My Week with Marilyn (20 page)

Both girls have beautiful, quite small breasts but I must admit that they were so brazen that I was more embarrassed than rapacious. They must have been on the game together in the old days, is my guess.

The house is much too small for MM or her retinue, and has no class at all. With this film, MM is trying to go up in the world, not down. So I left silently and reported back to Mr P. He just chuckled. He hates film stars really.

Thank goodness, I was completely wrong about David Orton. Underneath that severe exterior he is a very nice man. He is just awkward with people until he knows them.

He is married to a pretty, jolly make-up girl called Penny, who picked him up this evening. His world is the film studio, where he is in charge of course, and he is very experienced. He gave me a long explanation about how film studios work. Like in every job, there is a hierarchy which is very important. This is true in each department  – the lighting cameraman is head of one group, and pretty much above everyone except the director, the designer has his crew – set-dressers, down to chippies (carpenters); there is wardrobe, make-up, film editing etc., each with their own structure. The Director has an Associate Director, but his right-hand man is the 1st Assistant Director – David in our case.

The lowest of the low is the
3rd
Assistant Director who is known as a ‘gofer'. Anyone can tell him to ‘go for this, go for that'.

This is the job he'll try to get for me, but even a 3rd Ast Dir needs a union card and that is the hardest thing in the world to get: actually it is the same card as a director needs to work on a film, but it is a different grade. David has promised to try and come up with a scheme to get round the union ‘closed shop' rule. I trust him.

Mr P has other worries and so has SLO. I'm not surprised. I saw the play on which the film is going to be based:
The Sleeping Prince
. Larry and Vivien did it together – at the Phoenix Theatre in 1953 – 4
¹⁷
– and it was a very slight piece indeed. Typical Rattigan
¹⁸
  – theatrical, charming and that's all. Vivien was enchanting as ever, despite a funny accent. But I thought Larry was at his worst. He has an old-fashioned notion that it is funny to play European royalty,
and he gets wooden and mannered. The whole play ended up like a sort of 1930s in-joke – hardly Hollywood. I can't see it being a good role for MM. I suppose she thinks it will enhance her new ‘intellectual' image. She will certainly have been told what a fantastic opportunity it is to play opposite the greatest classical actor of the generation etc. But Rattigan is no Shakespeare. Unless MM is cleverer than she looks, she will find it jolly hard to mix her style with Olivier's. She is said to be reading Dostoevsky or
War and Peace
or something so maybe she will surprise us all. Diana Dors surprised me, but she's more a crafty cockney than an intellectual.

SLO came in, in quite a state. Problems already. After a bit I was called in to Mr P's office to ‘join the discussions' – providing I do not speak unless asked a direct question! It seems that MM is going to marry Arthur Miller
¹⁹
this weekend. What sort of an effect will that have on her? And on the production? Will Miller persuade her not to come, and whisk her off on a glamorous honeymoon? SLO says he is a self-satisfied, argumentative, pseudo-intellectual. Charming. Will he help MM or make her argumentative too? She has a dreadful reputation already among movie directors. She is always late on the set, often does not show up for days on end, and can never remember her lines. What on earth can be the matter?

Her producer, and the co-producer of the film, with SLO, is called Milton Greene.
²⁰
It is for him that I have rented Tibbs Farm. He will be responsible for MM while she is here, making sure she does turn up and keeping an eye on the expenses. But it seems he does not like Arthur Miller. He got MM out of her 20th Century contract,
together with a lawyer called Irving Stein.
²¹
Evidently Milton Greene has given SLO his assurance that he can make MM behave herself.

After all it is her own money that is involved this time. Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP) has a big share in the profits, just like LOP. If MM doesn't turn up for work, then she (and her partners, Greene and Stein
²²
) start losing money. That is the theory. I don't know if it has occurred to any of them that while the three men involved (MG, IS and AM) want money, MM may be more interested in her career, but I didn't dare say so. Poor SLO. He is already upset enough. He doesn't trust any of the Americans and is out of his depth.

