The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story (36 page)

And bombshells continued to detonate. On the evening of Friday 8 June, Dean Martin surprised everyone by declaring that he had no interest whatsoever in working with Remick. Hours later, he announced he had quit the film. In comments later reiterated in a press statement, he paid his compliments to Lee Remick and made it clear to her it was nothing personal, but he had signed to be in a Marilyn Monroe movie and since the actress was no longer involved, this was no longer the case. Director George Cukor managed to avoid the ensuing troubles when, days after supposedly welcoming Lee Remick to the fold, he flew off to Honolulu for a holiday.

Word soon reached Marilyn about Remick and the cancelling of her Fox contract. Almost immediately, from her home in Brentwood, she placed a call through to Bobby Kennedy in Washington to notify him of the news. Rather than thinking of a tryst with the Attorney General, as some biographers have testified, she was hoping for a favour. As reporters Paul Scott and Robert S. Allen wrote in the
Post-Tribune
newspaper on Friday 12 June 1964, ‘If you are a world-known actress in distress, it’s mighty helpful to have Attorney General, Robert Kennedy to take a keen personal interest in your welfare. As head of the Justice Department, he is in a powerful position to solve problems with a dispatch and thoroughness that a veteran diplomat can’t equal.’ Just like many other film stars before (and after) her, Monroe was now turning to Bobby for help.

Due to Kennedy’s ongoing plans with Fox to shoot a big-screen version of his book
The Enemy Within
, Bobby wielded some power at the studio, and Marilyn knew it. According to FBI documents, ‘Robert Kennedy told her not to worry about the contract. He would take care of everything.’ Unfortunately, this time he could not. He made just one call, to 66-year-old Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, a close friend of his family and a recent appointee as chairman of Fox’s board of directors, and asked him for assistance in getting the actress reinstated. Rosenman was sensitive to his pleas but told him the only person capable of doing such a thing was Milton S. Gould – a man instrumental in Marilyn’s sacking and an individual whom Kennedy, just a month earlier, during the run-up to his brother’s gala, had labelled a ‘Jewish bastard’. The Attorney General was powerless to assist.

On Saturday 9 June, Marilyn placed another call through to Bobby in Washington. He had promised her he would sort out the problem, but he clearly had not and she was angry. According to FBI reports, ‘When nothing was done, she again called him from her home . . . and on this
occasion they had unpleasant words. She was reported to have threatened to make public their affair (
sic
).’ With regard to the matter of an affair, the FBI was clearly confusing its Kennedys.

The death-knell for
Something’s Got To Give
had come with Dean Martin’s decision to quit. But, contrary to what we’ve been previously led to believe, Fox did have one further, desperate plan up their sleeves to resurrect the movie. In between Martin’s announcement late on Friday 8 June and the studio’s declaration on Monday 11 June that they had irrevocably shut down production and served the crew with notices, the studio toyed with the idea of replacing the actress with glamorous 35-year-old blonde singer, actress and comedienne Edie Adams. Well known for her frequent impressions of Monroe, she recalled at the time, ‘I dressed myself up like Marilyn Monroe and everybody bought it.’

In 1962, Adams, the wife of legendary comic Ernie Kovacs, was carrying out her parodies on her weekly, Emmy-nominated ABC television comedy show,
Here’s Edie
. When it became known that Marilyn would not be completing
Something’s Got To Give
and Lee Remick would not be replacing her, Edie was a perfectly natural, if desperate eleventh-hour alternative. Her appointment was even approved during a rushed, highly secretive Fox meeting. Their original plan was to either reshoot the movie from scratch and let Adams impersonate Marilyn throughout or allow her to appear as a double in long shots, or from behind in scenes that the actress had not yet shot. The plan became so advanced that she was even summoned to the studio and asked to wriggle into several of Monroe’s costumes.

