My Week with Marilyn (33 page)

Poor MM has been very depressed. She missed Monday and Tuesday altogether as forecast. She seemed pretty drugged on Wednesday despite AM's return. We soldier on, getting a good take here, and an adequate take there. The ‘rushes' have become much less reassuring. We can only see the agony it took to get the shot, and the confusion in MM's eyes. Even so, MM looks just as beautiful. When she is on the screen you can't take your eyes off her. Tomorrow we will start in the big new hall and staircase set in Studio B. Let us hope we all get a new lease of life. If it wasn't for Anne and Tony, I don't think I would have survived.

The Embassy hall and staircase set is almost as hideous as the purple drawing room, but not as claustrophobic. Neither set
should
be claustrophobic at all. They are opened up to allow the camera in, dissected one way or another, and set down in this vast, aircraft hangar of a studio. However when three sides of a set are built and the camera, sound, lighting and production crews all squeeze into the fourth side, it feels very cramped. The ceiling is 40 feet up but it is impossible to see past the bright lights hanging down, and they get very hot, so the effect is like working in an underground power station.

The design of the hall is quite impressive. It is a bit like a set for a 19th-century operetta, and I suppose that is intentional. In the script, when Dicky enters with Elsie Marina for the first time, he says ‘Personally I find the decorations a little vulgar,' which must have given Roger Furse a good clue.

The walls in the bottom half are pale blue, and above the stairs they are lilac. In these walls are round alcoves, painted black, with white plaster busts, like some travesty of Wedgwood. All the columns are marbled to death, and so are the steps and the door surrounds. But the wide double staircase has a good sweep to it, and the gallery running round the top has a pleasing dimension. The whole thing could have been designed for dramatic entrances and exits (
à la
Evelyn Laye
⁶⁵
), although there aren't any of these in our film. Four footmen are usually stationed in this hall, in costumes as exaggerated as the decor. It is they who will be summoned to carry Miss Marina to the spare bedroom when she passes out. The Embassy exterior, which we will shoot on the ‘lot', is a copy of the Portuguese Embassy in Belgrave Square. (I wonder what that building looked like inside in 1911 – or looks like now for that matter. I must ask Roger if he's seen it.)

When I am not running David's errands, or standing beside SLO
in case he wants a cigarette – (I am official cigarette bearer) – I spend most of the time gossiping with Paul H (the Major Domo) and Dicky W. Dicky has his own chair – what luxury – as his is really the third most important part in the film. Paul is very good at commandeering one too as his costume is tight. He is in a great many scenes and his face is wonderfully expressive even though he hardly ever speaks. They have a few hilarious scenes between them. When Dicky arrives the morning after Elsie has passed out, Paul rushes to tell him the news – that the chorus girl is still in the Embassy. Then Paul adds a
sotto voce
– and obviously vulgar – joke and Dicky freezes him with his sternest look. It was done so economically and understatedly that it was a delight to watch. Exactly what Rattigan had in mind, I am sure.

Dicky and Paul can swap jokes all day – theatrical jokes, camp jokes, drinking jokes. They are very enjoyable company and they prefer me as an audience to the crew. (I am much more likely to know the people involved.) Tony B joins in sometimes, but when the jokes get risqué – which is very often – he gives them the same look Dicky gave Paul in the film, and marches off. Dicky and Paul also drink a great deal together in the evenings. I was in the men's lavatories this morning, and all the time I was standing there, the most appalling noise, of retching and defecating, came out of one of the stalls. Then, as I was washing my hands, out came Paul.

‘Morning, my boy' he said cheerily, as he marched off into the studio. I was expecting someone to call for an ambulance. What a constitution these actors have.

AM returned yesterday, and by midday today he had been universally cast as villain of the piece. SLO is cross because he had hoped that AM would help MM to turn over a new leaf, and this clearly has not happened. She arrived at the studio late and demanding. In fact she is clearly fed up with AM and also disenchanted with Milton whom
she cuts dead. She complained about her dress, and her hair, and her make-up, which is very unusual for her.

It is also pointless, since Elaine, the continuity girl, has absolute control over how she looks now. Elaine has to keep track of exactly how everyone looked in the preceding shot even though it may have been filmed at a totally different time. If MM even ruffles her hair a tiny bit, there could be a mismatch in the final film, and Elaine is determined that such a thing will never happen.
⁶⁶
Like all the crew, she has to be a perfectionist or she might as well not bother to turn up at all. Film discipline is that strict.

