Marilyn Monroe (33 page)

On 17 July the Millers accompanied Laurence Olivier to the Lyric Theatre where Vivien Leigh was performing in
South Sea Bubble
by Noel Coward. The play opened at the theatre on 25 April and had received its fair share of newspaper coverage, but on this particular night, it was Marilyn who stole the show.

Shortly before the performance was due to start, the Millers and Olivier took their seats in row J. Marilyn, wearing a flesh-coloured, skin-tight dress and a raincoat almost identical to the one she wore on her arrival in England, immediately drew attention from the other theatregoers, and although the visit was supposed to be secret, word soon got round that Marilyn was in attendance.

By the time the performance had finished, a huge crowd had gathered around the theatre, but with Marilyn’s chauffeur parked at the stage door, and Olivier’s parked at the front, fans had no idea where to wait. This resulted in them crowding around both entrances in a bid to catch even the smallest glimpse of the star and her playwright husband.

Finally, at 10.50 p.m., and after several van-loads of police had been called, Marilyn and her companions made their exit from the front door of the theatre and were taken to Olivier’s London home at Lowndes Place, where they spent a few hours before leaving at 2 a.m. to return to Parkside.

Before Marilyn arrived in England,
Bus Stop
director Joshua Logan wrote a letter to Olivier, advising him on how best to work with her. Unfortunately, although Olivier wrote to Logan on 26 June to say that his comments had been ‘carefully noted’,
it would seem that Marilyn’s way of working still came as a shock, since from the very first day of rehearsals on 18 July, the two stars did not get on at all well.

Olivier’s first and probably greatest mistake was to introduce Marilyn in what she took to be a patronizing manner. Whilst generally polite, Olivier made a large speech to the cast, explaining that they would have to be patient with Marilyn, as her methods were perhaps different to theirs. Enormously insecure, this comment made her suspicious of Olivier and she was on her guard from that moment on.

Marilyn’s pianist, Alan, remembers visiting the set on several occasions and being told to ‘stand over there and don’t breathe . . .’ From his corner, however, he was able to see firsthand what Marilyn went through during her time on set: ‘Olivier ran a very strict ship, as though he was working in the theatre, with rehearsals etc. Everyone was curious to see what Marilyn was like, but some were “sniffy” and thought Marilyn was wrong and amateur because she wasn’t from the West End. They had all worked with Olivier before and felt that it was like putting on slippers, but Marilyn just wasn’t used to working like that. Dame Sybil Thorndike was an angel though. She had put in a good word about me with Marilyn and told her that she’d known me since I was in short trousers.

‘Marilyn kept to herself on the set. She would have liked to have mixed with the others but there was a barrier there. She went into it wide-eyed, looking at Olivier as “my hero” but she got very upset by him and felt a lot of contempt for him and the other cast members who never went out of their way to be nice to her.’

Meanwhile, Marilyn’s personal life was becoming a constant source of speculation in the newspapers, and rumours appeared that she would be holidaying in Paris and Scotland, visiting the local cricket green and attending at least one wedding. All of these stories were false, but it didn’t stop people wishing them to be true, and just four days after her arrival, major excitement was caused when ‘Marilyn’ showed up in Shakespeare Country.

During one of the several press conferences that took place after the Millers’ arrival in London, Arthur had expressed his desire to visit Stratford-upon-Avon. This intrigued fans living in the town, who waited with baited breath to see whether or not they would make the trip. Imagine the excitement then, when on 18 July, a chauffeur-driven car pulled up outside Shakespeare’s birthplace, and a woman, looking remarkably like Marilyn, stepped out of the vehicle.

Brenda Porter, who was standing in the crowd of people who swarmed round the woman that day, remembered: ‘There were quite a few people in the crowd [and] we all stood and waited for quite a while when a chauffeur-driven car drew up outside Shakespeare’s house. A lady got out of the car and the crowd tried to cross the road to see her. There was no one with her, [and] she took video pictures of Shakespeare’s birthplace, but very quickly got back into the car. People in the crowd said it was not Marilyn. I can’t honestly say if it was either.’

