo to be published. Too bad! It was a great picture of my navel.
“It seems to me that the Johnston Office—you know, the enforcers of the Motion Picture Production Code—does an awful lot of worrying about whether a woman has cleavage or not. You’d think they would worry more if she didn’t have any. Maybe they’d like girls to look more like boys. Personally, I prefer looking like a girl.”
APRIL 10, 1959
“Did you ever see my film, Niagara, Doc?” she said at the beginning of her next session.
“No,I’m sorry,” I said. “I somehow missed that one.”
“That’s too bad. The tide really turned for me with the release of that film, along with How to Marry a Millionaire and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. They all came out the same year, you know.
“I’ll tell you a little about Niagara, because it was a defining moment in my life. Since then, the credits have always listed my name above the title, and most often in the top position. My work in the movie launched me to fifth place in 1953’s list of top ten box office stars.
“Niagara is a thriller-film noir, produced by Twentieth Century Fox, directed by Henry Hathaway, and starring Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, and me. Unlike other films noires of the time, Niagara was photographed in Technicolor, which showed off my blonde hair in a way black-and-white film never could. I’m happy to tell you that it became one of Fox’s biggest box office hits of the year. I was given first billing in Niagara, and the critics said I stole the show from my co-stars. If you’ll excuse my lack of humility, the film catapulted me to superstar status. One critic wrote that I wasn’t just a sex symbol, but the sex symbol, displaying a certain kind of sex appeal I’d originated and perfected. Now that’s the kind of criticism I like to hear!
“People said that when I walked in that film, I wiggled and wobbled. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I just walk to get places. I’ve never deliberately wiggled in my life, but people always say I
do it on purpose. I always ask what they mean. I first walked when I was ten months old and haven’t had a lesson since. I defy any girl to walk down a street made of cobblestone wearing high heels and not wiggle at least a little bit.
“Which reminds me of another phony claim people make about me. One catty actress—and I imagine you can guess who I’m referring to—announced to the press that wear falsies. I responded, ‘Those who know me better know better.’
“My Niagara reviews were superb. The New York Times wrote something like: ‘Seen from all angles, both the exquisite Falls and the equally stunning Marilyn Monroe leave nothing to be desired.’
“Here’s a little about the plot of Niagara, so you can see why I was good in it. George and Rose—me—have a troubled marriage. She’s younger than him and very attractive. He’s recently been discharged from an Army mental hospital, and is jealous, depressed, and irritable. As I’m sure you understand, I know exactly what it feels like to live with a man like that, so I was quite believable. In the film, I have to do something to preserve my own sanity, so naturally I take a lover. While touring the falls the next day, the camera catches me passionately kissing Patrick.
“That evening, sensing something’s in the air, George goes into a terrifying rage, which becomes, for my character, the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Patrick and I plan to murder George. The next day, I lure George into following me into the dark tourist tunnel underneath the falls.
“Patrick is there, against the awesome beauty of the falls, waiting to kill George and run off with me. There’s a bell tower nearby, and Patrick is supposed to request that the operator play a specific song to let me know that the murder has been successfully accomplished. The tune is played by chance, though, and I happily conclude that George is dead and I’m free to flee with my lover.
“But as often happens in life, things do not go as planned. George kills Patrick, instead of the other way around. He throws his body into the falls, and collects Patrick’s shoes at the exit instead of his own. This causes the police to believe that George is the victim. The body is retrieved and the police bring me in to identify what they tell my character is George’s body. When the cover is lifted from his face and I see Patrick instead of George, I faint and have to be admitted to a hospital.
“Thank goodness for ‘the Method,’ which I’d already begun to study with Michael Chekhov, or I’d not have been able to access my murderous feelings. I knew exactly how Rose felt, and what motivated her to kill her husband, because I’ve felt the same way many times. Maybe I can play Lady Macbeth after all!”
Freud, I recalled, had written that all of us should be capable of experiencing every emotion known to mankind, and so I admired the courage of this extraordinary woman who seemed to do just that.
APRIL 13, 1959
Marilyn came into our next session sounding most thoughtful. “Around the time of Niagara,” she said, “I had a very beautiful dream which I’ve never forgotten, although it feels dangerous to tell it to you. In it, I was lying on the grass in a lush green forest, looking up at a magnificent tree. Suddenly, the tree burst forth with multicolored blossoms, and each one turned into a vividly colored bird. I don’t know what the dream meant, but I know it made me very happy.”
