The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story (20 page)

Marilyn herself attempted to dispel the gossip about these alleged affairs when, in a Monday 24 November 1952 interview with United Press’s Hollywood correspondent, Aline Mosby, she forthrightly declared she ‘hadn’t dated anyone’ since Joe DiMaggio the previous March, remarked she had ‘no plans for marriage’, would not get married until it was ‘just right’, and added she was ‘not ready for it at this time’. Furthermore, it stretches credibility to the limit to believe that she could simply slip away from Joe DiMaggio, head off to Mexico with a man she barely knew and marry him. Ironically, during the weekend of the alleged Mexican marriage, rumours circulated in the papers that Marilyn had just secretly got hitched to Joe, her current date. Either by accident or design, we have to wonder whether Slatzer’s scheme was actually cack-handedly inspired by the title of Monroe’s recently released comedy, which was running in some cinemas across America that October . . .
We’re Not Married
.

But quite possibly the most damaging contribution to Monroe’s post-life legacy was the publication in July 1973 of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer’s biography,
Marilyn
. In one of the most infamous moments of American TV history, the writer foolishly accepted an invitation to promote his book on the top-rated CBS news and features presentation
60 Minutes
, hosted by Mike Wallace. As one critic remarked, ‘
Submitting to a television interview with Wallace is like opening your door to the Boston Strangler.’

In front of millions, and following a severe grilling from the host, Mailer admitted that he had carried out very little research (he wrote his book in just 60 days, acquiring most of the information within from Guiles’ 1969 publication), could not vouch for any of the events mentioned in it, did not interview any of the key characters in Monroe’s life and, owing to his gargantuan financial commitment to both his ex-wives and children, had written the book because he ‘needed the money very badly’. (The publishers, Grosset & Dunlap, had handed him a $10,000 advance.) The segment was, quite aptly, entitled ‘Norman Mailer and the Fast Buck’.

At the end of the interview, viewers were left in no doubt that they had just witnessed the sight of Mailer and his second-rate, severely flawed, highly fabricated, plagiarism-accused book being torn, ripped and mutilated in front of millions of television watchers. But sadly, so too had Marilyn’s once impregnable legacy. For the multitude of inquisitive Monroe fans watching, unaware of the dark side of her life, the actress’s once flawless, unassailable image had been irretrievably tarnished.

Chapter Five

Wednesday 7 February 1962–Sunday 22 April 1962

E
arly in 1962, no sharp-witted Hollywood publicist could hide the fact that Marilyn’s two most recent films,
Let’s Make Love
and
The Misfits
, had misfired at the box office. On Wednesday 7 February, news of this sudden lack of cinematic success inexplicably became a mainstay of several newspapers. The beliefs that Marilyn’s fame ‘may be on the skids’ and that ‘her fans are no longer faithful’ were now common among many of the world’s columnists. The recent announcement that mail at her fan club had dipped from 8,000 letters a week to just 50, only managed to emphasise the points further.

Additional, but more damning evidence of her apparent fall from favour came in the results of a new film poll, which listed the current, most eminent box-office stars of the United States. Amazingly, Marilyn Monroe was not among the top 25 names recorded. The revelation seemed to initiate a worldwide onslaught on the actress. An examination of her fading popularity was even carried out by New York columnist John Gold, who revealed in the London
Evening News
, ‘A year or two ago, the appearance of Marilyn Monroe on the streets of New York, Los Angeles or London tied up traffic for blocks. But today it results in only a few turned heads . . . ’

The bad press was incessant. An American magazine article, entitled ‘Star at a Turning Point’, pointed out that, ‘In the 35th year of her life, she’s now spoofing the pin-up girl she once was.’ In an article in
Show Business Illustrated
, a leading entertainment writer solemnly speculated,
‘It is apparent that Monroe is at the turning point in her career . . . Her personal popularity is diminished and her future in Hollywood, on the surface at least, does not seem bright.’

However, support for the actress was close at hand. When told about Marilyn’s apparent decline in public admiration, Billy Wilder, the director of her smash-hit 1959 film
Some Like It Hot
, cryptically remarked, ‘The idea that she may be slipping is like saying marble is out of fashion when 100 sculptors are just waiting to get their chisels in a choice piece.’

