Marilyn Monroe (26 page)

The
Los Angeles Times
ran a humorous story with the headline “New Marilyn Same as the Old—and That’s Plenty.” At Twentieth,
Zanuck was no less upset than Marilyn, though for very different reasons. This was the first he had heard of Marilyn’s plan to form her own corporation. Though neither she nor Greene could have known it, they had selected the worst possible time to try to break her contract. Zanuck was quietly engaged in a tense, bitter, emotionally-charged conflict with Elia Kazan over virtually the same issue. As chance would have it, both Marilyn and Kazan had opened fire on Twentieth in the very same week in December, 1954. Hardly had Twentieth received word that Marilyn’s studio contract was “abandoned and terminated,” when Zanuck read Kazan’s letter of December 16 asking to be let out of his own six-picture deal.

Zanuck admitted to being bowled over. He regarded Kazan not just as a business associate but a close friend. In Zanuck’s view, Kazan’s actions were capricious, and the letter was little better than a betrayal. On December 22, in a long letter by turns passionate and cold, Zanuck urged Kazan to reconsider. He insisted they were both men of character; otherwise, said Zanuck, they wouldn’t be friends. He recalled all he had done to persuade his board to offer Kazan the largest salary Twentieth had ever paid a director.

Zanuck specifically compared Kazan to Marilyn. He could no more call off Kazan’s contract than he could hers. That Marilyn might have a better offer did not alter the fact that she already had a long-term commitment. Zanuck, citing his own responsibilities to stockholders, made it clear that he had no intention of allowing either Marilyn Monroe or Elia Kazan to walk away.

By January 1955, Kazan at least seemed to accept that he still had a contract with Twentieth. He said so in a letter, quickly adding that he wasn’t happy about it. Zanuck saw that from this point on the negotiations would be delicate, and pleaded with Skouras to steer clear. Accustomed to speaking his mind, Zanuck tried to be diplomatic. He mustn’t insult or offend Kazan. He proceeded gingerly.

It did not come naturally to Zanuck to check himself. Once before, when Marilyn had challenged his authority, Zanuck had threatened to “assassinate” her in the press. He had declared himself ready to “destroy an asset” if that was what it took to punish her. Marilyn’s press conference came in the middle of Zanuck’s ticklish negotiations with Kazan. His pent-up rage instantly found an outlet. He went berserk.

Marilyn had no idea what action Zanuck would take, when she and the Greenes flew to Los Angeles the day before she was due back at Twentieth. But she knew he would be furious with her. She spent Sunday night at her apartment and arrived on the studio lot at 10 a.m. without having looked at Monday’s papers. Greene rode shotgun. Yet at first, it appeared that she did not need a protector. To Marilyn’s relief, her fears seemed to have been groundless. Everyone was cordial. There was no sign of Zanuck. After a pleasant interview with the columnist Dick Williams, she reported to Billy Wilder to do retakes for a single scene.

Most people that day avoided mention of the events of the past few weeks. After Wilder finished shooting, however, Roy Craft of the publicity department approached Marilyn on the sound stage. Asked about her remarks at the press conference, Marilyn denied having said that she had severed her connections with Twentieth.

She was told to return the next day to complete some advertising artwork in the portrait gallery. That was fine with Greene, as it had to do with
The Seven Year Itch.
Another request dismayed him, however. Marilyn was asked to report for a costume fitting for
How to Be Very, Very Popular.
Nunnally Johnson, hoping to repeat the success of
How to Marry a Millionaire
, had written the script as a vehicle for Marilyn; he also planned to produce. Marilyn liked Johnson and was inclined to listen to what he had to say. But to report as ordered would undermine Delaney’s argument that her commitment to Twentieth ended with
The Seven Year Itch.

Marilyn left the studio lot in a terrific mood, exceedingly pleased with the way the day had gone. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so difficult after all. On her way home, she saw the Los Angeles papers. Over the weekend, Twentieth had contacted them all. In forty-eight hours, the light-hearted laughter had turned to ugly derision.

