My Week with Marilyn (34 page)

‘Drive on!' screamed Gordon at the cabbie, who was only too relieved to do so. ‘Thank goodness we've got rid of those two old queens,' said Gordon, putting his hand on my knee. ‘Let's go home and you can fuck me.'

Peter P-M
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used to talk like this so I'm used to it, although I wish he had closed the taxi-driver window first!

‘I'm not sure I want to do that,' I said. (I was sure I didn't.)

‘We'll go back and have a nightcap anyway,' said Gordon, giving the driver new instructions. Gordon's flat was really very nicely done up – watercolours, comfy sofas, pretty lamps etc. Gordon brought some gin (‘Gordon's' he said, giggling) but he had no cigarettes and I had run out hours ago which made me nervous.

‘Never mind,' said Gordon, grabbing me by the crotch. ‘I'll give you a nice blow job.' I had heard this phrase before, but I didn't know exactly what it meant. It sounded sexy, so I said OK. It felt great to
start with but in the end I got restless and found it unsatisfactory. Gordon seemed to be having more fun than I was. I don't really like sex unless I can take an active part. However it all worked out in the end, and Gordon seemed grateful.

‘We must do that again,' he said. I'm not so sure.

I slept really late yesterday and then went to the Stork Club again. Yvonne was there with somebody else, but I persuaded her to join me after they left, and took her straight home. I just had to have normal sex again. I've grown out of all that schoolboy stuff at last. Perhaps I'll go back to it when I'm old, but for now I prefer girls. I saw Al
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this evening but I didn't tell him what was going on. The film world is different, I suppose. It's more exciting, and I've got a hangover to prove it!

Back at work in the hall set, taking it apart and putting it back again so we can film it from every angle. I have been having a feud with MM's stand-in. She and SLO's stand-in are always in the studio, on call every day, and they are meant to arrive at the same time as the stars. After a quick visit to make-up and wardrobe, they must be on the set by 8 a.m., ready for lighting to begin. It is a thankless task. They just stand where they are told and move where they are told, while they are lit as if they were the stars and their moves are ‘plotted' by camera and sound. They never get the chance to perform, even if the star is ill, like an understudy does in the theatre. They are generally considered to be at the very bottom of the studio pecking order, only just above the ‘extras' who make up the crowd scenes, and from whose ranks they have been drawn. I suppose I look at them the way Terry Rattigan looks at me – (which is also the way MM looks at Terry Rattigan!). MM's stand-in is a pretty little thing, but half MM's size and with none of her personality. Now she has
taken to arriving late in the mornings too. Not as late as MM, of course, or she would be fired instantly, but 25 minutes late is a lot for a stand-in.

I am responsible to David for getting the right people on the right set at the right time. With MM this is difficult, but with the stand-ins it should be automatic. Indeed, they are usually so anxious to please, and be hired again, that they are early. The MM girl has not taken any notice of my stern rebukes. This morning she even threatened to get me into trouble for being rude – which I expect I was. I will have to investigate this a little further. When a girl like that starts getting cheeky, it usually means she has some powerful man to protect her – I have deep suspicions.

I got the 2nd Ast Dir to cover me at the Star Dressing Room entrance after SLO had arrived, taking a fairly certain gamble on MM being at least an hour late. Then I went round to the main entrance and waited out of sight. Sure enough, at 7.30, Jack Cardiff drove up, and the MM stand-in hopped out of his car. She waved goodbye before she hurried inside, and Jack went off to park. There is no law against giving stand-ins a lift to the studio, but now I knew why she could afford to be cheeky. Jack, as lighting cameraman, is the most important man in the studio after SLO. It is he who is responsible for how the film looks, after SLO has decided what it should contain. Jack is also especially important to MM. It is he who makes her look so beautiful. She also likes him and respects him. He is indeed a very charming and likeable man, although I don't know him that well. It is not up to me to criticise him if he makes a friend. But it is my job to get stand-ins on the set on time, even if it is really Jack who will be kept waiting if they are not. David feels very strongly that just because MM is always late, the rest of the studio must not be allowed to get slack. I decided not to tell David what I had seen, but when the MM girl came on the
set, late again, I gave her a pretty firm rebuke. I did it in front of Jack in the hope that he might realise that he must get her to work earlier. That was not a success. Jack was livid. He told me that, as lighting cameraman, stand-ins were his problem, and to mind my own business. David just blinked like an owl, and motioned me out of the studio. He didn't want to have a row in front of the crew, and told me that he would have a quiet word with Jack later. For the rest of the day, there was a considerable coolness between Jack and myself. I am sure he won't mention it to SLO, but I am only the 3rd Ast Dir; and 3rd Ast Dirs are not expected to upset lighting cameramen. Luckily Tony didn't notice anything. He never does, bless him, unless SLO is involved.

