My Story (13 page)

The day before I left for New York to start the
Love Happy
exploitation tours of the U.S.A. I suddenly realized that I had almost no wardrobe. I called on Mr. Cowan and told him about this.

“I won't be much of an advertisement in one old suit,” I said.

Mr. Cowan smiled and agreed I had better have a larger wardrobe. He gave me seventy-five dollars to outfit myself for the tour. I rushed over to the May Company store and bought three woolen suits for twenty-five dollars apiece.

I bought the woolen suits because I remembered that New York and Chicago were in the North. I had seen them in the movies blanketed with snow. In my excitement over going to see these great cities for the first time I forgot it was summertime there as well as in Los Angeles.

On the way to New York I made plans of all the things I would see.

My lover had always said, one of the reasons you have nothing to talk about is you've never been anywhere or seen anything.

I was going to remedy that.

When the train stopped in New York I could hardly breathe, it was so hot. It was hotter than I had ever known it to be in Hollywood. The woolen suit made me feel as if I was wearing an oven.

Mr. Cowan's press agent, who was supervising my exploitation trip, rose to the situation.

“We must make capital out of what we have,” he explained. So he arranged for me to pose on the train steps with perspiration running down my face and an ice cream cone in each hand.

The caption for the pictures read: “Marilyn Monroe, the hottest thing in pictures, cooling off.”

That “cooling off” idea became sort of the basis for my exploitation work.

A half hour after arriving in New York I was led into an elegant suite in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel and told to put on a bathing suit.

More photographers arrived and took more pictures of me “cooling off.”

I spent several days in New York looking at the walls of my elegant suite and the little figures of people fifteen stories below. All sorts of people came to interview me, not only newspapers and magazine reporters but exhibitors and other exploitation people from United Artists.

I asked questions about the Statue of Liberty and what were the best shows to see and the most glamorous cafés to go to. But I saw nothing and went nowhere.

Finally I got so tired of sitting around perspiring in one of my three woolen suits, that I complained.

“It seems to me,” I said to the United Artists' representatives who were having dinner with me in my suite, “that I ought to have something more attractive to wear in the evening.”

They agreed and bought me a cotton dress at a wholesale shop. It had a low-cut neck and blue polka dots. They explained, also, that cotton was much more chic in the big cities than silk. I did like the red velvet belt that came with it.

The next stop was Detroit, and then Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Rockford. It was the same story in each of them. I was taken to a hotel, rushed into a bathing suit, given a fan and photographers arrived. The hottest thing in pictures was cooling off again.

In Rockford I decided that I had seen enough of the world. Also, due to my moving around continually and to the confusion this seemed to arouse in Mr. Cowan's bookkeeping department, I had not received any salary whatsoever. The salary, it was explained to me, would be waiting for me at the next stop. As a result I didn't have fifty cents to spend on myself during my grand tour.

After sitting in the lobby of a Rockford movie theater, “keeping cool” in a bathing suit and handing out orchids to “my favorite male moviegoers” I told the press agent that I would like to return to Hollywood.

The tour, in a way, was a failure. When I got back I didn't seem to have any more to talk about than before. And absence didn't seem to have made my friend's heart grow any fonder.

 

 

One day I was sitting in an office of the William Morris Agency. A very short man was behind a large desk. He was talking to me in a quiet voice and looking at me with kind eyes. He was John Hyde, one of the most important talent scouts in Hollywood. Everyone called him Johnny Hyde because of the friendly look he had for everyone.

“You're going to be a great movie star,” Johnny Hyde said to me. “I know. Many years ago I discovered a girl like you and brought her to Metro—Lana Turner. You're better. You'll go farther. You've got more.”

“Then why can't I get a job?” I asked. “Just to make enough money to eat on.”

“It's hard for a star to get an eating job,” said Johnny Hyde. “A star is only good as a star. You don't fit into anything less.”

I laughed for the first time in months. Johnny Hyde didn't laugh with me. He kept looking at me, and looking.

“Yes,” he said, “it's there. I can feel it. I see a hundred actresses a week. They haven't got what you have. Do you know what I'm talking about?”

“Yes,” I said. “I used to feel it myself once. When I was a kid, when I first started. But I haven't felt it for some time now. I've been too busy having troubles.”

“Love trouble?” he said.

I said, “Yes.”

“Come around tomorrow, and we'll talk again,” said Johnny Hyde.

I had made another friend, a woman who was the head of M.G.M. talent scout department. Her name was Lucille Ryman.

Miss Ryman had not only been kind to me and loaned me money and things to wear, but she had also assured me I was going to be a star.

One day Miss Ryman called me up.

“There's a part for you in John Huston's picture
The Asphalt Jungle
that's perfect for you,” she said. “It's not a big part, but you'll be bound to make a big hit in it. Tell your agent to get in touch with Mr. Huston. I've already discussed you with him.”

Johnny Hyde brought me to Mr. Huston's office. Arthur Hornblow, the producer of the picture, was also present.

Mr. Huston was an exciting looking man. He was tall, long-faced, and his hair was mussed. He interrupted everybody with outbursts of laughter as if he were drunk. But he wasn't drunk. He was just happy for some mysterious reason, and he was also a genius—the first I had ever met.