Indeed, when questioned by people in the crowd, the chauffeur claimed that the woman was a Mrs Horace Dodge of Windsor, but refused to say anything else on the matter. However, with no security and no husband, the chance of ‘Mrs Dodge’ turning out to be Marilyn was pretty remote.

This may have been the first time a ‘fake Marilyn’ would make news during the England trip, but it certainly wasn’t the last. In October, another impersonator made headlines, this time by booking false appointments with five of London’s top dressmakers and booking singer Tommy Steele for a fake party. She gained a lot of column inches but this fake Marilyn was never found.

The first week in England had been a busy one, for both Marilyn and the press who were reporting anything remotely Monroe-related, however weird or wonderful it seemed. Coverage included a report which stated that Dame Edith Sitwell wished to visit the star sometime soon; and on 20 July
The Times
ran the story of a German communist magazine called
Junge Welt
which gave Marilyn the thumbs-up for daring to become a
serious actress and for marrying Arthur Miller. Certainly for the first week of Marilyn’s visit she could do no wrong, but it quickly became apparent that the mood of reporters was beginning to change from one of excitement to one of impatience.

The reason for this sudden downturn seems to be related to Marilyn and Arthur’s desire to have privacy during their stay in England. Whereas she had made herself freely available to reporters during the first few days, once the press conferences were over, she almost completely dropped from public view, preferring instead to spend time at home, learning her lines for
The Prince and the Showgirl.
The British reporters did not like this sudden bid for privacy and were quick to comment on it in the newspapers.

Marilyn and Arthur had decided to spend the next weekend quietly at Parkside House, but quite bizarrely some members of the press took this stance to assume that Marilyn was now playing hard to get. They complained that not only had she stayed in her house whilst fans waited outside to see her, but had also changed her phone number to discourage unwanted calls. Added to this, when one reporter had his request for an interview turned down, it prompted some members of the press to compare Marilyn’s apparent aloofness with the friendliness of the English star, Diana Dors, who was in the United States at the time and giving many interviews, a lot of which had more than their share of questions about her ‘rival’. When asked about Marilyn, the blonde star stated quite plainly that she did not like to be compared to her. Talking to Art Buchwald she quipped: ‘The only similarity between us is that she’s a sex symbol of her country and I’m a sex symbol of mine.’

Meanwhile, back in England, there were some extremely personal comments being leaked to the newspapers, such as allegations that the honeymooning Millers actually slept in separate bedrooms (housekeeper Dolly Stiles confirms that this rumour was untrue), and there was even an article published in the
News Chronicle
that described Marilyn as dowdy, with a spare tyre and crumpled clothes.

During the weekend of 21–2 July, Oscar-winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff visited Marilyn in order to talk about his involvement with
The Prince and the Showgirl.
She knew all about his work and was very excited to meet him, and Cardiff later wrote that on meeting her, he was convinced he had just met an angel. While Marilyn couldn’t be described as an angel to work with, Cardiff always thought of her as a warm and lovely person, and was one of the only members of cast and crew to socialize with her off set. He gave her books to read, visited an art gallery with her and even accompanied her to a private screening of
Bus Stop
at the Fox offices in Soho Square.

Despite members of the Weybridge Division of the Surrey Constabulary working shifts around the clock, and a personal bodyguard in the shape of PC Hunt, there was a major security issue one afternoon, when journalists somehow managed to gain access to the roof of Parkside House. Once there, one of the enterprising men held on to the feet of his friend and dangled him upside down outside Marilyn’s bedroom. The aim was to take a photograph of Marilyn in her bedroom, but they were out of luck; the pair were spotted and escorted off the premises before any disaster could occur.

But it wasn’t just journalists causing concern. Fans continued to hide in the bushes and dozens of admirers crowded around the gates, hoping to catch a glimpse of Marilyn coming and going. One of these was Mr G. Pearson, who was fourteen years old in 1956 and spent most of his school holidays at Parkside House. He was thrilled when Marilyn waved to him on two occasions, but was later involved in a more dramatic incident that showed security at Parkside perhaps wasn’t as tight as it should have been. Mr Pearson remembered: ‘I was outside the gates with my friend, when a couple of reporters approached us, and asked if we would like to earn a large, silver coin. We stated the obvious “Yes”, but what did we have to do for such a sum of money? One of the reporters handed me an envelope and said, “Go in and give this letter to Marilyn.”