‘It was eerie,’ Edie announced in 1962. ‘We wear the same size and everything.’ (They were even almost the same age. Monroe was just ten months her senior.) Unsurprisingly, when this scheme reached Marilyn, she immediately called in her attorney, Rudin, who at once informed Fox that, by employing Adams in this way, the actress could sue them over rights to her ‘image’. Predictably, Fox soon shelved the plans. (As a footnote to this story, on Tuesday 3 July 1962, following several warning letters from Rudin, Adams publicly announced that she had given up doing impersonations of Monroe.)

Conspiracies surrounding the movie’s final days did not end there. Contrary to what we’ve been informed many times over the ensuing years, Dean Martin actually retracted his original announcement and said he would
return
to
Something’s Got To Give
if a ‘suitable replacement’ for Marilyn was found. Original, recently unearthed reports reveal that he had even given the green light to Adams’ hiring.

These documents reveal that, on Monday 11 June, just three days after Martin’s announcement of his resignation, a Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG)
fact-finding committee comprising actors Charlton Heston, Dana Andrews and George Chandler met with his associate in Hollywood to discuss his problems at Fox. Since the possibility of Marilyn not finishing
Something’s Got To Give
had strangely not been anticipated (or so Martin claimed), he was not protected contractually, so he turned to the SAG for help. The meeting concluded with the dilemma unresolved.

The following day, Tuesday 12 June, after another long discussion with the actor’s representative, the Guild issued a statement which read, ‘Dean Martin has now stated categorically that he has
not
closed the door to a suitable replacement for Marilyn Monroe.’ Fox immediately countered with a statement of their own, which read:

Despite the statement issued today by the Screen Actors’ Guild, Martin has
never
advised 20th Century-Fox that his publicly stated position concerning Miss Monroe has changed. Miss Remick is an established star in the motion picture industry and has co-starred with James Stewart, Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon and others. Martin’s original announcement insinuated he would
not
work with
any
other leading lady in
Something’s Got To Give
.

The flurry of statements concluded as fast as they had started and suddenly it seemed that Martin was being unduly and unfairly criticised for a situation that was not of his making. Unsurprisingly, with the actor now refusing to speak to anyone regarding the matter, his doting wife Jeannie entered the scene and moved swiftly to deflect the criticisms directed at her husband. Her original remarks, which have gone unpublished since 1962, paint the most honest account of Martin’s decision.

‘Dean’s actions were not based on any undying love or eternal friendship for Marilyn Monroe,’ she remarked to journalists who had camped on the front porch of the Martin family home on Mountain Drive in Beverly Hills. ‘Fact is, we have seven kids and we need the money. But the picture is no good without Marilyn or a reasonable facsimile [an obvious reference to Edie Adams]. This girl has got to be the sexpot queen of the world. She has to make Cyd Charisse look like a wall-flower. What Marilyn would add to the story with all her wiggling and personality can’t be replaced. Dean signed a contract in good faith. He’s not some old second-rate thing that 20th can push around. Marilyn is not his responsibility. What’s more he should not have to go and look for leading ladies.’

And so, just days after their last fruitless search for a replacement for Miss Monroe had bitten the dust, the studio felt they had no alternative but finally to once more call time on
Something’s Got To Give
. The
dismantling of the movie’s impressive set on Sound Stage 14 was the symbolic gesture that time had finally run out on the ill-fated film. ‘That’s all there is to it,’ Fox’s publicity man dejectedly remarked. ‘No quotes. No amplification. Nothing.’

What he failed to say was that the studio believed that, if they had continued at the rate they were going on the picture, they would have had an American version of the already costly
Cleopatra
on their hands. As another unnamed source at Fox remarked, ‘It was better to shut down and lose $2 million than keep on and maybe lose $10 or $12 million.’

Marilyn took this closure as an opportunity to wire the movie’s director, producer, workers and stagehands to express her sympathy about what had happened. It read: ‘Please forgive me, it was not my doing. I had so looked forward to working with you.’ They were unimpressed, and quickly announced – though the threat was never carried out – that they were intending to place an advert in the trade papers headed: ‘Thanks Dean and Marilyn, for putting us out of work.’

