The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (34 page)

“You don't have to go through with this marriage, you know,” Milton Greene said to Marilyn.

“No, I don't want to go through with it,” Marilyn said, her eyes filled with tears.

“We can put you in a car and we'll deal with the guests,” Greene suggested, and he telephoned attorney Irving Stein, asking him “to stand by in case of immediate difficulty about Marilyn's marriage.”

The last-minute change of mind was dramatized in the wedding scene of Miller's 1964 play
After the Fall
, in which it is apparent that the character of Maggie is based on Marilyn and Quentin is based on Miller:

 

On the second platform Maggie appears in a wedding dress. Carrie, a colored maid, is just placing a veiled hat on her head…

Quentin enters
.

Q
UENTIN:
Oh, my darling. How perfect you are.

M
AGGIE:
Like me?

Q
UENTIN:
Good God!—To come home every night—to you!

(He starts for her open-armed, laughing, but she touches his chest, excited, and strangely fearful.)

M
AGGIE:
You still don't have to do it, Quentin. I could just come to you whenever you want.

Q
UENTIN:
You just can't believe in something good really happening. But it's real, darling. You're my wife!

M
AGGIE:
(With a hush of fear in her voice.)
I want to tell you why I went into analysis.

Q
UENTIN:
Darling, you're always making new revelations, but…

M
AGGIE:
But you said we have to love what happened, didn't you? Even the bad things.

Q
UENTIN:
(seriously now, to match her intensity.)
Yes, I did.

M
AGGIE:
I…I was with two men…the same day…I mean the same day, see…
(She has turned her eyes from him. The group of wedding guests appear on first platform.)
I…I don't really sleep around with everybody, Quentin…I was with a lot of men, but I never got anything for it. It was like
chanty
, see. My analyst said I gave to those in need.
(She almost weeps now, and looks at him, subservient and oddly chastened.)
I'll always love you, Quentin. But we could just tell them we changed our mind…

Q
UENTIN:
Sweetheart…The past is not important—it's what you took from it. Whatever happened to you, this is what you made of it!

M
AGGIE:
(With hope now.)
Maybe…it would even make me a better wife, right?

Q
UENTIN:
(With hope against the pain)
That's the way to talk! You're a victory, Maggie! You're like a flag to me, a kind of proof, somehow, that people can win.

W
OMAN
G
UEST:
Ready! Ready!
(The guests line up on the steps, forming a carrison for Maggie and Quentin.)

Q
UENTIN:
Come, they're waiting.
(He puts her arm in his, they turn to go.)

M
AGGIE:
Teach me, Quentin! I don't know how to be! (Moving along the corridor of guests as the wedding march begins.)
I'm going to be a good wife. I'm going to be a good wife. I'm going to be a good wife….

 

“Ready! Ready!” someone yelled from downstairs, where the guests had gathered. Prepared for the awkward task of telling the guests that the marriage was off, Greene knocked on the door where Marilyn and Miller were having their discussion.

“Five minutes!” Marilyn said. And twenty minutes later, the radiant smiling bride descended the stairs. Miller's brother Kermit was the best man; Hedda Rosten was the bridesmaid. At the end of the traditional Jewish ceremony, the groom crushed the crystal betrothal goblet beneath his heel. It symbolized trust—once broken, impossible to mend. And later, Marilyn was to write on the back of their wedding photograph, “Hope, Hope, Hope!”

Norman Rosten described the wedding party:

Mazel tov!

L
ogan tried to prepare Sir Laurence Olivier. As an old friend of Olivier's, he wrote to him shortly before Marilyn and Miller were to leave for London for
The Prince and the Showgirl
. “First of all,” Logan said, “be sure that you do
not
have Paula on the set. I'm sure she's going to be with Marilyn on your picture, and I think it would be most disturbing for you to have anyone there in authority except you.” He described to Olivier Marilyn's special beauty and unique talent, but added, “Please do not expect her to behave like the average actress you have worked with. For instance, don't tell her exactly how to read a line. Let her work it out some way herself no matter how long it takes.”

Logan remembered getting a polite response to his suggestions. Olivier assured Logan he would be patient with her. “I will not get upset if I don't get everything my way,” he stated. “I will iron myself out every morning like a shirt, hoping to get through the day without a wrinkle.”

Enter piston plane:

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Miller arrived at London's Heathrow airport on July 14, 1956. They were met by Sir Laurence Olivier and his wife, Vivien Leigh, over three hundred photographers and reporters, seventy-five policemen, and thousands of adoring fans. Giggling with disbelief, Olivier called it “the largest reception and press conference in English history.” Describing the awesome moment when they emerged from the plane, Miller wrote, “The camera flashes formed a solid wall of white light that seemed to last for almost half a minute, a veritable aureole, and the madness of it made even the photographers burst out laughing.”