“Marilyn Monroe is a stupid girl and is being fed some stupid advice,” declared the “Trade Views” column on page one of the
Hollywood Reporter.
The author, Billy Wilkerson, was the publisher of the influential trade paper. In a most unusual move, Twentieth had disclosed details of the new $100,000 per picture deal that Marilyn had refused to sign. “Marilyn Monroe is the most publicized individual in the world,” Wilkerson continued. “Unquestionably, she is a big box-office draw, a top money attraction. Much of this has been due to her handling by
Twentieth, and the pictures she has been given, the talent she has been surrounded with to bring her up to the spot she now occupies. For her to ignore this, taking her case to the nation’s press, is a stupid move, based on stupid advice, and we rather think she will gain nothing from it because when the public is told that her new deal would have brought her better than a quarter of a million a year there will be no sympathetic reaction and some of her attractiveness will have been lost.”

The studio announced plans to hold Marilyn to the letter of her old contract. If she resisted, Zanuck vowed to prevent Marilyn from making another picture until August 8, 1958.

So much for Greene’s ability to handle the press. Obviously, the opportunity to put her message across in New York had been badly mishandled. Far from being taken seriously, Marilyn heard herself called “stupid” and “foolish.” She was devastated. So much for Greene’s confidence that the studio would be desperate to make a deal. Twentieth treated Greene as if he had no idea what he was doing—and the fact was, he didn’t. He was a fine photographer but an inept businessman. His intentions may have been decent, but he was out of his element in Hollywood. Marilyn had fired Feldman and Wright, so she could hardly turn to them for advice. That night, she agreed to have dinner with DiMaggio. For a man who hated her career, he got a lot of mileage out of advising Marilyn during her professional crises.

The next morning, following Greene’s instructions, she avoided the costume fitting by having her maid call Billy Gordon, the casting director, to say she was ill. After a talk with the studio attorney, Gordon reached Marilyn by phone late in the afternoon. Pointedly avoiding the subject of
How to Be Very, Very Popular
, he asked Marilyn how she was feeling.

“A little better.”

“We would like you to come in tomorrow and do the stills on
Seven Year Itch.”

“Fine. I would like to start as early as possible.”

On Wednesday, Marilyn worked in the portrait gallery until 4 p.m. and agreed to finish up the next day. She was about to go home when a casting assistant handed her a brown envelope. Inside was a notice to report for a costume fitting at 10:30 the following morning.

Marilyn didn’t know what to do. If she went, she would seem
tacitly to accept the studio’s right to put her in another picture. That might destroy her chance to have her own production company. If she failed to report, something considerably worse might happen: She might wreck her career. That might well be the result if Zanuck made good on his threat to keep her off screen for more than three years. Could Marilyn afford to ignore the chorus—including the
Hollywood Reporter
, Louella Parsons, and Hedda Hopper—all warning that she had been given bad advice? Joe, too, was wary. In the past few days, Greene hadn’t exactly proven himself a competent business partner.

Marilyn didn’t want to do the costume fitting, but she didn’t want to refuse either. She arrived at the studio on Thursday morning, but went directly to her dressing room. The framed photograph of Joe still decorated her dressing table. Assistants did her hair and makeup in anticipation of a 1 p.m. appointment in the portrait gallery. They were nearly finished when the phone rang. Marilyn instructed a helper to tell Billy Gordon that she had stepped out and would return soon. Promising to meet her assistants at the portrait gallery in two hours, Marilyn disappeared.

She never showed up. In tears, Marilyn called the stills department to say she was ill and had to go home. When someone checked her parking space outside the Star Building, the black Cadillac was gone.

Afraid that she was about to flee with Greene, Twentieth ordered Marilyn to report to Nunnally Johnson on Saturday for pre-production work. Zanuck was concerned that if they waited until Monday, Marilyn might be gone; it would be harder to exert pressure on her in New York.

When the studio suspended her for failing to show up on Saturday morning, Marilyn did go to New York. DiMaggio followed soon afterward, taking up residence again with George Solotaire. On January 19, he helped Marilyn move her things to the Gladstone Hotel on East 52nd Street off Park Avenue. Sam Shaw, who knew the owner, had arranged for her to stay there. From the time Marilyn arrived, the small, stuffy apartment hotel, crammed with red velvet furniture, was under siege. Photographers gathered outside the revolving front door. Sometimes they were permitted to photograph Marilyn in a gloomy little room off the lobby.