“Why is it dangerous to tell it to me?”
“Because it’s tempting the fates! If I’m feeling happy, they’ll be jealous of me.”
“Oh no, Marilyn!” I said. “That is pure superstition. It is a wonderful dream! Your tree is the tree of life, blossoming with creativity in all the wonderful movies you made at the time. Each bird stands for another one of your films. You can allow yourself to be happy. Heaven knows, you deserve it.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said, sounding less than convinced. “Whenever anybody is jealous of me, they try to do me harm.”
APRIL 14, 1959
“There were no more blossoms or birds in 1953,” she went on during the next session. “You’d think the studio would have learned. Instead, I was tossed into another dumb blonde film, How to Marry a Millionaire, to capitalize on the terrific success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The plot, if you can call it that, concerned three beautiful models who rent an expensive New York apartment as part of a plan designed to find each of them a millionaire husband.
“The movie was just so stupid! I played a half-blind dumb blonde who’s too vain to wear glasses and is always bumping into furniture and doors and knocking things over. I’ll never understand why anyone thinks having impaired vision is a joke. The writers should try it for a while and see if they think it’s funny. Maybe in grammar school I would have laughed at it, but now I just think it’s sad.
“I’m not a feminist, but I do object to the film’s philosophy that the only way for women to get money is to marry it. Why didn’t the three women just work to be successful at a job, as you and I do? In any event, most of us know there isn’t much of a market for beautiful young women seeking rich husbands. Rich men pick rich women as mates. Now, why doesn’t somebody write a movie built around that fact? I wouldn’t mind playing a role in such a film. But in this ignorant environment of ours, with its lack of interest in culture, probably nobody would go to see it.
“I originally objected to my casting because I’m as vain as that character and didn’t want to wear glasses either. I really wanted to play Betty Grable’s role of Loco Dempsey, but Jean Negulesco, the director, convinced me that the part of Pola was better-suited to me. Much as I hate to admit it, he turned out to be right, and the film was a smash hit. Nevertheless, I’m sick to the gills of playing dumb blondes, and have to do something soon to play more serious roles, or I’ll end up joining my mother.
“Incidentally, I thought Lauren Bacall was wonderful in Millionaire as the wise-cracking Schatze Page, and it was a pleasure to work with a real, trained actress—she was then a student of the Actors Studio.
“But for the life of me, although I personally like Betty Grable very much, I cannot understand how she became so great a star. I thought she was stiff and completely charmless in the movie, and not a bit sexy. In my perhaps biased opinion, she isn’t even beautiful, although she does have a great figure. Maybe you have to be a man to appreciate her appeal. Or maybe it’s just that she’s getting old. I better take better care of myself, or I’ll find myself in her shoes soon. After all,I’m thirty-three years old, and Betty is only ten years older! I just might have to kill myself first.”
My ears perked up. I hoped she was joking. But as Chaucer first said in “The Monk’s Tale,” “Many a true word is spoken in jest.”
Marilyn continued, “On the other hand, I remember what Lee Strasberg always says, that the actor’s art grows richer with age, not less. That puts a whole other face on aging, doesn’t it?”
Marilyn returned to her discussion of How to Marry a Millionaire. “There’s something else I detest about that movie. I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve always supported myself and have never been a ‘kept woman,’ although I’ve had many offers that would’ve given me a far larger bank account than the one I have now. I’m told that I’m a role model for many women all over the world. I don’t relish the idea of being a role model for dependent women. You work, too, Doctor, so you must agree with me.”
“Indeed I do, Marilyn. I suspect that you and I are women ahead of our times.”
APRIL 15, 1959
“In the summer of 1953,” she began at her next session with me, “I arrived at Jasper in the Canadian Rockies. Have you ever heard of Jasper? I hadn’t either, and hope I never do again. I was deeply resentful at being shipped off to such a distant location to play in a western. A western! Me, Marilyn Monroe? Who were they kidding? I’m no more a woman of the west than the queen of Romania. We were to film River of No Return, with Robert Mitchum, who played the roughneck lover to my saloon singer.
“They say life is stranger than fiction, and here’s perfect proof that the old adage is true. Would you believe that Mitchum had been an old friend of my first husband, WhatsHisName, and that we saw each other all the time way back when I was seventeen years old and he and Jim worked together on a factory line before World War II?