On Sunday 11 February, while pre-production work on
Something’s Got To Give
was haphazardly rumbling on at Fox and negative press about her was continuing to permeate the papers, Marilyn was busy preparing for a trip to New York, delayed from the 8th thanks to the move to her new house and her photo shoot with Willy Rizzo. An unexpected guest at Fifth Helena that morning was actress Edith Evanson. A veteran of many film and television roles, in particular Universal’s small-screen western series
Wagon Train
, she had been employed by Fox to teach Swedish dialect to Monroe for her part in the forthcoming movie as Ingrid Tic, the foreign maid whose identity the actress’s character adopts after her return from apparent death. ‘Director George Cukor, an old friend of mine, asked me to coach Marilyn for her role,’ she recalled for the
Corpus Christi Caller Times
in 1962. ‘I met her first at her home. Everything was dark, heavy and depressing. It had a creepy feeling about it but I thought nothing of it because she talked of her plans for decorating and especially landscaping.

‘When it came time to leave, she pleaded with me to ride to the airport with her in her chauffeur-driven car. At the airport, she pleaded again that I accompany her to New York . . . She was so pleading but I couldn’t leave my husband at home. She understood.’ Her revealing recollections continued. ‘I was amazed at how she looked for the flight east. Her hair was not combed. She wore a dingy pair of Capri pants that were much the worse for wear.’

The sharp-eyed New York columnist John Sampson was on hand to witness Marilyn’s arrival at Idlewild Airport later that day. In his desire to perpetuate the ‘Marilyn is no longer popular’ rumour, he despondently remarked in his piece, published a few days later, ‘There was nobody to greet her, nobody to take her picture, nobody to ask her for her autograph. Not even a solitary wolf-whistle.’

So how did Marilyn manage to go about her business in an extremely busy airport without being recognised? Were her fans really snubbing her, as the press believed? Well,
no
. The simple truth was that she dashed through the airport wearing her obligatory disguise: shades and a dark-coloured wig. (That day it was red.) In her desire for anonymity she had also booked herself on the flight under the pseudonym ‘Marjorie Stengal’.

(Borrowed from a woman she once knew, Monroe had been intermittently using this alias for almost ten years. In an attempt to deter fans and newspaper reporters, the moniker was even used on the doorbell at her North Doheny Drive apartment.)

Tired of the endless jostles with the waiting press, Marilyn simply enjoyed being incognito, a fact that Sampson conveniently failed to point out in his article. He obviously recognised her, but no one else did. In the concluding months of 1961 and in early 1962, as we know, Monroe often used this form of dress when she travelled. (We can therefore disregard the oft-told tales of how the actress only wore such disguises when she attended clandestine meetings with President Kennedy. Incidentally, at this point in the month, he was away with his family in Glen Ora, Virginia and did not return to the White House until 9.42am on Monday 12 February.)

Marilyn’s time in New York, which lasted until Saturday 17 February, was split between preparing files for Fox, flagging down cabs at 52nd and Madison, and visiting places such as the restaurant Sardis and the clothing stores Saks, Lilly Daché and Lord & Taylor. Trips to the Actors Studio, Carnegie Hall, the Lowe’s State Theatre and Greenwich Village’s Theatre de Lys, where she watched the off-Broadway show
Brecht on Brecht
, starring singer Lotte Lenya, were also slipped into her extremely busy schedule.

On Tuesday 13 February, she attended the premiere of Franco Zeffirelli’s production of
Romeo and Juliet
at Manhattan’s City Center. She was seen mingling among the star-studded crowd at the venue’s after-show party, an invite-only event organised by Lee Strasberg. The City Center’s manager, Jean Dalrymple, was naturally present, accompanied by her husband, Major General Philip Ginder. Lee introduced Marilyn to the General with the words, ‘Meet a lady who is a general in her business.’ The story goes that he appraised her, nodded, thought for a second and approvingly remarked, ‘Yes, four stars.’ The actress arrived back at her 57th Street apartment at precisely 2.30am.

While in New York she also received an inoculation for her forthcoming trip to Mexico, a visit arranged by Frank Sinatra through the country’s former president, Miguel Aleman. Another pastime was perusing, with Strasberg’s wife Paula, yet another unsatisfying draft of
Something’s Got To Give
. The latest version of the screenplay had been completed by Nunnally Johnson the previous Monday, 12 February. Marilyn’s scrawling across many of its 108 pages makes for very interesting reading indeed.

