The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (31 page)

L
ee Strasberg never directed a distinguished play or gave an extraordinary performance, yet he became one of the leading visionaries of the American theater. His unique gift was in the discernment of talent and the teaching of technique. Strasberg's forebears were Talmudic scholars, and he brought to the theater a patriarch's zeal that transcended knowledge. There was a mystic quality to his burning intensity that superseded theory. The laser cast of his eyes betrayed a penetrating intelligence, a unique ability to see into the heart of a matter—the discernment of temperament, the hidden nuggets of talent or a gift, the truth behind the pretext, the origins of aberration and self-deception, the nature of a psychic wound.

Strasberg became the Dalai Lama of Dream Street, and among those artists starving for enlightenment who made pilgrimages to his walk-up West Side kitchen-temple were Julie Harris, Paul Newman, James Dean, Ben Gazzara, Shelley Winters, Dustin Hoffman, Maureen Stapleton, Al Pacino, Rod Steiger, Patricia Neal, Eli Wallach—and Marilyn Monroe.

Elia Kazan observed, “Actors would humble themselves before his rhet
oric and the intensity of his emotion. The more naive and self-doubting the actors, the more total was Lee's power over them. The more famous and the more successful these actors, the headier the taste of power for Lee. He found his perfect victim-devotee in Marilyn Monroe.”

Actor Kevin McCarthy recalls hardly noticing Marilyn at the Actors Studio at first as they sat side by side watching a badly acted scene from Chekhov's
Three Sisters
. “This tousled piece of humanity was sitting to my right, and I didn't recognize her. Then as I glanced at her I saw this metamorphosis take place. I looked again and I realized that a breathing, palpitating Marilyn Monroe had transcended out of that nothing…. I remember looking and thinking, ‘My God, it's her'—she'd just come to life!”

Lee Strasberg, who had never seen a Marilyn Monroe movie, was astonished at the Monroe magic—the “mystic-like flame,” the size of the crowds she drew, and the sizable monetary benefits to the Actors Studio. Her appearances at Studio fund-raisers proved to be a financial windfall, and critics accused Strasberg of being an opportunist. Marilyn gave her Thunderbird to Strasberg's son, John, who observed, “The greatest tragedy was that people, even my father in a way, took advantage of her. They glommed onto her special sort of life, her special characteristics, when what she needed was love.”

Marilyn's classes were on Tuesdays and Fridays at the Studio, which was then located in the Paramount Theater building on Broadway. There were exercises in “sense memory” in which Marilyn would close her eyes and recapture a childhood experience in all its sensory immediacy. She would try to recall objects and surroundings in detail, as well as the sequence of events that occurred and—most important—the emotional content of the experience. Another exercise would be to sing a song without gestures, so that the emotion and context would be projected solely by voice. When the blond refugee from Hollywood did her first exercise, the blue-jeaned disciples of Stanislavsky were laying in wait. MM was a tinseltown moovie stah. The
sans culottes
of Shubert Alley were of the
Théâtre
.

She was to sing a song.

Most students chose a simple song like “Happy Days Are Here Again” or “Give My Regards to Broadway.” Marilyn chose “I'll Get By.” She stood limply on the stage, rag-doll arms at her sides, head tilted up in surrender to the muse.

Though there was a trace of a brave smile, tears began streaming down her face, and the familiar refrain seemed to take on new meaning….

Not wiping away the tears, she kept her concentration, singing in surrender to the song—its victim. The most cynical studio observers were swept up in the emotion. Susan Strasberg recalled that when Marilyn finished her song there wasn't a dry, jaundiced eye in the house. Everyone wanted to run onstage and hold her. It was said that Lee Strasberg nudged Paula and said, “I told you she was great—now even I believe it!”

Strasberg maintained that some students couldn't benefit from the Method unless they unblocked emotions dealing with their past through psychoanalysis. He suggested to Marilyn that she open up her unconscious through psychotherapy, and she began visiting Dr. Margaret Herz Hohenberg, who was recommended to her by Milton Greene. Margaret Hohenberg had studied medicine in Vienna and practiced in Prague before fleeing to America in 1939. Milton Greene had been her patient for several years, and in the spring of 1955, Marilyn began commuting several days a week to Hohenberg's office at 155 East Ninety-Third Street.