“When we first met on location, we stood and looked at each other, and we both said at the exact same moment, ‘You? You?’ I said, ‘I had no idea you would be that Robert Mitchum!’ Then we threw our arms around each other and sobbed. We cried for our lost youth and for our continuing belief it was possible to live happily ever after. But mostly we sobbed because we were thrilled to see each other again. He reintroduced me to his hard-drinking, boisterous self, and brought me out of myself for a time.
“In bygone days, he had teased me about my intellectual pretensions. Turned out he hadn’t changed much. One story he told the stage hands on location was that I was reading a psychology book at the age of seventeen and innocently asked him, ‘What is anal eroticism, Bob?’ I prefer not to remember his answer.
“Once, I refused to read a line in the soft-slurred way Otto Preminger, the director, insisted on, preferring to enunciate it clearly á la Natasha Lytess’s instructions. Bob slapped me on the rear end and said, ‘Stop that nonsense! Play it like a human being!’ So, Natasha notwithstanding, I did.
“I’ll always remember River of No Return, not for its artistry, but because I want to make sure I never return there. That’s a pun, Doc! You know, a pun on the word ‘return.’ How come you aren’t laughing? OK, don’t laugh. I’ll tell my joke to someone with a sense of humor!
“Anyway, I barely escaped with my life. There were terrifying scenes on a raft ricocheting down the raging river that Preminger insisted be shot with the actual actors—us!—and not stuntmen. I had a number of very real accidents which I’ve been accused of faking, but believe me, I didn’t.
“The worst one was when I slipped into the stormy river while wearing high waders. My boots filled with water and dragged me down under. As I drew what I was sure would be my last breath, they hauled me out of the river with ropes pulled by Mitchum and some crew members. I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. I thought I’d just as soon stay under the swirling, deadly, white water of the river as climb back onto that decrepit old raft, only to be tossed back later into the treacherous river rapids. Newspaper headlines all over the world screamed, ‘Marilyn Monroe Nearly Drowns.’ They weren’t kidding!
“Another time, Bob and I were out on that corroded old raft when it got stuck on a rock. The raft wobbled from side to side for over an hour, nearly tipping over each time a gargantuan new wave hit it, terrifying and drenching us until finally a crew member found a lifeboat and rescued us. Dripping wet, with chattering teeth, out of sorts, and out of breath, I considered getting a job as a supermarket clerk.
“You think that was all? Well, it wasn’t. The worst was yet to come. I slipped on a rock and broke my ankle, again causing worldwide headlines, ‘Marilyn Monroe Hurts Leg in Canada.’ Next morning, a posse of private doctors arrived by plane and x-rayed my leg. I was fitted with a plaster cast and had to walk on crutches for several weeks, causing expensive delays in the shooting. The film overran its budget so much that Mitchum, a man after my own heart, called it ‘The Picture of No Return.’
“Did I like anything about the movie? Well, yes. I liked some of the songs I sang, like ‘River of No Return,’ and I thought I did some of my best singing ever. I liked the blue jeans I wore. I’d bought the tightest ones I could find in the Army and Navy store, and wore them into the Pacific Ocean until they dried to the point where they seemed molded onto me. I never had a pair of jeans I liked as much, and held it against the producers that I wore them out while making the film. They owe me! I enjoyed seeing Bob Mitchum again and working with him. He was great fun to be with. I can hear you wondering if there was anything else I liked about the movie, Doc. Not much, I must say. I wouldn’t go down the river on that raft again for all the opium in China.
“Shortly after that, Twentieth Century Fox decided to produce The Egyptian. I fancied myself playing the glorious, bejeweled Queen Cleopatra floating down the Nile, and asked the studio to cast me in it. Fox responded by optioning Elizabeth Taylor for the role and instead giving me the lead in The Girl in Pink Tights. The so-called plot of that great work of art revolves around a schoolteacher who becomes a saloon dancer.
“I was outraged. I asked to at least be allowed to read the script of the Pink Tights before agreeing to do the film. Darryl Zanuck, then the production head, flat-out refused. He said I was under contract to Twentieth Century Fox and therefore had to do whatever I was told. I don’t take well to being ordered around, especially when I don’t like the order. So I didn’t show up for the first day of shooting and simply disappeared. Fox responded by suspending me and my salary.
