Authors: Barbara Leaming
Olivier had not originally wanted to direct
Streetcar.
He had only agreed because Vivien loved the play and strongly identified with Blanche. Eager to emerge from her husband’s shadow, she longed to be accepted in “the big tragic roles.” Like Marilyn, she wanted to be taken seriously. In his staging of
Streetcar
, Olivier made all that possible—but at what expense to the play? After the run-through, Irene Selznick, appalled, concluded that this was no longer a Tennessee Williams play. It had turned into a struggle between Laurence Olivier and Elia Kazan.
The struggle continued in Hollywood. Under Olivier’s direction in England, Vivien had finally proven, to herself as much as others, her worth as an actress. She promptly let Kazan know that she preferred to do things Larry’s way. It was the first day on the set and other cast members were watching. Kazan courteously reminded Leigh that Olivier was not directing the film—he was. Vivien resisted at first. At home each night, an irate Olivier fought to prevent Kazan’s interpretation from taking over. He despised the Actors Studio and the Method. But increasingly, Vivien discarded Olivier’s instructions and did as Kazan asked. Before long, she discovered that she loved Kazan’s direction. It was a crushing defeat for Olivier, one he would never forget.
Marlon Brando was another thorn in Olivier’s side. When Olivier directed
A Streetcar Named Desire
, Brando’s precedent irked, haunted, and overwhelmed him as much as, perhaps more than, Kazan’s. Brando,
though he was being touted as potentially “an American Olivier,” incarnated a new acting style with which Olivier himself felt excruciatingly uncomfortable. Brando made Olivier feel old-fashioned. In correspondence with Williams, Olivier was defensive about his decision to cast an actor who would play Stanley Kowalski as Olivier himself, not Marlon Brando, might have done. Olivier made much ado of not wanting a bruiser type in the role. Though he had not seen Brando’s stage performance, Olivier insisted he was after something subtler and less ape-like.
Olivier’s passionate resentment of Kazan, Brando, and the Actors Studio, dating back to
A Streetcar Named Desire
, was to form the subtext of his painful dealings with Marilyn during the filming of
The Sleeping Prince.
But as he led her to the living room to see Cecil Tennant and Terence Rattigan on a rainy February night in 1956, Olivier did not yet associate Marilyn with any of that.
Olivier saw in Marilyn, in his son’s words, “the prospect of glamor and money.” Preoccupied with his rapidly approaching fiftieth birthday, Olivier saw a chance to feel young again. He saw a challenge and an opportunity to reinvent himself. After the glory of his recent Stratford season, especially Peter Brook’s staging of
Titus Andronicus
, Olivier was eager to display versatility.
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what to wear,” Marilyn was saying, her voice a low murmur from the back of her throat. She wore a simple, dark dress and a touch of makeup. “Should I be casual or formal? I went through my entire wardrobe twice, but everything I tried on wasn’t kinda right.”
She believed she had been dressing for one of the most important encounters of her life. She wanted Olivier to take her seriously—that’s what this was all about for Marilyn—yet at the same time, years of experience told her that if she played “the girl,” few men could resist. There was no way that Marilyn could be sure of the right image to project.
By the time she had spoken, however, Olivier and the others were at her feet. He found her adorable and amusing, more physically attractive than anyone he could possibly imagine. Olivier had such a wonderful time, talking, laughing, and drinking, that he neglected to mention business. So did his associates. The visitors were about to head back to their hotel when Marilyn stopped them.
“Just a minute,” Marilyn said softly. Olivier noted that she used a
small voice to good effect. “Shouldn’t someone say something about an agreement?”
The next day, Olivier met with Marilyn to discuss the specifics of
The Sleeping Prince.
She had agreed to a price of $125,000 for the film rights, plus an additional $50,000 for Rattigan to write the script. It was far more than Rattigan would have gotten elsewhere, but Marilyn seemed only to care about being certain that the property was hers. That afternoon, Olivier agreed to direct and co-star in the film. His company would co-produce.
Olivier had decided to work with Marilyn despite his wife’s objections. He told himself—and seemed rather to relish the idea—that Vivien was jealous. The Oliviers had performed
The Sleeping Prince
in London three years previously, while Vivien was recuperating after her collapse on
Elephant Walk.