Not long after the windfall of Marilyn's arrival on the East Coast, the Strasbergs moved from their walk-up on West Eighty-Sixth Street to a spacious apartment at 135 Central Park West, where Marilyn was a frequent guest. Strasberg was an avid reader, and several of the rooms were stacked with books from floor to ceiling. Marilyn referred to the decor as “early Brentano's.” The family rented a house on Fire Island for the summer, and Marilyn was often there on weekends, when champagne would
bubble on Saturday nights and Marilyn would dance to phonograph records. “She was like a child,” Susan Strasberg recalled. “She'd fill the room with her full laughter, sensual movements, and high spirits. My father loved it. He had this smile of pleasure on his face. He got that smile around children and animals. Marilyn made him laugh.”

Susan Strasberg, who was only sixteen at the time, remembered many whispered conversations about “Arturo,” a married man Marilyn was having a heavy romance with. Marilyn and Paula Strasberg would have long discussions about “Arturo” far into the night. “Arturo” didn't like Lee Strasberg. In 1967 Arthur Miller interrupted Fred Guiles when the subject of Strasberg came up: “Don't talk to me about Lee Strasberg because I can't stand the man!” he exclaimed. “My sister, Joan Copeland, who is an actress, believes Strasberg is a great man…. I think there is something false about him. Lee became a guru to these people and unless he is there, they can't move. I never blasted him to Marilyn because she needed him. I recognized that dependency, and as long as she got something out of it, I never said anything. We just didn't discuss him.”

Miller wrote of Marilyn's double-edged vulnerability in an unpublished play in which the character modeled on Marilyn has a purgatorial effect on three dedicated research physicians. The researchers are employed by a wealthy pharmaceuticals maker who inspires them with social idealism, while, in fact, using them for raw capitalistic ambition. “They typified what I then saw as the captive artist-creator,” Miller stated. Into their midst comes Lorraine, the mistress of one of the doctors, who Miller admitted was a character modeled on Marilyn:

Miller stated that the play remained unfinished because he couldn't accept the nihilistic spiritual catastrophe it persisted in foretelling: “That
is, I believed it as a writer but could not confess it as a man. I could not know, of course, that in the coming years, I would live out much of its prophecy myself.”

 

In mid-May thousands watched as a fifty-two-foot-high image of Miller's “godlike force” was lifted into place in Times Square, advertising the opening of
The Seven Year Itch
at the Loew's Broadway; and on June 1, all five feet five and three-quarters inches of the real thing showed up for the premiere on the arm of Joe DiMaggio.

“We're just good friends. We do not plan to remarry. That's all I can say,” she told the press. It was Marilyn's twenty-ninth birthday, and after the premiere DiMaggio hosted a party for her at Toots Shor's. She and Joe had a violent argument and Marilyn went home early. “Marilyn was afraid of Joe,” said Arthur Jacobs's New York publicist, Lois Weber. “She was physically afraid. He was obviously rigid in his beliefs. There must have been a great ambivalence in his feeling toward her…. There were times she made it clear he had hurt her very badly, maybe even struck her in some jealous rage.”

The Seven Year Itch
was a giant success both for Marilyn and Fox.
Variety
termed
Itch
the hottest ticket seller of the summer. Bosley Crowther of the
New York Times
said, “From the moment she steps into the picture Miss Monroe brings a special personality to the screen.” The
New York Daily Mirror
stated, “Marilyn's a fine comedienne. Her pouting delivery, puckered lips—the personification of this decade's glamour—make her one of Hollywood's top attractions.”

But Hollywood no longer had its “top attraction,” and the giant success of
Itch
had Fox attorneys scratching their heads. Marilyn Monroe was earning a fortune for Fox and they were newly motivated to appease their runaway star. For directing
Itch
, Billy Wilder received half a million dollars plus a share of the profits, and producer Charles Feldman, who was also paid as Marilyn's agent, received $318,000 plus guarantees. Marilyn received $1,500 a week plus a $100,000 bonus, which Fox had failed to pay. During the summer, when Milton Greene and Irving Stein were negotiating a new agreement with Fox, the studio was forced to recognize the inequity of her contract. And in November word rippled through the Fox lot that the studio had agreed to a new nonexclusive contract with Marilyn Monroe Productions.