Milton blames AM for the change in MM's attitude, both to her work and to him. Milton is in a very difficult position. He wants to control MM and her career, but he has to get this film finished on time and on budget if MMP, and he, is to make money (not to mention LOP and Warner Bros). And this means he has to co-operate with SLO and all of us, even at the risk of upsetting MM. So it is easy for someone (AM) to poison MM's mind against him.

Paula is treated by AM with extreme disdain. I have heard him describe Paula as a charlatan to Milton in SLO's dressing room and I'm sure he does it in front of MM. This is hard luck on MM since she totally depends on Paula when AM is away. She has no one else except the tipsy Hedda. Finally AM is not above snide remarks about Milton to Paula, which quickly get repeated, so Milton gets upset even though he has nothing concrete to go on. What a crew.

This evening MM told Milton that she was not satisfied with her car. She wants it replaced with a new Jaguar (a Mk VII saloon I suppose). This seemed pretty reasonable to me. A star like MM ought to be able to travel in any car she wants. Think of Gary Cooper's Duesenberg. SLO just shrugged, but to Milton, and to Tony B, it is an affront. They can see the dark hand of AM at work. Who will pay for it, MMP or LOP? As part of the British production obligations, it should be LOP. But it is for MM's special use, so it should
be MMP. ‘He is trying to pull a fast one. He wants us to buy it and then he will ship it over (Right-hand drive??) to the USA for his own private use.'
⁶⁷
And they were livid. I think it is funnier that a left-wing intellectual should want to drive round in a Jaguar with Marilyn Monroe. (Although didn't Lenin have a Rolls-Royce?) That is not the point, said Milton and Tony B, together, when I teased them. ‘AM is going to ruin the movie.'

Actually the problem with the Jaguar will be that it has no glass division between the passenger compartment and the driver. I think Plod likes the peacefulness of the front of the Princess.

MM left the studios in a huff. She does not like being crossed when she has made her wishes clear; no more than any other film star before her. Quite right too, I say, but Plod looked gloomy.

Today SLO took MM as far as he possibly could and then even further. He was directing only, not being in the scenes himself, so he was more in control than usual. We were in the hall and staircase set and he had planned a long-shot on the stairs, a continuation of MM's arrival at the Embassy with Dicky, her Foreign Office escort.

In the end it took 29 takes before we got it right. 29 takes is an historic amount, even for MM. I really think SLO wanted to break all records as proof, actual visible proof, of how difficult it is to work with her. It was a complicated shot, with the camera on a big crane following MM and Dicky up the stairs and walking round the gallery into the door of the purple room. (The actual purple room was in Studio A, of course, and is now destroyed.)

David: ‘Going for a take. QUIET studio please.'

‘Lights.' Clunk.

‘Camera running.'

‘Sound.' Beep beep.

‘Speed.'

‘Mark it.'

‘
Prince and the Showgirl
. Shot 137 take 1.' Clap.

‘Action.'

Dicky W: ‘This way, Miss Marina.' (His voice combines disapproval with resignation.) They climb the stairs. MM looks around, asks about dinner, asks about the Grand Duke's wife (‘Passed over' says Dicky). They reach the gallery. Dicky starts to explain which Royal Personage she might meet and how to address each one.

MM: ‘Wow, I'm shaking. This is worse than a first night.' Exeunt. CUT.

Repeat 29 times!

Everyone was frantic. MM's rash came and went. Each time the camera was difficult to reposition correctly and the cameraman, Denys, was grey with fatigue. It is a big set and needs a lot of lights, so the lighting crew up on the gantry was nearly cooked. We could have broken the shot down into two or three shorter bits by shooting close-ups of reactions on MM and Dicky, to be cut in later. But SLO had the bit between his teeth, so on and on we went. Dicky is incredibly professional and he never wavers, or misses a word. But he was sweating so much in that hot braided uniform that he must have lost several pounds of weight.

MM simply could not remember all her lines, and when she did remember, she did not say them correctly. The lines were often silly and inconsequential and there were many changes of thought and direction. It is true that they were the sort of things one might say, going up the stairs to supper in a strange house, with strange people, but it was quite a risky challenge to put them all in one long continuous take.