She had a relapse during the 1955 Stratford season and doctors believed her condition was incurable.
In good times, Vivien slept four hours a night at best. When she entered the manic phase, she slept hardly at all, leaving Olivier to perform
Titus Andronicus
in a state of sheer physical exhaustion. To make matters worse, Vivien had humiliated her husband by resuming a love affair with Peter Finch. At the time Olivier went to New York to meet Marilyn Monroe, Vivien was planning to co-star with Finch in Noël Coward’s play
South Sea Bubble.
Why, one might ask, did the Oliviers stay together? It was said that they had once signed a deal with the devil, who agreed to make Larry and Vivien king and queen of the stage on one condition—they must remain married forever. Put another way, they were, said Noël Coward, “trapped by public acclaim.” People loved the very idea of them as a couple. But it wasn’t just a matter of how others saw them; it was how they saw themselves.
Both Oliviers strongly identified with, and constantly strove to live up to, their image as passionate lovers. When on one occasion Larry privately declared, “There’s nothing to touch your Majesty’s cunt,” before he and Vivien made their entrance in a play, she wasted no time afterward repeating the endearment in a letter to her friend Ruth Gordon. As a romantic couple the Oliviers had very much lived and loved in public. But now, all that seemed to be coming to an end. They were losing more than each other; they were losing a sense of themselves.
Though it would be difficult to imagine a woman more different from Vivien, over lunch at “21” it seemed as if Olivier might be about to recapture some of that intensity with Marilyn Monroe. He didn’t just want to go to bed with Marilyn or to have an affair. He wanted, as he said, “to fall most shatteringly in love.” That’s what had happened when he met Vivien. Evidently, he desperately wanted to repeat the experience. He even fantasized about divorcing Vivien in order to marry Marilyn as he had once left Jill Esmond. Jill had been pregnant at the time he went off with Vivien. Olivier, stung by Vivien’s affair with Finch, imagined people saying “poor Vivien” as once they had said “poor Jill.”
And what did Marilyn want? A press conference would do. A year after the newspapers had mocked her efforts to become a new Marilyn, Olivier’s desire to collaborate with her would force people to take her aspirations seriously. Besides, she wanted everybody to know that “the greatest actor alive” was working for her now.
That Marilyn feared she might not really be worthy of the respect she longed for is suggested by something that happened on Wednesday, February 8. It was the day before she and Olivier were to meet the press at the Plaza Hotel. When Marilyn left her daily psychiatric session on East 93rd Street, she always did the same thing. The choreography never varied. She would come out the front door, pause, put her hand over her mouth and cough. Only then did Marilyn look up, apparently having pushed back inside whatever emotionally-charged material she had disclosed to Dr. Hohenberg. Today, as she emerged from the doctor’s office, Marilyn carried a manila envelope containing contact sheets from a recent photo shoot with Milton Greene.
In these black-and-white photographs, taken at the so-called Black Sitting, Marilyn posed in black lacy undergarments and torn fishnet stockings. She was drunk, having imbibed large quantities of champagne. There was nothing innocent or little-girlish about this woman, nothing of the self-mocking bewilderment that, in
The Seven Year Itch
and other films, lent fun, charm, and lightness to Marilyn’s sexuality. Gone was the “beautiful child” who spouted
double entendres
as though she had no idea what they meant. Marilyn’s half-closed eyes were glassy, her tipsy smile rather sad. She looked as if she knew perfectly well what the tawdry poses implied. She looked beat, tired, used up. Meant as test shots for
Bus Stop
, a number of the pictures simply went too far.
Whether or not Marilyn actually showed the contact sheets to Dr. Hohenberg, to bring them to her psychiatrist’s office the day before her press conference was, perhaps, to voice her own feelings of unworthiness. It was to disclose her deepest fears and self-doubt at the very moment she was claiming her right to be respected.
On Thursday morning, some two hundred journalists waited in the Terrace Room at the Plaza Hotel. One wag remarked that the announcement of the press conference had produced “more commotion than an offer of free beer on the Bowery.” Olivier, in a dark brown suit, waited on a settee outside Marilyn’s dressing room as she put on a low-cut, skin-tight black velvet dress with thin straps, and dangling pearl earrings. She was accompanied by the photographer Eve Arnold, who complimented her on her outfit.
