My Week with Marilyn (42 page)

The director of
Bus Stop
, Marilyn's previous film.

He was forty-three.

Saltwood Castle in Kent, my parents' home.

In the tropical bird house.

My shorthand way of describing my parents. Five years previously they had told me to stop calling them ‘Mum and Dad' and to address them as ‘Mama and Papa'.

Notley Abbey, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh's home in Buckingham shire.

My twin sister Colette.

Tim Rathbone, with whom I had been at Eton and Oxford. Elected Conservative MP for Lewes in 1974.

Arthur P. Jacobs (1918 – 73) later became a producer. His films included
Dr Dolittle
(1967) and
Planet of the Apes
(1968).

Lord Moore, later Earl of Drogheda, chairman of the
Financial Times
.

Joan Carr, a concert pianist.

A nightclub run by a comedian called Al Burnett. The clientele was largely made up of rich young men of a type now known as ‘Hooray Henrys'.

(1882 – 1976).
Grande dame
of British stage and screen. She was the first actress to play Shaw's
St Joan
(1923).

i.e. Sir Laurence Olivier. When filming began the whole crew was to use this abbreviation.

(1912 – 75). He was playing Mr Northbrook of the Foreign Office in the film.

1931 — 84, real name Diana Fluck. Popular British actress whose many films included
Good Time Girl, Lady Godiva Rides Again, Passport to Shame
etc.

Vivien Leigh had created the role of Elsie Dagenham, changed to Elsie Marina when Marilyn played her in the film.

Terence Rattigan (1911 – 77). Popular West End playwright (
The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, Separate Tables
etc.).

1915 – 2005. American playwright (
The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge
etc.).

Milton Greene (1922 – 85) was a fashion and celebrity photographer who had formed Marilyn Monroe Productions with Marilyn Monroe a year previously.

Stein, Chairman of the Elgin Watch Co., was killed in a car accident in 1966.

Stein was not in fact a partner.

Lee Strasberg (1899 – 1982) founded the Actors Studio, famous for teaching ‘the Method'. He went on to act, brilliantly, in films such as
The Godfather Part Two
. His wife Paula had been an actress.

Pier Angeli: Italian actress, modestly successful in Hollywood in the fifties and sixties, who committed suicide in 1971, aged thirty-nine. She was married to the singer and actor Vic Damone.

Furse (d. 1972) had also designed the stage sets for the London production of
The Sleeping Prince
.

1904 – 97. Actor in Hollywood and British films of the 1930s (
Disraeli, Journey's End, The Scarlet Pimpernel
etc.) who later became a producer. He had worked with Olivier on the films of
Hamlet
(1948) and
Richard III
(1956).

While stationed there in the RAF in 1952.

I later became fond of Garrett, and he was right about the house. AM and MM left a
very
large unpaid phone bill.

1908 – 76. Her many designs for Vivien Leigh's costumes included
Caesar and Cleopatra
.

For Scarlett O'Hara in
Gone with the Wind
, 1939. She was awarded a second Oscar for Blanche DuBois in
A Streetcar Named Desire
, 1951. Olivier won a Special Academy Award for
Henry V
(1944), and a second for Best Actor as
Hamlet
(1948).

British composer (1904 – 77). His film scores included
Goodbye Mr Chips, Dangerous Moonlight
(including the ‘Warsaw Concerto'),
Blithe Spirit
etc.

Miller had been under investigation by Senator McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee. His marriage to MM evidently convinced them that he was a regular guy.

Sir Gerald du Maurier (1873 – 1934).

Allan (1913 – 91) was actually an American educated in England. He was the grandest personal publicist in Hollywood: his clients included Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly and Bette Davis.

Gabriel Pascal (1894 – 1954) was a Hungarian film producer who owned the screen rights to Bernard Shaw's works. He first had the idea of making
Pygmalion
into a musical (
My Fair Lady
, as it became). Jean Simmons (b. 1929) appeared in his film versions of Shaw's
Caesar and Cleopatra
(1945) and
Androcles and the Lion
(1953). My sister and I spent the summer of 1948 with them in Venice.

Othello
, Act V, Scene ii.

Cecil Tennant was to be killed in a motor accident in 1967, on his way home from Vivien Leigh's funeral.

The ballerina Margot Fonteyn (1919 – 91), an old family friend, whose mother was omnipresent.

MM's mother had been certified insane in 1934, and spent the rest of her life in various hospitals. She died in 1984.

MM's hairstyle was created by the famous Hollywood stylist Sidney Guilaroff. He flew in for a few days but did not mix with the British crew, except to instruct the film's hairdresser Gordon Bond.

Where I was stationed as a Pilot Officer in 1952.

1914 – 2009. He won an Academy Award for his work on
Black Narcissus
(1946), and later turned to directing.

I had spent the previous summer in Portugal and Spain, and saw Franco arrive in the port of Vigo, where he was very unpopular.

Yes it was, and still is.

i.e. Wardrobe girl.

A well-known New York photographer, married to Balanchine ballerina Allegra Kent.

Hedda Rosten was the wife of Norman Rosten, a well-known New York novelist and poet. They both remained friends of MM all her life, and after her death Norman Rosten wrote a book about her entitled
Marilyn: A Very Personal Story
. He died in 1995.

The Prince and the Showgirl
was in fact her twenty-fifth film.

The servants' quarters of my parents' flat in the Albany, Piccadilly, which they had loaned to me.

Esmond Knight (1906 – 87) had been partially blinded in the Navy during the war. He acted in many films, including Olivier's
Henry V, Hamlet
and
Richard III
, and
The Red Shoes.
In
The Prince and the Showgirl
he played the Regent 's security officer.

Some of the costumes had been designed by Cecil Beaton, but he had asked for too much money to do the whole production.

In
Monkey Business
(1931).

Robert Helpmann. Australian-born dancer, choreographer and actor (1909 – 86), knighted in 1968, who often partnered Margot Fonteyn. His film appearances included
Henry V
and
The Red Shoes.

(1900 – 69). British stage and screen actress, often cast in imperious roles (e.g. as Miss Havisham in David Lean's film of
Great Expectations
).

Former child star, b.1937. He was playing the part of Nicky, the young King.

In fact the title role in
Elephant Boy
(1937) was played by the
actor
Sabu (Sabu Dastagir, 1924 – 63).

Irina Baronova, star of the de Basil Ballet in the 1930s.

Original Prima Ballerina of the Diaghileff company, partner of Nijinsky.

In fact she was brought up in Los Angeles.

They had had a brief affair in 1949.

Though never hard drugs.

The other two couples I had in mind were Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy, and Prince Rainier and Princess Grace (Grace Kelly).

Chappell (1908 – 94) started out as a dancer with the Rambert company. He went on to design ballets, light reviews and plays.

Vivien Leigh played Cleopatra in the 1945 screen adaptation of Shaw's play, at the time the most expensive British film ever made.