The “dumb blonde” had won.

The agreement called for Marilyn Monroe to appear in four Fox pictures over the next seven years. She was to receive at least a hundred thousand dollars per picture. In addition, she was given director approval. A Fox executive commented, “There was only one topic of conversation today in the producers' dining room, and that was Marilyn's fantastic deal. I've been in the business a long time, and when I tell you a deal is fantastic, you know I mean
fantastic
!”

The holiday season of 1955 ended happily for Marilyn. Her life seemed to be coming together. She had learned a little bit more about herself; moreover, she had won her war with Fox. Zanuck, in fact, had resigned and was being replaced by Buddy Adler. And in private Marilyn and “Arturo” were talking about marriage. According to Norman Rosten, Marilyn brought about a transformation in Arthur Miller, who had always been a staid, introspective loner. “Miller was in love, completely, seriously in love. It was wonderful to behold.”

New Year's Eve was celebrated at the Greenes' home in Connecticut among a small group of Marilyn's friends. Snow was falling, and at midnight a champagne toast was made to the future, which held bright promise. Truman Capote later wrote to a friend, “Saw Marilyn M. and Arthur Miller the other night, both looking suffused with a sexual glow. They plan to get married, but can't help feeling this little episode is called, ‘Death of a Playwright.'”

F
resh from her victory over the Hollywood philistines, President Monroe announced a glittering array of projects for Marilyn Monroe Productions. She would be returning to Fox to star in the Broadway hit
Bus Stop
, to be directed by Joshua Logan. And on February 9, 1956, a press conference was held at the Plaza Hotel, where more than 150 reporters and photographers converged for the joint announcement by Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier of their forthcoming production of
The Prince and the Showgirl
.

Perhaps as a portent of things to come, Olivier, who insisted on top billing, was all but ignored by the clamorous press. When the reporters finally got around to Sir Laurence, he was about to reply to their queries when one of the straps on Marilyn's dress broke. The simultaneous
poff
of dozens of flashbulbs exploded any illusions Sir Laurence may have had as to who was really going to be the star of
The Prince and the Showgirl
. Olivier looked on in astonishment at the frenzied scene in the Terrace Room of the Plaza before retreating to his Rolls limo. As he drove off with the film's writer, Terence Rattigan, Olivier
made the comment, “I wonder if I've made a mistake getting involved in this?”

Shortly before Marilyn was to depart for Hollywood to do
Bus Stop
, word got around that she was going to do a scene from
Anna Christie
at the Actors Studio with Maureen Stapleton. Marilyn was playing the part of Anna, which Garbo had made famous: “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side—and don't be stingy, baby!”

After weeks of rehearsal Maureen Stapleton recalled that Marilyn called the day before they were to do the scene and said, “Maureen, I don't think we should rehearse tomorrow. I hear somebody is going to do a very interesting scene at the studio tomorrow morning, and I don't want to miss it.”

“Marilyn!” Maureen said with alarm, “the important scene is
Anna Christie
. It's
our
scene!”

“Tomorrow's the d-day we…we do the scene?” Marilyn exclaimed. “God, I thought it was
next
Friday!”

It was standing room only on Friday, February 17, at the Actors Studio.

“She was so terrified,” Susan Strasberg recalled. “I didn't know how she was going to get herself up there. She also knew as many people were there to see her fail as succeed.”

Recalling her terror before she went on stage, Marilyn said, “I couldn't see anything before I went on stage. I couldn't remember one line. All I wanted was to lie down and die. I was in these impossible circumstances and I suddenly thought to myself, ‘Good, God, what am I doing here?' Then I just had to go out and do it.”

The scene was set in a bar, and when Marilyn came onstage many were under the impression she was too afraid and sick and wouldn't be able to do it. Her hands were trembling when she picked up a glass, and she seemed to be exhausted, ill, and in despair. But the audience quickly realized that it was the character—it was Anna's despair, exhaustion, and fear that had seemed so real.