Dame Sybil came into the studio again today. I was wearing her red scarf as usual, and she gave me a huge hello. It was nice to see her again and MM was thrilled – a visit from Grandma! Having been warned, MM was even almost on time. Dame S is now acting in a West End play, which means she doesn't finish until 11 p.m. at night, but there she was in her hire car at 7 a.m., beaming and smiling. We filmed her making the Grand Duke give Elsie Marina a Carpathian medal, the one which he had just given the Ambassador. (‘Such quibbles,' when he objects!) We could not do it earlier because the hall hadn't been built. Her character in the film is as sympathetic as she is, deaf to anything she doesn't want to hear. When Elsie says ‘Oui' she is quite convinced that she can speak fluent French.

MM was in top form, bouncy and jolly. Her appearance, off camera, changes with her mood. When she is happy she looks really attractive. One can see what all the fuss is about. She is only 29
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and she certainly has a wonderful figure. She doesn't even need a bra in that amazing white dress. With Dame S she behaves like a schoolgirl,
and an obedient schoolgirl at that. Jack has started to play up to MM much more too, which helps. Alas, it is too late for SLO to react. If he could only strengthen her confidence somehow, reinforce it when it is high. But Plod tells me that Lee Strasberg calls her every evening from the USA – reverse charge of course – and this undermines SLO a lot. I mentioned this to Milton. He also hates the Strasbergs but by now he seems powerless to prevent their influence. At least Milton's son, Josh, is OK after the accident. But MM seems to be slipping from his grasp.

We continue with reaction shots of MM in the hall – her first impression of the Embassy, her meeting with the Grand Duke, and the scene where Dicky reassures her that he will save her from a fate worse than death. She seemed less clear in the head today and more woozy. I hope Milton isn't giving her too many pills again. It's one of the ways he can still control her. Milton now has an assistant called David Maysles.
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David looks like a young American college undergraduate. He has a great deal of ambition and this makes him irreverent and mischievous. He frequently says what Milton would like to say but does not dare, and despite his appearance no one could describe him as ‘nice'. Milton calls him a ‘film maker' and says he is very good in his own right. But he spends most of his time running errands (like me) and chasing girls. He is flippant but cheerful. He is always playing with Josh, which gives Amy a break, and he makes Amy laugh, which makes me jealous, I'm not sure why. He told me that Milton orders the pills for MM from Amy's doctor in New York. There are ‘uppers' for when she is down, and ‘downers' for when she cannot relax. I gather that in America you can buy any pill you want. Don't they realise that nature has
already worked out how to keep you balanced without uppers and downers? I know they think MM is a special case, and I suppose she does have unnatural pressures and demands. But now she is like a see-saw, forever being pushed up or down and never level. In the end she will loop the loop like her mum.

More hall but no Monroe. Hedda called at about ten to say she wasn't well again. Plod had already phoned to tell me that there was no sign of life at 8.30 and I had warned SLO. Milton was caught unawares, and SLO despatched him to see if a doctor had been called, or was contemplated.

There is still plenty we can do without MM. After lunch we did the shot of the Grand Duke's arrival at the Embassy, just as Elsie has decided to walk out. She turns to the front door to leave, which we have already shot, and then we cut to the back of her head. The big doors open, she curtseys and her head disappears downwards to reveal SLO's grinning face.

‘Good evening,' he says. ‘How kind of you to come at such short notice.'