‘What have I got myself into, Colin?'

‘I think it will be a fantastic success, Larry,' I replied (using Larry for the last time, I swear it).

Mr P beamed in the background. His prodigy had said the right thing. ‘Success for her or success for me?' said SLO but he was comforted for the moment (so easily?!).

And on top of AM there is the problem of the Strasbergs.
²³
Lee Strasberg is the head of the Actors Studio in New York, where MM sometimes studies (like once??). He is her god. He doesn't want to come over to London and desert his other students so he is sending over his wife, Paula. Paula Strasberg is a famous menace. As MM's ‘drama coach' she could undermine SLO.

Naturally SLO wants a professional actor's approach. MM learns the role and decides how to play it; SLO makes suggestions, they discuss them, MM alters her performance accordingly etc. What will Paula's approach be? How will she fit in between them?

Throughout all this, a new idea has occurred to me. A couple of years ago, Lee and Paula's daughter Susan completely stole my heart
in a film called
Picnic
. Susan played the kid sister of a blonde called Kim Novak. KN was meant to be the beautiful one and SS the ugly duckling – aged about 15, I suppose. Needless to say SS was 100 times more attractive than Novak in every way. I am a complete sucker for little skinny girls with big brown eyes. At the time I fell in love with Susan Strasberg, I had only just got over Pier Angeli marrying some dreadful Hollywood crooner.
²⁴
I could hardly stop myself from asking whether Paula was bringing her daughter with her. I suppose not, but with luck, Susan might
visit
her Mum.

Anyway, I kept quiet.

Mr P and SLO had a long moan about Hollywood and Hollywood types and agents, lawyers, producers, stars. I don't think SLO is jealous. After all he and Vivien have both had huge Hollywood successes. He just can't stand the lack of professionalism. He sees ‘the Method', which originates in New York, of course, but influences all the new Hollywood stars, as an excuse for self-indulgence.

Everyone is seduced by MM's particular form of glamour and SLO fears he has fallen into a trap. MM is not like any leading lady he's ever known and he can't fathom it. He can't figure out whether she has a brain in her head or not. He knows he's a very attractive man, but she doesn't seem to have really noticed him. She only sees his reputation. She'll be here in three weeks and then we'll find out.

It's true that I don't think of SLO as a movie star, despite
Henry V
and all the films he's made. I think of him as a great actor. How will a ‘star' and an actor mix. They'll have to find somewhere to meet between the sky and the stage.

I know I want to be a professional, like SLO. If I get a job on the film, I must stick to him like glue!

The whole office is busy planning for MM's arrival. Frequent directions arrive from America about the colours she likes, the materials she likes, the decorations she likes. The dressing-room suite at Pinewood is to be all beige. In fact beige is the only colour everyone agrees is safe. Red is out. Blue is out. Green is out. It is as if these colours were enemies.

Garrett and Joan are having the master bedroom suite at Englefield Green repainted white. They say they hate beige and won't change it. I told them I was having their village renamed Englefield Beige. For the money we (well, MMP to be accurate) are paying them, they could repaint the whole house many times over, but Garrett is too mean.

I made an appointment for Thursday with the police at Heathrow Airport to plan MM's arrival on 14 July. The Inspector thought I was kidding at first. But when I threatened 3000 fans he took me seriously.

Evidently when the crooner Johnny Ray came through, he – the Inspector – had his little finger broken in the mêlée. Johnny Ray's publicity people had gone down to the East End and filled up four buses with slum teenagers. They gave each one 10 shillings to cause as much pandemonium as possible when Ray appeared. This they duly did, and Johnny Ray's arrival was instant front-page news.

The Inspector says if we plan something like this he will personally have me arrested. I assure him that SLO himself has entrusted me with the job of getting MM into the country as discreetly as possible. He is still doubtful but I can tell that even he cannot resist the chance of meeting MM in the flesh. Her name has a magic effect.

People who are going to be associated with the production of the film drift in.