Across its front, she annotated the words, ‘We’ve got a dog here.’ On page 7, the actress queried the character Bianca’s use of the term ‘psychosomatic’.
‘Would she come right out with this sort of thing?’ she asked. On page 23, with regard to the sequence where Bianca takes hold of her husband Nick’s hand, Marilyn scribbled the words, ‘Let’s remember she is frigid. We all know what Kinsey found out about most females. This is got to be in one way or another.’ (The Kinsey in question was Dr Albert C. Kinsey, the author of two world-famous books on human sexual behaviour,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
(1948) and
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
(1953). At the time of writing, he theorised that many women of a certain age – late twenties, mid thirties – possessed equal heterosexual and lesbian tendencies.)

Marilyn’s markings make it clear she was a keen devourer of the doctor’s work. Certainly, bothered by her lack of a good education, the actress was a voracious reader. The books in her 400-plus assortment confirmed she was passionate about a wide range of subjects and far from the dumb blonde she was frequently portrayed as by the world’s media.

Volumes reflecting her intelligence and comprehensive interests, as well as children’s publications, the Bible and books on literature, art, drama, poetry, politics, history, theology, philosophy, psychology and gardening, sat proudly on her bookshelves. Classic works of literature by authors such as Twain and Tolstoy, and publications including F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
The Great Gatsby
, James Joyce’s
Dubliners
, Ernest Hemingway’s
The Sun Also Rises
, Lewis Carroll’s
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
and a two-volume set,
The Life And Times Of Sigmund Freud
, were also represented among her vast collection. So too were Mabel Elsworth Todd’s classic 1937 study of physiology
The Thinking Body
and Sir James George Frazer’s,
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion.

‘I’m a bookworm and proud of it,’ she exclaimed to Hollywood columnist Erskine Johnson on Tuesday 22 April 1952. ‘Sure I’m a book girl. But I’m not an intellectual and I’m mot interested in being one. I read because I want to expand as much and grow as much as I can.’

Conflicts with Cherie Redmond, her lawyer Milton ‘Mickey’ Rudin’s business secretary, also came to a head during this trip to New York. For some inexplicable reason, Marilyn had taken an instant dislike to Redmond immediately after she took up her $689-a-month post the previous year. Problems were ignited when Monroe learnt that Redmond’s Christian name was the same as that of Marilyn’s character in the 1956 movie
Bus Stop
. As Eunice Murray recalled in her 1975 book,
Marilyn: The Last Months
, ‘Marilyn had a week (
sic
) in New York to observe her and had formed a sudden judgement. “I don’t want her advice about
anything
but business matters.”’

Marilyn’s strange grievance even followed her back to Los Angeles, becoming so intense that she decided she did not want Redmond anywhere near her new home. It naturally caused problems. When Cherie needed the actress to sign various cheques, letters or legal documents, she would be forced to hand them over the gate to Murray at the front of the house. Redmond naturally became curious about Marilyn’s hostility; however, no answer was forthcoming. Perhaps Monroe had the solution. In a remark to Murray, the actress once quipped, ‘Cherie once drank the last remains of my bottle of Dom Perignon.’

However, Redmond did have her uses and, unlike so many of Marilyn’s other associates, was actually quite diligent with the actress’s finances. This was evident in a memo sent to Eunice Murray on Wednesday 25 April 1962, in which she noted how Monroe could have saved ‘anywhere between $50 and $60’ if she had purchased the refrigerator for her new Brentwood home directly from a recognised Hotpoint dealer instead of an appliance distributor. Furthermore, thanks to her close scrutiny of the invoice Marilyn received for her limousine hire during that February 1962 stay in New York, she noticed an overcharging of $10.50: $10 on Wednesday 14 February and 50 cents the following day. She forcibly pointed out the fact in a letter sent to Exec-U-Car Inc.’s secretary, Blanche L. Marshall, who, in a letter drafted on Wednesday 21 March, put the error squarely down to the fact that she was ill, working from her bed and ‘quite unable to work at all, so evidentally didn’t think very clearly’. Her grovelling concluded with the line, ‘I will surely try to be more careful next time.’ She was. The company could hardly afford to lose Marilyn’s custom. Her total bill for ten days of limousine hire had come to a grand total of $830.26, despite the fact she only used the vehicle for seven.