The scene was particularly poignant for Marilyn when Anna talked about the father who'd abused and betrayed her:

When the scene ended there was silence. Then the studio burst into applause—a rare occurrence. Actress Kim Stanley, who was among the skeptics in the audience, recalled, “We were taught never to clap at the Actors Studio—it was like we were in church—and it was the first time I'd ever heard applause there.” Kim Stanley felt some resentment toward Marilyn because it was Cherie, the role Stanley had created in
Bus Stop
on Broadway, that Marilyn would be doing on film in Hollywood—yet she found herself applauding with the others.

According to most of the people present, Marilyn Monroe was astonishing. Actress Anna Sten found her performance “very deep and very lovely, giving and taking at the same time—and that's a very rare quality”

Afterward Marilyn and Maureen Stapleton went to the corner bar for a stiff drink—“and don't be stingy, baby.” Stapleton was amazed to discover that Marilyn believed she had been terrible. But the Strasbergs were ecstatic and assured her she had been excellent. In a discussion with Joshua Logan, who was about to direct Marilyn in
Bus Stop
, Strasberg said, “I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of actors and actresses, and there are only two that stand out way above the rest—number one is Marlon Brando, and the second is Marilyn Monroe.”

Not long after doing the scene at the Actors Studio, Marilyn returned to Hollywood. It had been over a year since Zelda Zonk took the red-eye out of town. Her dressing room at Fox had remained empty, a dusty reminder of the lot's missing star. Books, scripts, old memos, and call sheets littered the shelves and floor along with cartons of unopened fan mail. In her absence she had been receiving over six thousand fan letters a week. A smiling picture of Joe DiMaggio still stood on the dressing table. With the news of her impending arrival, the dressing room was cleaned and painted, and all the old debris was removed, as the studio awaited the appearance of the new Marilyn Monroe.

But it was the same old Marilyn Monroe who arrived at the airport and kept thousands of fans and hundreds of photographers waiting for
her to emerge from the airplane. When she finally appeared, looking very New Yorkish in a smart black cocktail dress and gloves, she was greeted by a tumultuous reception. The ovation she received from the thousands who came to greet her was tremendous—a triumph. “Hollywood turned out to meet her as few women have been met,”
Time
reported. Reporters bombarded her with questions about her new production company and plans. One reporter queried, “When you left here last year you were dressed quite differently, Marilyn. Now you have a black dress and a high-necked blouse. Is this the new Marilyn?”

“No,” she replied. “I'm the same person—it's just a new dress.”

It took her two hours to get through the crowds at the airport and off to the house the Greenes had rented in Holmby Hills at 595 North Beverly Glen Boulevard.

Learning of her whereabouts from the studio, Natasha Lytess tried to reach Marilyn by telephone, but her calls were refused. Many of Lytess's letters to Marilyn when she left Hollywood had gone unanswered. Though it had been made clear to Lytess that things would be different for her when Marilyn moved to New York, she was able to keep her job at Fox during Marilyn's absence. But when Marilyn returned Lytess unexpectedly received a dismissal notice from the studio. She desperately tried to contact Marilyn, and after dozens of phone calls and notes went unanswered, Lytess drove to the Beverly Glen address and was turned away. She was bitterly disappointed. On March 3 she received a telephone call from attorney Irving Stein, and in a legal memorandum of the call Stein stated:

But the oracle who had divined the goddess couldn't believe that Marilyn would refuse to help her. Lytess again appeared at the Beverly Glen house on March 5. Agent Lew Wasserman answered the door and barred her from entering. “Your engagement at the studio is none of Miss Monroe's concern,” he stated, and threatened to obtain a restraining order if she returned or attempted to contact Marilyn again. As she was leaving, Lytess glanced up and saw Marilyn watching her impassively from a second-story window. “It was the last time I ever saw her,” she recalled. “In Marilyn's powerful position she had only to crook her finger for me to keep my job at the studio. Had she any sense of gratitude for my contribution to her life, she could have saved my job.”

That Marilyn Monroe could have ignored “so humble a plea” has often been cited as an incident exemplifying her ruthless use of people before discarding them. But Marilyn was fiercely loyal to those few who were loyal to her. However, she couldn't abide disloyalty, and once trust was broken she was quick to sever the relationship. Marilyn had learned through Arthur Miller's friend Maurice Zolotow that Natasha Lytess was writing a Marilyn Monroe exposé.