He really looked most alarming with his monocle and his patent leather hair, but he did several ‘takes', until he was absolutely happy with this ghastly appearance. In MM's absence we did the shot with MM's stand-in bobbing up and down in one of MM's precious wigs. She was thrilled to be ‘understudying' MM even if one couldn't see her face, and she has got over her anger with me.

All this made it clear that I had somehow to make it up with Jack. By pure luck I heard him talking enthusiastically about the Turner paintings in the Tate Gallery. He was sitting in a little circle of admirers – Carmen, Tony, Denys and Co – while he waited for the gaffer to do his bidding. I was standing (3rd Ast Dirs never sit, remember) on the edge of the circle, and I butted in.

‘My father owns one of those paintings,' I said.

‘No,' said Jack kindly, ‘these are all in the Tate Gallery, and the ones I am talking about are very big.'

‘Well, my father has the only one in the world outside the Tate,' I replied. ‘Somehow it escaped and my father bought it nine years ago. It's hanging in the drawing room.' Jack had to look at me again. ‘The drawing room' probably wasn't a concept he associated with 3rd Ast Dirs. They are meant to talk about the lounge. I'm sure that in his nice, easy-going way it has never occurred to him that I was of any particular significance (i.e. the son of friends of SLO and Vivien etc.). Why should it? I've never looked at the stand-ins like that, and I see them every day just as Jack sees me. But now he was curious. (Snobbishness, too, is a sympathetic human failing.)

‘Is your father a collector, then?' he asked, prepared to be dealing with a lunatic.

‘Yes, he is. He's an art historian actually.'

Jack's mind did a rapid search of his memory. Colin Clark?? ‘Your father isn't Sir Kenneth Clark, is he?'

‘Yes, he is.' No reaction from the crew. Carmen already knew this but none of the others had ever heard of art historians, let alone Sir Kenneth Clark. Jack is an artist with light who also aspires to be an artist with paint. Jack nearly jumped out of Jack's skin with excitement.

‘Oh, how wonderful. I admire your father very much. I'd love to meet him and discuss painting with him. In fact he owns the picture I admire most in the world – the nude portrait Renoir did of his wife on their honeymoon.'

I was just warming up. ‘Perhaps you and Mrs Cardiff would like to come down to the country one weekend. You could meet my parents and see the Renoir and the other pictures.' All this was out of the MM stand-in's earshot. (When you wield such flagrant power, you must be merciful!)

‘Oh, that would be fantastic. I'll tell Julie' – for thus Mrs C is called – ‘She will be thrilled. Perhaps we could drive down. It is in Kent isn't it?' Yes, and it's a castle as I'm sure you know, but I didn't say that.

‘I'm going down this weekend and I'll arrange it,' I said. ‘I'm sure my parents would be flattered to meet you both.'

Victory over stand-in complete. Indeed Jack went round telling everyone, whether they had heard of Sir Kenneth Clark or not. SLO took it calmly. ‘You'll love K and Jane. Gorgeous house, too,' he said without taking much notice. Poor man has other problems right now. But I'm very happy. Jack is a nice, interesting and enthusiastic man and I'm sure my parents will like him and his wife.

Mr P came into the studio at the end of the day, delightfully gloomy as ever. He has already had to put his Number 2 cross-plot into effect, but for some reason he blames AM and not MM. The demand for a Jaguar was seen as a last straw. He also has suspicions that Paula Strasberg is fleecing us and that Milton is fleecing MM.

‘So who do you trust?' I asked.

‘No one, Colin – including you.' Grin, grin.

MM had been told she need not come in today or tomorrow. It's very doubtful if she would have turned up anyway. Once the word ‘doctor' has been mentioned, it usually takes three days for her to recover her stamina and her will power.

We have two days in the Foreign Office set, which has been built in Studio A. It needs its own studio because film we shot on location two weeks ago is projected onto a screen outside the windows, to look as if the carriages are going trotting by in the background. We filmed the coaches from the actual Foreign Secretary's office, looking down on the road round St James's Park. The carriages were so far away that we used the stand-ins, dressed in the stars' costumes. We will film the stars themselves in close-up later, in the studio.