As they went up the stairs, MM had to say ‘Think of the trouble of bringing the food all the way up from the kitchen.'

Dicky replied: ‘I fancy it will be a cold supper, Miss Marina.'

MM: ‘They still have to bring it, don't they?' Then a change of thought: ‘Is his wife still alive?' etc.

This sort of dialogue is written to illustrate Elsie's charming naiveté and it could have worked. When MM blurted it out, having just (only just) remembered it in time, it did not sound ‘off the cuff', even to her. So then she started to forget the other lines, one by one, almost as if she wanted to wipe them out. Back she would go to Paula, hands flapping as if she was hoping to fly. There was much whispering, much looking at the script as if they were trying to translate it from a foreign language, and then back to the set for another try.

Amazingly enough we did get the shot on take 29, but at what cost we will not know until later. In his dressing room, SLO admitted to Milton that he should have broken the scene down. But by this time MM and Paula were speeding home in what mental state one could only guess at. For the record, and perhaps this influenced SLO, we had filmed virtually the same shot in the morning only with Dicky and Paul going up the stairs and meeting Jeremy Spenser in the gallery. We had done that in four takes, the first three having had minor camera problems.

Today the hall and stairs set was readjusted so that we could shoot MM and Dicky going
down
the stairs.

It went much better, mainly because MM only had one thought in the scene – namely to escape the clutches of the Grand Duke. The exercise of authority by SLO yesterday seemed to have a good effect, to Milton's surprise. After all, we did get the shot. MM respects authority as much as she fights against it. Her relationship with SLO seemed a little more professional at last, and as a result the filming was easier and quicker. Of course there were problems. In her hasty exit from the purple drawing room, Elsie Marina had tried frantically to get her coat on, and failed. We shot this scene a couple of
weeks ago and Elaine had noted it and had the film to prove it. MM's ‘coat' is a frilly, lilac, silk taffeta affair which looks most elegant and becoming when it is on. But it is almost impossible to slip into in a hurry. So when MM emerges into the corridor at high speed, she still has to have it twisted round one arm. There was no real problem with this but it is the sort of thing that can easily put MM off. In the event it all went smoothly, and MM did manage to get the coat on over the next few shots, without letting it interrupt her thought processes. Dicky is an absolute rock, but alas MM treats him like a non-person. (This is how she treats most of us now.) She is in so many scenes with Dicky that it would have been a great help if she could have got cosy with him. Perhaps it is because he is queer, and doesn't look at her the way most men do. I don't mean that he is in the least effeminate, but I'm sure she can tell, and that makes him a ‘non-man'. Of course he is also quintessentially British, and that is not her favourite nationality right now.

After lunch we filmed Dicky trying to persuade Elsie Marina to stay for her supper engagement. MM is convinced the Regent is only out to seduce her: ‘He's a Carpathian Grand Duke, for heaven's sake.'

Dicky: ‘Educated in England.'

MM: ‘That's just what I mean.'

All this went on as they dodged around the marble columns in the hall, Dicky desperately pulling MM back onto her camera marks as she blundered about. But it worked again, and when we saw the four printed takes from yesterday's historic labours, MM looked lovely, acted well, and stole the scene. Let that be added to the story of ‘the 29 takes'.

Phew, what a weekend. I certainly celebrated my 24th birthday (in two weeks, actually) with a bang. On Friday night I had made a date to go out on a ‘pub-crawl' with Dicky and Paul. We spend hours and hours gossiping on the set every day, and we all enjoy each other's
company, but the outside world changes things. After a few drinks it became obvious that all Dicky wanted to do was pick up some gorgeous hunk of a man, and all Paul wanted to do was to get drunk out of his mind. I don't disapprove of either of these activities but I wanted dinner too, so we went to a ‘bistro' Dicky knew in Soho. It was a queer's bar really. The food was delicious and I ate it, but Dicky just flirted and Paul just drank. (I don't know if Paul is queer or not. There's no Mrs Paul as far as I know, so maybe.) Just as we were wondering where to go next, in came Gordon Alexander, the dresser, camp as coffee as usual. He knew a very special and very exciting place, he said – giving me the eye, I noticed – so we all piled into a taxi and set off. Going along Piccadilly, Dicky got completely hysterical. He lay on the floor and said he was going to die. He and Paul were completely drunk by now, so we stopped the cab and tumbled them both out onto the pavement.