I had met Mr. Zanuck, of course, who was also widely regarded as a genius. But he was a different type of genius—the genius of being in a position to give orders to everybody in a studio. In Hollywood this type of genius is the most highly esteemed and makes the most money. But, in a way, it is not genius at all. It's more having the best job—and the best people working for you.

Mr. Huston gave me a copy of the script. Unlike Mr. Zanuck, he did not believe that actresses shouldn't be allowed to know what they were going to act in. I took it home and my friend Natasha Lytess agreed to coach me.

“Do you think you can do it?” Johnny Hyde asked me. “You have to break up in it and cry and sob.”

“I thought you thought I was a star,” I said to him, “and I could do anything.”

“You can,” he said, “but I can't help worrying.”

At first I felt that Johnny had lost faith in me. Then I realized he was just being “too close” to me and that he was worrying with my nerves and fears.

I studied the part for several days and then returned to Mr. Huston's office to read for him. Several other men were present, including Mr. Hornblow who was the only bald-headed man I had ever seen who looked more elegant than men with hair. In fact he seemed more like some cultured foreign diplomat than a mere movie producer.

They were all friendly and made jokes, but I couldn't smile. I felt, also, that I would never be able to recite a line. A pulse was pounding in my stomach. I couldn't have been more frightened if I were about to step in front of a locomotive to get run over.

“Well,” said Mr. Huston, “do you like the part?”

I nodded. My mouth was too dry to try talking.

“Do you think you can do it?”

I nodded again.

I felt sick. I had told myself a million times that I was an actress. I had practiced acting for years. Here, finally, was my first chance at a real acting part with a great director to direct me. And all I could do is stand with quivering knees and a quivering stomach and nod my head like a wooden toy.

Luckily the men fell to making more jokes and seemed to forget about me. They laughed and kidded as if nothing important was involved. But I could feel that behind his burst of laughter Mr. Huston was watching me and waiting for me.

I felt desperate. What was the use of reading in a shaking voice like a terrified amateur? Mr. Huston caught my eye and grinned.

“We're waiting, Miss Monroe,” he said.

“I don't think I'm going to be any good,” I answered.

Everybody stopped talking and looked at me.

“Would you mind if I read the part lying on the floor?” I blurted out.

“Why, not at all,” Mr. Huston replied gallantly. “Bill here, will cue you.”

I stretched myself out on the floor and Bill crouched down beside me. I felt much better. I had rehearsed the part lying on a couch, as the directions indicated. There wasn't any couch in the office. Lying on the floor was almost the same thing, however.

I went through the part, with the crouching Bill reading Louis Calhern's lines. When I finished I said, “Oh, let me do it again.”

“If you want to,” said Mr. Huston, “but there's no need.”

I did it again.

When I stood up Mr. Huston said, “You were in after the first reading. Go fix yourself up with the wardrobe department.”

I knew this part wouldn't be cut out of the picture because it was vital to the plot. I was the reason one of the stars, Louis Calhern, committed suicide. My characterization was Mae West, Theda Bara, and Bo Peep—in tight silk lounging pajamas.

 

 

In a movie you act in little bits and pieces. You say two lines, and they “
cut
.” They relight, set up the camera in another place—and you act two more lines. You walk five feet, and they say “cut.” The minute you get going good in your characterization, they cut.

But it doesn't matter. There's no audience watching you. There's nobody to act
for
except yourself. It's like the games you play when you're a child and pretend to be somebody else. Usually, it's even almost the same sort of story you used to make up as a child—about meeting somebody who fell in love with you because, despite everything they'd heard against you, you were a good girl with a heart of gold. I've wondered sometimes when I've been in a picture if the people making it hadn't had their children ghostwrite it for them, and I've thought, “Wouldn't it be wonderful if I accidentally opened a door and there they were—the children who really make up the movies—a room full of eight- and nine-year-old kids. Then I could go to the studio head and say, ‘I'd like to play in something a little better than the script you've given me. Something a little more human and true to life.' And when he answered me that the script was made up by the finest brains in the country and I was a fool to criticize it, I'd tell him I knew his secret—the room full of babies who were creating all the movies. And he'd turn pale and give in, and I'd be given a script written by some adult and become a real actress.”

I didn't have this daydream during
Asphalt Jungle
because it was an adult script. There was also an audience watching me act—an audience of one, the director. A director like Mr. Huston makes your work exciting. Some directors seem more interested in photographing the scenery than the actors. They keep moving the
camera around saying, “Here's a wonderful shot.” Or, “This is a superb set-up. We'll be able to get the fireplace and the Oriental mask in the frame.” Or they say, “That'll cut beautifully. It'll give us a fast tempo.”

You feel they're more interested in their directing than they are in your acting. They want the Front Office to praise
them
when the rushes are shown. Mr. Huston wasn't like that. He was interested in the acting I did. He not only watched it, he was part of it. And even though my part was a minor one, I felt as if I were the most important performer in the picture when I was before the camera. This was because everything I did was important to the director, just as important as everything the stars of the picture did.