Roger Furse
²⁵
is going to be the designer. I have met him before
with Vivien — I think at Notley. He always seems to have a hangover, never stops smoking. He ran out of Capstans and cadged three of my Woodbines. (I never get time to smoke anything larger.) Mr P won't allow me to smoke in his office, despite his continual pipe puffing. I find Roger very sympathetic but Mr P clearly does not.

‘Never trust the dirty fingernail brigade, Colin,' he said after Roger had left. ‘They pretend to be only doing it for their art, but they are always trying to wangle more money.'

I took a quick squint at my fingernails — not that clean. I need the job, not the money, but I suppose that I must admit I am prepared to wangle.

My worry is that Roger is rather too ‘stagey'. The more SLO surrounds himself with stage people, the more ‘stagey' the film will be. Perhaps that's the intention – to make the film a sort of period piece – rich, theatrical and far from MM's normal image.

Jolly hard to pull off though. SLO may like it and MM may like it, but will filmgoers pay to see it?

Another ‘old friend' today.

Tony Bushell
²⁶
roared in at 12.30 to meet SLO and Rattigan for lunch. Tony looks like a bluff military man – bald, red faced and jovial. In fact he was in the Guards during the war and almost everyone forgets he is an actor.

David Niven told Mama that when Tony applied to join some grand regiment, the Adjutant asked him what he did for a living.

‘Nothing at the moment,' said Tony, who, like all actors, was out of work.

‘Thank goodness,' said the Adjutant, assuming Tony was idle rich,
‘I thought you might be an actor. The last actor chappie we had ran off with the Colonel's wife.'

So Tony got in, and sure enough, ran off with the wife of someone in the regiment.

Very adorable she is too. Anne Bushell is a great friend of Vivien's, as Tony is of SLO's. In fact Anne talks exactly like Vivien (though she is not an actress at all – she is an heiress), and when she answers the phone at Notley one can't tell the difference. She is not as beautiful as Vivien (no one is) but she is still very attractive – as well as a good deal easier to be with.

Tony boomed a great welcome to me. He is going to be the Associate Director. This means that while SLO is acting in
front
of the camera, Tony will take charge
behind
it, and ‘direct' the film.

I don't think Tony could direct traffic in Cheltenham. Despite his imposing appearance he is really a pussy cat. But SLO needs a chum to guard his rear, as it were, and it is a great joy to have Tony around. He has a heart the size of a house which he loves to hide behind a glare. I've met Rattigan too, but he didn't remember me. He's queer of course, although I've nothing against that. He's charming to everyone but with a cautious look in his eye. I can't pretend I think he's much cop as a writer. Very 1920s period stuff. Of course, there's always an edge but if there wasn't even that his plays would just be blancmange.

SLO and Vivien probably know this but they love to have queer courtiers, and Rattigan's plays are quite good vehicles for actors.

They all went off to the Ivy in high good spirits. Like a lot of overgrown schoolboys, I thought.

‘Hmph' said Mr P as we settled down to the cheese rolls and Guinnesses — which I buy and we now consume together in his office.

Mr P has finally admitted that MM may need a bodyguard. The newspapers are making such a fuss of her and the upcoming visit. You
would think that her fans are massing at strategic points to trample her to death in the rush for her autograph. ‘Phooey' we say, but we can't take risks, and anyway the cost will come out of MMP's budget.

Mr P has no idea how to arrange a bodyguard so I rang Scotland Yard. When I finally got through to someone senior enough, they were incredulous and angry.

‘Miss Marilyn Monroe will be adequately protected by the police while in this country like every other American visitor,' said some Commissioner sniffily. I patiently explained that if there was a retired Inspector around who would like to spend four months in Miss Monroe's company for a high salary I would like his name.

Once again the magical MM image made a strong man wilt. In fact I think the Commissioner sounded as if he might resign there and then to take the job. (Imagine what he could tell the wife – line of duty and all that.) He would have someone call me in the afternoon. And he did call – a real Inspector Plod. He was cautious and realistic — quiet sense of humour, not overawed. Sounds just what Mr P and I need. I invited him to come here to meet us in a week's time.