When Zolotow began his Monroe biography, he interviewed Marilyn on three occasions at the Waldorf Towers. Zolotow's researcher on the Monroe book was Jane Wilkie, a writer with
Photoplay
. After Marilyn left Hollywood, Jane Wilkie began working with Natasha Lytess on an expose of Marilyn that was originally intended for
Photoplay
and later planned as a book. Never completed, the unpublished manuscript remains in the Zolotow Collection at the University of Texas. When Marilyn learned from Zolotow what Natasha was doing, it ended their friendship.

After her dismissal from Fox, Lytess tried to survive on income from students she coached at her home. But she was unable to meet the mortgage payments for the house on Rexford Drive that Marilyn had helped her purchase, and it was lost in foreclosure. Robert Slatzer recalls Marilyn showing him a letter from Lytess that arrived from Rome in April of 1962. “She was begging for money and Marilyn said, ‘Natasha always writes me when she's broke.'”

 

The new Marilyn had hoped that Lee Strasberg would accompany her to Hollywood and coach her through
Bus Stop
, but it was impossible for him to leave his students, and he suggested that Paula go in his stead. Though Greene complained and Fox fumed, Marilyn insisted that Paula Strasberg
be put on the payroll at $1,500 a week—the salary Marilyn earned on
The Seven Year Itch
as its star.

Bus Stop
is the poignant story of Cherie, a second-rate cabaret singer from the Ozarks. After a series of disappointing love affairs, Cherie meets a rodeo cowboy (Don Murray) who has come to the big city (Phoenix) in pursuit of an angelic wife to take home to his ranch. He chooses Cherie. She resists but ultimately is charmed by the cowboy's bumbling devotion.

As the start date for
Bus Stop
approached, Marilyn worked long hours with Paula, going through the script scene by scene. She immersed herself in the character of Cherie, drawing on sense memory and emotional recall, analyzing dialogue and motivation, thinking out body language and gesture. She studied Cherie's Ozarks drawl, and once she was into it seldom departed from Cherie's dialect in her daily conversations until production ended. Strasberg urged his students to sum up a character's central motivation in one key sentence: the key sentence Marilyn chose for Cherie was “Will this girl who wants respect ever get it?”

Marilyn felt that the dominant characteristic of the character's appearance lay in her weariness. Seldom out in the sunlight because she works in bars until 4
A.M
., Cherie wouldn't get much sleep or sunshine, and Marilyn and Milton Greene conceived a chalky white makeup that startled the front-office staff when they saw the makeup tests. If they were going to pay her more, shouldn't she look better?

“To me Marilyn's attitude toward her makeup and costuming was courageous,” Joshua Logan stated. “It was incredible, really. Here you have a well-established star and she was willing to risk her position with a makeup many stars would consider ugly. She wasn't afraid. She believed she was right in her analysis of the character, and she had the courage to commit herself to it completely.”

Logan recalled that Marilyn also plotted out Cherie's costuming. She liked William Travilla's design for the long gown she was to wear during her ballad number in a Phoenix bar, but to Travilla's dismay she began yanking off spangles and tore the gown in several places. She then had the tears crudely sewn up with mismatched thread. Recalling her own days when she only had one pair of stockings, she had the net stockings worn during “That Old Black Magic” number ripped and then poorly darned back together.

“Let's not have my clothes made to order,” she told Logan. “Let's find them in wardrobe.” She and Logan rummaged through clothing racks and
picked out the tawdry dresses and cheap clothes that a second-rate cabaret singer would wear.

Logan, who was a good friend of Lee Strasberg and the only prominent American director who had actually studied with Stanislavsky in Moscow, agreed to allow Paula Strasberg to coach Marilyn—with the understanding that Strasberg not appear on the set. But in the first week of shooting on the stage at Fox, Logan's proviso was ignored. Despite the director's instructions, Paula lurked in the shadows behind the camera. She wore black, hoping to be less noticeable, but her witchlike outfits only served to attract attention, and it was on the set of
Bus Stop
that Marilyn gave Paula the nickname that was to stay with her: “Black Bart.”