Pink Triangle: The Feuds and Private Lives of Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Famous Members of Their Entourages (Blood Moon's Babylon Series) (106 page)

The plot thickens when a foreigner, Silva Vacarro, moves to the nearby countryside with a more modern and efficient cotton gin, stealing Archie Lee’s old customers. No longer a small and wizened man, Silva has morphed into a handsome, sexy Sicilian.

With his furniture confiscated and facing bankruptcy, it becomes clear that Archie Lee cannot meet his obligation of providing for Baby Doll.

Consequently, he burns down Vicarro’s cotton gin, and Vacarro, seeking revenge, tries to snatch Baby Doll from him.

Based on his previous success with
A Streetcar Named Desire
, producer Charles Feldman, an on-again, off-again lover of Marilyn Monroe, had been constantly calling Tennessee and Kazan, asking them, “When are we going to make another great movie together? You guys are hot!”

As news of this Tennessee/Kazan collaboration heated up, Feldman flew to New York to meet with them, suggesting that Warners was willing to pay handsomely for the film Rights to
Baby Doll
. Williams and Kazan were still working on the screenplay.

At the Actors Studio in Manhattan, Kazan tried out an early version of
Baby Doll
, casting Karl Malden as the frustrated husband, and Carroll Baker as Baby Doll Meighan
[i.e., the Flora character of
27 Wagons
.]

For the film version, Eli Wallach would be cast as Silva Vaccaro, with Mildred Dunnock playing Rose Comfort,
The Unsatifactory Supper’s
cook.

In its first stage production,
27 Wagons Full of Cotton
was performed at the Playhouse Theater in Manhattan in 1955. It starred Felice Orlandi (who Tennessee defined as “my type”), Maureen Stapleton, and Myron McCormick.

Beginning with the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe had entertained dreams of starring in a play by Tennessee Williams.

One night in 1952, at Peter Lawford’s house in Santa Monica, a drunken Marilyn was sharing her dream with Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Lawford himself. She claimed that she was considering touring America with Marlon Brando in a road show version of his Broadway success, Tennessee’s play,
A Streetcar Named Desire
.

“Marlon would get a chance to be Stanley Kowalski again, and I, of course, would play the doomed heroine, Blanche DuBois. I’m sure Tennessee would love the casting.”

“SHUT UP, MARILYN!” Frank Sinatra shouted at her. “You don’t know what in the fuck you’re talking about. As Blanche DuBois, you’d be laughed off the stage. Stick to those dumb blonde roles.”

In tears, she ran from the living room and locked herself into one of the guest bedrooms. Sinatra stormed out of the house, but the temperamental star later apologized when he wanted her body.

That fantasy dream faded, of course, but three years later, another possibility arose.

In 1955, Marilyn Monroe was in Manhattan, attending the Actors Studio, when she first heard of Tennessee’s latest play,
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
. Her informant was James Dean, who was arranging a rendezvous with her, but not “until I take care of some unfinished business.”

“Tennessee told me he’s writing this play about a repressed homosexual married to this hot-to-trot wife named Maggie the Cat,” Dean told Marilyn. “He thinks the part of the young husband would be ideal for me, although I’m not very repressed. I think his audition will consist of an expert blow-job.”

“Sounds like fun,” she said. “If the part’s right, maybe I could play Maggie the Cat.”

“Tennessee said that both roles are sexy.” Dean looked at Marilyn and winked “Can you act sexy, doll?”

“Try me!” she shot back.

“It’s a deal, but give me a raincheck for right now. Of course, I’d rather get a blow job from Marilyn Monroe than from Tennessee Williams.”

“Those are about the most romantic words I’ve ever heard spoken to me,” she said, kissing him goodbye and wishing him luck. Before he left, she said, “I guess men sometimes have to lie on the casting couch, just like us girls.”

Marilyn had briefly met both Tennessee and Truman Capote when they were in Hollywood writing screenplays. Even though Tennessee knew her only slightly, he opted to invite her to a tea he was hosting for his mother, Edwina Williams, at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan. He definitely knew that Edwina would be impressed if he invited Marilyn. When she arrived, she did not disappoint.

At the St. Regis, all the guests had already arrived except Marilyn, who was invariably late. She made a spectacular entrance, as described by writer Lois Banner:

“Everyone stopped what they were doing, freeze-framed with their drinks, hors d’oeuvres, or cigarettes halfway to their mouths. A path was cleared, and Marilyn walked through. She wore a simple black silk slip dress with thin shoulder straps and nothing on underneath. Her skin was a luminous alabaster, with pearly blue and rose tints. Marilyn was more beautiful in the flesh than on film.”

Her relationship with Tennessee merited a few friendly words and a kiss on the cheek. She’d been intimately involved with director Elia Kazan. Although he was not present at the tea, he was set to direct
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
on Broadway.

In addition to her affair with producer Charles Feldman, Marilyn and Kazan had been lovers for years. Their love affair had been turbulent, much of it conducted within the privacy of the Feldman home. Kazan confessed to that once-secret relationship in his memoirs,
A Life:

“
In the morning light, I’d listen to her stories. Sometimes, she wept. I gave her comfort. Ignite her and she’d explode. On many a dawn, I would put on one of Charlie’s white terrycloth robes and drive Marilyn home. She often wore white. I’d put down the top of the convertible, and we’d drive through the empty streets and boulevards of Los Angeles, two ‘mad monks,’ singing and laughing.”

