Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters (17 page)

Dear Lee & Paula,

Dr. Kris has had me put into the New York Hospital—psychiatric division under the care of two
idiot
doctors—they
both should not be my doctors
.

You haven’t heard from me because I’m locked up with all these poor nutty people. I’m sure to end up a nut if I stay in this nightmare—please help me Lee, this is the
last
place I should be—maybe if you called Dr. Kris and assured her of my sensitivity and that I must get back to class so I’ll be better prepared for “Rain.”

Lee, I try to remember what you said once in class “that art goes far beyond science.”

And the scary memories around me I’d like to forget—like screaming woman etc.

Please help me—if Dr. Kris assures you I am all right—you can assure her
I am not
. I do not belong here!

I love you both.
Marilyn

P.S. forgive the spelling—and there is nothing to write on here. I’m on the dangerous floor!! It’s like a cell can you imagine—cement blocks. They put me in here because they lied to me about calling my doctor & Joe and they had the bathroom door locked so I broke the glass and outside of that I haven’t done anything that is uncooperative

Note:
Rain
, adapted from a Somerset Maugham short story, was a TV project that Lee Strasberg hoped to direct. Marilyn Monroe and John Gielgud were to have had the main parts. The film was never made because of a disagreement between NBC and Lee Strasberg.

Marilyn Monroe and Lee Strasberg in a café near Carnegie Hall in New York

LETTER TO DR. HOHENBERG

1956

Before accepting Marilyn as a student of his “Method,” Lee Strasberg made it a condition that she start psychoanalysis. From the spring of 1955, therefore, three to five times a week, the actress consulted Dr. Margaret Hohenberg at 155 East 93rd Street in New York. Margaret Hohenberg was born in 1898 in Slovakia and had studied in Vienna, Budapest, and Prague before having to flee Austria in 1938 after the Anschluss. She first went to London for a year, then settled in New York in 1939.

Milton Greene, one of Dr. Hohenberg’s patients, recommended her to Marilyn, and, curiously, the doctor accepted her as an analysand in spite of the obvious risk involved in treating two patients who not only knew each other but also had very close professional links. In fact, shortly after Milton Greene was fired from Marilyn Monroe Productions, the actress stopped seeing the analyst and never returned to her consulting rooms. Nevertheless, a bill for $840, drawn up by Dr. Hohenberg on August 1, 1962, indicates that Marilyn had gotten back in touch with her former analyst for telephone consultations.

Dear Dr. Hohenberg,

I’ve been wondering myself why I don’t write to you.
I think it has to do with the fact that
I’ve been feeling I was taken away from you (with your consent) or that you sent me away from you—

On the whole, things are going along rather well
so far

M.C.A., our agents, and Stein, our lawyer
are dealing
have dealt with Natasha but—we’ll see—

I have a strange feeling about Paula. I mean—she works differently than Lee but she is a wonderful and warm person—which also bewilders me

Anyway I keep feeling I won’t be able to do the part when I have to it’s like a horrible nightmare.

Also I guess I didn’t write you before this because I was waiting to see if I would get shot first.

Arthur writes me every day—at least it gives me
a little
air to breathe—I can’t get used to the fact that he loves me and I keep waiting for him to stop loving me—though I
hope
he never will—but I keep telling myself—who knows?

Notes:

In January 1953, Marilyn left the William Morris Agency, whose vice president, Johnny Hyde, had died in 1950. She signed a contract with the powerful talent agency MCA, Inc. (Music Corporation of America). George Chasin attended to Marilyn’s interests at MCA until her death. In her book
Marilyn and Me
, Susan Strasberg quotes a story dating back to 1962 as told by Marilyn’s masseur, Ralph Roberts: “She asked me if I had heard any rumors about Bobby Kennedy and herself. None of it is true, she told me. Besides, he is too skinny. Bobby is trying to dismantle MCA and has asked me to help him.” Indeed, MCA had to wind down its agency work and concentrate on production after an action brought against the corporation by Attorney General Robert Kennedy in July 1962.

Irving Stein, along with Frank Delaney, was one of the lawyers who worked for Marilyn Monroe Productions.

In 1948, Natasha Lytess was appointed by Columbia, as was their usual practice, to help Marilyn prepare for her part in the Phil Karlson film
Ladies of the Chorus
. The two women worked together on about twenty films until Marilyn chose Paula Strasberg to assist her during the shooting of
Bus Stop
in February 1956. Natasha Lytess found it difficult to accept this break.

LETTER TO DR. GREENSON