So, five decades on, the question still remains: what caused Marilyn to act as she did? Why did she vanish for days on end? Was she really that sick? Besides the factors explored in this and the previous chapter – her illnesses, her frustration over script changes and her lack of allies at 20th Century-Fox – I believe there were several other reasons why Monroe apparently flouted the rules and seemingly showed such disrespect for her fellow professionals.

First, before shooting had even begun, her studio doctor, Lee Siegel, remarked that, due to laryngitis and headaches, Marilyn was truly incapable of starting work. These are traits familiar to Nembutal users. Mixing those with her other likely symptoms – drowsiness, agitation, nervousness and anxiety – and the fact that she
was
suffering from the persistent effects of an obscure virus infection which she had picked up during her trip to New York, the doctor was entirely accurate when he proposed that Fox ‘should postpone the movie for a month’. They failed to do so.

Second, friends close to the star – the same friends who had also secretly advised her not to turn up on the set until she had a satisfactory script to hand – suggested that her failure to show on the set was precipitated by her unhappiness at how Fox were treating her. The actress was disappointed by the non-appearance on
Something’s Got To Give
of the noted cinematographer Charles B. Lang. A great favourite of Marilyn’s, he was engaged elsewhere in Hollywood at the time, shooting the new Warner Brothers comedy
Critic’s Choice
, starring Lucille Ball and Bob Hope. Insiders suggested that she had actually tried delaying production on
Something’s Got To Give
until his commitment to Ball and Hope had concluded.

Another factor was the movie’s producer, Henry T. Weinstein. Despite the valiant efforts to show how amicable their working relationship was, in truth it was far from that. Monroe and Weinstein were at loggerheads from day one. Early on during the making of the film, troubles intensified when, for unknown reasons, the actress refused blankly to deal with him, except when absolutely necessary. Subsequently, for Monroe, the shooting quickly turned into one long gruelling chore. Underpaid and undervalued, she vented her feelings in the only way she knew, by staying away.

Third, realising the actress’s inability to perform first thing in the morning, Fox apparently promised Marilyn during pre-production that she would not be required to appear at the studio until 10am each day. However, when filming got under way, the pledge was dropped and starts at around 7.30am soon became the norm. Knowing she was incapable of working at such an early hour, studio doctor Lee Siegel even proposed a plan to allow the actress to shoot her scenes between noon and 8pm, as was frequently done in Europe. Fox dismissed the idea, even though, in Rome, Elizabeth Taylor was working a regular 11am to 7pm shift on
Cleopatra
.

Other explanations for Monroe’s behaviour can be found. On Thursday 14 June 1962, the noted Hollywood film and television columnist Mike Connolly, a close associate of the actress, confirmed what already seemed evident, that she possessed a mental block against showing up on time. In addition, after her empty weekends, he announced that Mondays (she failed to show for three in a row) were always a bad time for her. A little-known fact is that around this time Marilyn had also been increasingly worried about her mother, Gladys, whose condition at the time of shooting had suddenly worsened. Naturally this affected her.

It is also worth addressing the over-emphasised point that the actress only turned up at the studio on 12 of the 33 shooting days. Aside from the fact that Marilyn
was
indeed ill during the filming, it has been conveniently overlooked since 1962 that she was not required on every one of those other 21 days. For instance, on Tuesday 8 May she was not scheduled to appear on the set, since her co-star, Dean Martin, was away from Fox with George Cukor that day shooting scenes on location. It is also important to recall that, regardless of what other historians may tell us, most of Marilyn’s absences from the set actually fell in line with the Screen Actors’ Guild’s description of the ‘excused absences’ rule.

Fox were also at fault for another reason. Studio executives clearly overlooked a proviso in her December 1955 contract that, due to the severe stomach pains she suffered, she was not expected to work at the start of her menstrual cycle; in this case, Thursday 17 May, the date when she
flew off to New York. The pain she experienced during her cycle was so excruciating that she would sometimes have to remain in bed for days on end or crumble to the floor in agony through the onset of her period. It is significant that, knowing of their legal obligation to the actress, permission to fly to Kennedy’s bash was naturally granted by the studio before shooting had even started.