“Just watch me,” said Marilyn, mischievously winking at her in the dressing-table mirror. All trace of the tormented, divided woman who had clutched the contact sheets only the day before had vanished.
Moments later, Olivier, Rattigan, and Greene escorted Marilyn onto a vine-encrusted balcony overlooking the crowd. A photographer called out for Olivier to put his arm around her.
“You’ll have to see the picture!” Marilyn demurred.
Olivier, a grave expression on his face, clutched Marilyn’s arm, slowly helping her down the white marble stairs. Seated at a table, they announced their plans to make a movie together. Olivier chain-smoked.
“Miss Monroe has an extremely … uh … an extraordinarily … uh … cunning gift of being able to suggest one minute that she is the naughtiest little thing alive and the next that she is beautifully dumb and innocent,” said Olivier. “The audience leaves not knowing quite what she is.”
Did Marilyn intend to continue studying at the Actors Studio?
“Oh, yes,” said Marilyn, inhaling deeply. “I’d like to continue my growth in every way possible.”
Suddenly, her right strap popped, apparently as planned. She gasped and the crowd went wild. By the time a woman reporter came forward with a safety pin, it was evident that Marilyn’s stunt had guaranteed front-page coverage for the news conference.
When the commotion died down, somebody asked Marilyn to name her favorite actors.
“Sir Laurence,” said Marilyn, glancing at Olivier. “And Marlon Brando. He, too, is an actor-artist.”
The press, unnerved by Marilyn’s newly intellectual tone, turned ugly. Was it true, a reporter asked skeptically, that she wanted to do
The Brothers Karamazov?
And if it was, which role did she intend to play?
“I want to play Grushenka,” Marilyn said over the laughter that filled the room. “She’s a girl.”
One journalist asked if she could spell “Grushenka,” a question that seemed to underscore the fact that even the presence of “the greatest actor alive” would not persuade certain people to treat Marilyn as anything but a joke.
But that day, even the nastiest questions could not diminish Marilyn’s victory. As far as she was concerned, she finally seemed to have everything necessary to change the direction of her career. She was due in Los Angeles at the end of the month to start the first of four pictures for Twentieth. The studio had purchased the rights to
Bus Stop
expressly as a vehicle for Marilyn. Joshua Logan, one of the sixteen approved directors on her list, was set to direct. In
Bus Stop
, Marilyn would have a chance to demonstrate how much she had improved as an actress. After that, she would go on to England to make
The Sleeping Prince
with Olivier and establish once and for all her credentials as an actress.
Olivier went home completely smitten with Marilyn. He was eager to encounter this strange and dazzling creature again. At this point, Arthur Miller played no part in Olivier’s calculations about a possible future with her. But Miller had plans of his own.
A View from the Bridge
was due to open in London; and with Marilyn due in England for her film, a decision of some sort would have to be made.
Soon after Olivier left, Arthur took Marilyn out to Brooklyn to meet his parents officially. Though rumors had appeared in the press, Miller was still publicly denying a romance with Marilyn; he did, however, admit that he was going to seek a divorce. But there was no question of keeping the truth from his parents. Once his divorce was final, he intended to make Marilyn his wife.
Isadore and Augusta Miller lived on East 3rd Street at Avenue M in Flatbush. Arthur had long had an uncertain relationship with his illiterate father. Isadore—a tall, striking figure with tremendous physical authority, piercing blue eyes and a large square head—was said to
resemble an Irish cop. From the first, he had disapproved of Arthur’s desire to write. In fact, he simply didn’t understand it. Kermit Miller, who often stood up for his younger brother, tried to explain what Arthur hoped to do, but Isadore persisted in regarding the very idea of being a writer as somehow “unmanly.”
Isadore appeared to see things very differently, however, when Arthur introduced Marilyn as the girl he planned to marry. At last, his father seemed to understand him.
“Such a charming girl, Arthur,” he said as Marilyn finished her second bowl of matzoh-ball soup. She wore a simple gray skirt, a black silk blouse, and no makeup.
When the guest declined another refill, Isadore grew alarmed. “You mean, you don’t like our matzoh-ball soup?”