Kazan remembered one evening when Marilyn attended a post-Academy Awards celebration at Feldman’s house following the Oscar sweep of
A Streetcar Named Desire
. Kazan had rented a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel for the night, and he asked Marilyn to leave the party with him. She told him that she couldn’t because she had to meet her new lover, Joe DiMaggio, at ten that night. “He’s asked me to marry him, and I’m afraid you and I are going to have to break it off.”

“I don’t care how late it is, I think you owe me a farewell fuck,” Kazan told her. “I’ll leave the door to my suite unlocked, and you’re to come in, regardless of the hour.”

As Kazan remembered it, it was 3:30am when Marilyn arrived. He woke up just as she was pulling off her clothes. “Incidentally, even though married to DiMaggio, Marilyn never cut off my conjugal rights,” Kazan claimed.

Months later, Marilyn, on a date with Marlon Brando, complained to him that, “All the great women’s roles are being written by gay guys these days.” She was referring to the play
Bus Stop
, which had been written by William Inge, a former lover of Tennessee’s. On Broadway, it starred Kim Stanley. Later, the role of the sexy saloon singer pursued by a horny cowboy would be hers in the play’s 1956 incarnation as a film.

She told Brando that she was flying to New York to attend the Broadway premier of Tennessee’s
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
, scheduled for its debut on March 24, 1955.

For the big opening night, Marilyn flew into New York and asked columnist Walter Winchell to escort her to Broadway to see Barbara Bel Geddes perform in the role of Maggie the Cat opposite Ben Gazzara.

As Winchell later noted, “Marilyn sat through the play mesmerized. It was obvious she was dying to play Maggie the Cat in the film version.”

The first person Marilyn met backstage was Tennessee himself. “I know you created the role of Maggie the Cat just so I could play it in the movies,” she said to him.

At first, he looked stunned. Then he said, “Something like that. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to head to the men’s room to barf. I do that when I fear the opening of one of my plays will lead to failure.”

Backstage, Marilyn hugged and kissed Ben Gazzara, the star of the play, but avoided confronting Bel Geddes. She looked around for Tennessee, but he had mysteriously disappeared.

Winchell and Marilyn were invited to the cast party, an event scheduled at Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor of New York. She found that an odd venue, and wondered how Kazan had ever managed to arrange such a high profile setting.

Wearing a skin-tight gold mesh gown, Marilyn made a grand entrance at Gracie Mansion, her hair a shining platinum. She managed to steal the thunder from the then-married couple, Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, who were famously hailed at the time as “America’s Sweethearts.”

In a corner of Gracie Mansion sat a sulking Tennessee, who had slipped into the party virtually unnoticed. He was all by himself.

A waiter had served him an entire bottle of white wine. Marilyn went over to him and congratulated him on his “stunningly brilliant play with a great movie role for a blonde bombshell.”

Pretending at least for a minute to be a Southern gentleman, he told her how glad he was to see her again. “You’ve caught me between barfs.”

“After tonight, I know you’re the greatest playwright on Broadway,” she said. “
Your Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
is mesmerizing. For an actress, the role of Maggie the Cat is a dream part. With such a success under your belt, why do you look so sad?”

“It’s going to be a disaster—the critics will rip the flesh from my bones. I caught my agent, Audrey Wood, leaving the theater fifteen minutes before the curtain fell. She was like a rat fleeing a sinking ship.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “The reviews will be terrific. I just know it.”

One of the mayor’s aides came to fetch him for something, and he excused himself.

She reached out to him before he left. “Could we have dinner some night? I want to talk to you about the role of Maggie the Cat.”

“Of course,” he said.

“I’m staying at the Waldorf Towers,” she said. “I’d love to hear from you.”

“Consider it done,” he said before walking away. She suspected he was drunk. Even though she’d slipped him her phone number, he seemed so intoxicated, he might not remember.

Two weeks later, a call from him and an invitation to dinner came into her suite. In the lobby, she met Tennessee and his Sicilian lover, Frank Merlo. He was young and dynamic. Tennessee told Marilyn that Frank was “the role model I used for Stanley in
A Streetcar Named Desire
.”

On the way to an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village, she sat between them for the bumpy ride south.

Frank knew the owner of the restaurant, and he personally retreated to the kitchen to order the house specialties. Soon he came back, finding his lover and Marilyn talking about who might play key roles in the movie version of
Cat
.

“Would you believe that Elvis Presley wants to play Brick?” Tennessee asked. “I can just imagine what Colonel Tom Parker would say about his boy playing a repressed homosexual still in love with a dead football hero.”

“And for the Maggie role?” she asked.

“Would you believe they’re talking about Lana Turner? I once was hired to write a screenplay for her. I never got beyond the brassière.”

“At least they’re not considering Bel Geddes,” she said. “She’s all wrong for the role. Just ask Howard Hughes. He told me that she doesn’t have it at all.”

“I fought with Gadge
[Elia Kazan]
over casting her. She’s not the kind of actress I appreciate. But—and I know you know him well—when he makes up his mind, it’s hard to budge him. He has this theory. Barbara was once fat. Of course, she slimmed down. Gadge thinks that women like that still doubt their sex appeal. That’s why they try extra hard to convey a strong sexual appetite.”

“That sounds silly,” she said, looking over at Frank, who seemed to be hanging onto her every word. “Maggie should be real sexy on screen. In fact, dare I say it myself, some people consider me real sexy.”