At the time, the Gladstone was also the temporary home of Carson McCullers. Known as “Choppers” because her cheeks resembled
a pair of lamb chops, McCullers was the author of
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding
, and other books. She was physically demonstrative, always hugging and kissing friends and acquaintances, despite a stroke which had left one hand curled up like a hook. She carried a walking stick that she waved tipsily in the air by way of greeting. McCullers drank heavily and gobbled “pinkie tablets,” as she and Tennessee Williams called Seconal. She had attempted suicide and had spent time at the Payne–Whitney psychiatric clinic. Williams once said that McCullers had known so much tragedy that it scared people—himself included—into a kind of indifference toward her. It was, Williams said, as if McCullers were “hopelessly damned” and one could not afford to think about it.

From the first, McCullers and Marilyn adored each other. There was “a sort of natural sympathy” between the skinny, tomboyish, slightly stooped novelist and the voluptuous movie star.

Though living in Victorian splendor, Marilyn was broke. For several weeks, she had been forbidden to cash her paychecks; now there were no checks at all. Greene doled out forty dollars a week in spending money, as well as paying her rent and other expenses, including her mother’s fees at the mental institution. Soon, a letter came demanding a promissory note for the nearly $20,000 that Feldman had advanced. Feldman’s attorney seemed to enjoy declaring that he understood Marilyn was in no position to pay back the money at this time.

The funds Greene had predicted would pour in after they announced Marilyn Monroe Productions never materialized. Threats of a lawsuit scared off investors. Greene did have one lead, however—Henry Rosenfeld, a dress manufacturer from the Bronx. That month Rosenfeld happened to be out of town on business. Rather than wait, Greene asked Marilyn to accompany him to Boston, where she could charm the wealthy businessman. It was a throwback to the days when she had to sing for her supper. It was a reminder of all that she had hoped to put behind her.

When Marilyn told Joe about the trip, he insisted on coming along. On January 23, he drove her to Boston. Greene traveled separately. The last thing Greene needed was DiMaggio in the middle of his business, but Joe left no choice. Joe’s brother Dom and his wife lived in Wellesley, a Boston suburb. The night before the meeting, the two
couples dined in town. A reporter approached their table in the private back room of a restaurant.

“Is this a reconciliation?” he asked Joe, who turned hopefully to Marilyn.

“Is it, honey?”

“No, just call it a visit.”

Rosenfeld was very taken with Marilyn, but he simply was not the major investor Greene desperately needed. He declined to bankroll Marilyn Monroe Productions. At length, all Greene managed to wheedle out of Rosenfeld was some cash to help pay her hotel bills. In the end, Greene had asked Marilyn to flash her thousand-watt personality for nothing more than rent money. Afterward, she and Joe drove back to New York. Greene returned to Connecticut in defeat.

That evening, Joe carried Marilyn’s bags into the Gladstone. He was a happy man, having just learned of his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. A reporter asked Marilyn if she and DiMaggio were getting back together. This time, to Joe’s delight, Marilyn pointedly avoided saying no. “It’s not immediate.”

For obvious reasons, Marilyn grew disenchanted with Greene. Joe, for his part, urged her to return to California. Greene worried about holding onto Marilyn, particularly when she expressed doubts about his lawyers, and asked Sam Shaw to reassure her. Informing Greene that Feldman was his friend, Shaw refused to intercede, and in fact told Marilyn that from a business perspective, she had been better off with Feldman. He also offered an important piece of advice. In light of the past few weeks, he recommended that Marilyn stay out of the press until
The Seven Year Itch
was released. Otherwise, the public might get bored with her. Marilyn instantly saw Sam’s point. Greene disagreed, unwilling to give up the spotlight. On Monday, January 31, she and Greene had an argument in the car on the way from Connecticut to the city.

By this time, Marilyn had very nearly given up. The dream that had sustained her for so many years was almost dead. She’d managed to become a movie star, yet she had utterly failed to win the respect she was after. Greene had by no means clarified matters; his efforts had ended in embarrassment and fiasco. Perhaps Joe was right. Perhaps she ought to go back to Los Angeles. Perhaps it was time to accept that she was never going to get what she wanted.

Everything seemed to point to Marilyn’s imminent departure when, on the evening of Tuesday, February 1, Sam Shaw escorted her to a dinner party given by Paul Bigelow. Greene invited himself along. Known in theatrical circles as “the fabulous Bigelow,” their host was the devoted companion of Carson McCullers’s cousin Jordan Massee. Tennessee Williams called Bigelow a “fantastic and rare character.” Bigelow called himself a “professional catalyst.” He liked to put people together, to make exciting things happen.