The envelope just had “Miss M. Monroe” written on it. I remember we had to jump over the gates (about four to five foot high), as they were locked, and walked up to the house. Upon reaching the house we rang the bell, the door was opened by a maid and I said, “Would you give this letter to Marilyn please?” She then shut the door, and we waited.

‘Shortly after the door opened again, and we were confronted by Arthur Miller. He enquired as to how we got in, and who the letter was from. I answered that we had jumped over the gates and that a man had given us the letter. He then told us to go back the way we had come. His actual wording I cannot remember, but it was loud, abrasive and in words that I had heard adults use before.

‘We hastily retreated down the drive, and I do recall being photographed as we hurdled the white gates. The reporters then took details of what had happened and gave us half a crown each. As far as I am aware, a short report of the incident appeared in a national paper.’

Another fan with a delivery for Marilyn was fifteen-year-old Michael Thornton, who went on to become a highly successful author and critic. Michael was staying with friends during the summer holidays when he heard that Marilyn had arrived. After some initial research he discovered her address and set off on his bike, complete with some hand-picked roses strapped to the handlebars: ‘On arrival in the tiny village of Englefield Green, my breathless enquiries to highly suspicious locals – already alienated by the descent of countless Fleet Street reporters – elicited the information that Parkside House was in Wick Lane, which I eventually found. The house was white, with tall white windows and white chimneys, extremely attractive and very secluded, with a long drive through trees and hedges. I parked my bike opposite the main entrance, undid the rapidly wilting roses, and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.

‘In all, I think I must have been there for several hours, until finally a large black car drove up and turned into the drive. Inside I saw two men in the front (one the driver), and another
man and two ladies in the back, one wearing a headscarf and large dark glasses. I later learned that next to the driver was a plain-clothes detective, that the man in the back was Arthur Miller, and the second woman – rather plain, round-faced and dumpy – was Paula Strasberg. The figure in the headscarf and dark glasses was Marilyn.

‘I moved up the drive, into a position where they could all see me standing with my bunch of wilting roses. The policeman/detective came towards me, waving his hands, and said, “This is private property. You cannot come into the drive.” At that moment, the lady in the headscarf and dark glasses divested herself of both and became instantly recognizable as the devastating siren I had only lately seen in
The Seven Year Itch.
In her unmistakably breathy voice, she called: “Hey, don’t send him away.”

‘She came trotting forward in a rather tight dress and white high heels, moved around the police officer and said: “Hello, honey, are you waiting to see me?” (in a tone that suggested that was the most unlikely thing in the world). I was conscious of blushing, and stammered nervously: “Miss Monroe, I just wanted to say, ‘Welcome to England’, and to give you these,” and I handed her the wilting roses.

‘The expression on her face and in her eyes was as if I had handed her something priceless from Cartier. “Oh sweetheart, that is
so
lovely of you.” I noticed that her blonde hair was rather dishevelled – possibly the result of wearing a wig – and that her face and eyes had traces of screen make-up that had not been entirely removed. There was nothing grand or stand-offish about her. One might have thought she had never been given flowers before in her life, and her simplicity of manner certainly did not suggest that this was the most famous woman in the world.

‘Behind her I saw her stern-faced husband, in heavy hornrimmed glasses, glowering and frowning at this encounter. He then called out to her in a very autocratic voice: “Will you come into the house now please?” “How old are you honey?” she
asked. “I’m fifteen,” I said. “Fifteen? And you went to all this trouble to bring me these? I’m going to go and put them in water right away. Thank you, my darling.”

‘She turned towards the detective, then turned back, and to my amazement, she planted a very gentle kiss full on my lips – the sort of innocent kiss a child might give. “Bye bye honey,” she called as she walked away, leaving me in a state of surreal disbelief.