Olivier and Leigh were swamped in the hysterical mob of reporters and movie fans that forced the celebrities and police to retreat behind the protection of a ticket counter. One photographer who fell at Marilyn's feet was trampled by the stampeding mob, and had to be rushed to the hospital.

“Are all your conferences like this?” Leigh inquired.

“Well,” Marilyn replied, “this is a little quieter than some of them.”

At this point in her life Marilyn Monroe had evolved beyond celebrity; orphan 3,463 had become the most famous woman in the world.

The Millers' asylum from the madding crowd was to be Parkside House, at Englefield Green. Adjoining Windsor Park, the Georgian mansion had been rented for the duration of the filming. It was there that the Millers' honeymoon, such as it was, would be eclipsed by rehearsals, wardrobe fittings, and press conferences, at which Miller again found it difficult to smile. One British journalist referred to him as “Cold as a refrigerated fish in his personal appearance. Not like a hot lover—more like a morgue keeper left with a royal cadaver.”

Costarring with Sir Laurence Olivier in
The Prince and the Showgirl
had been Marilyn's inspiration. In 1953 Olivier had costarred with Vivien Leigh in the London production of Terence Rattigan's play, which was entitled
The Sleeping Prince
. Vivien Leigh had received less than rave notices. She was obviously miscast as the ingenue American chorus girl. But the part was perfect for the younger, more voluptuous Marilyn Monroe, a requisite that prompted Leigh's most gracious disdain.

Terence Rattigan's play was a stylish light comedy that floated on the buoyancy of its theatrical charm. The dated atmosphere was thick, the plot was not:

FADE IN: The very mannered and dispassionate prince regent of Carpathia (Olivier) is in London in 1911 for the crowning of King George V. Despite his rigid reserve, he falls in love with an entrancing American chorus girl, Elsie Marina (Marilyn). Duty calls the prince regent to return to Carpathia, but he promises to come back and marry the beauteous chorus girl: FADE OUT.

Such slight and boneless plots are fleshed out by the abracadabra of ingenious situation, artful staging, sparkling dialogue, and bravura performances. Joshua Logan believed that the combination of Sir Laurence Olivier, Earl of Notley, and La Monroe of Dickensiana would be magical: “The best combination since black and white and salt and pepper.” But it proved to be more like Earl and water. There was thrice a wrinkle.

When Olivier first met Marilyn in New York in February he observed, “By the end of the day one thing was clear to me: I was going to fall most shatteringly in love with Marilyn, and
what
was going to happen? There was no question about it, it was inescapable, or so I thought; she was so adorable, so witty, such incredible fun and more physically attractive than anyone I could have imagined. I went home like a lamb reprieved from the slaughter just for now, but next time…Wow! For the first time now it threatened to be ‘poor Vivien'!”

But the next time it was “poor Larry”: Marilyn was on her honeymoon, and Vivien had gone “round the bend.” It was not the best of times for Olivier and Leigh. Despite appearances, their marriage was all but over. In 1953, Vivien Leigh was to have starred in Paramount's
Elephant Walk
with Peter Finch. On location in Ceylon, she and Finch had an affair. She suffered a nervous breakdown and was removed from the film and replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. On returning to London, Leigh was placed in the Netherne psychiatric hospital, where she underwent electroshock therapy. Diagnosed as a manic-depressive, she made a partial recovery and
returned to Notley Abbey, where Olivier tried to nurse her back to health. But the shock treatments had somehow made her a stranger to her husband, who observed to friends that she seemed a changed woman. Olivier confessed with sadness that he had difficulty understanding the woman who had come back to him. He found himself viewing her increasingly distantly and dispassionately—as an observer rather than a husband. She was no longer the same woman he had loved and married.

Believing that going back to work together would be the best thing for Vivien and their troubled marriage, Olivier had their friend Terence Rattigan tailor the slight and undemanding
Sleeping Prince
for their appearance together at the Phoenix Theater. Designed as a courtier's offering to Queen Elizabeth II in her coronation year,
The Sleeping Prince
opened on November 5, 1953, Leigh's fortieth birthday.

While
The Sleeping Prince
received generally good reviews, critics noted Olivier's rather wooden performance and felt that Leigh was “strident and a shade too old for the ingenue, and Olivier was a mite too dull for the Don Juan.” Few knew of the unhappiness, bickering, and daily crises that were going on in the wings of their private life, which would later be echoed in Olivier's brilliant performance as Archie Rice in
The Entertainer
. Though she appeared to be normal, if strident, onstage, Leigh was suffering from manic-depressive episodes. Between performances she would often become incoherent, partying all night with friends, only to vanish on all-day buying sprees—appearing at the theater just before curtain. During her manic phase, Leigh often hissed to Olivier onstage, sotto voce, “You shit—you absolute shit!”

By the summer of 1956, the relationship of the fabled theatrical couple had deteriorated to feeble attempts at keeping up appearances and sustaining their professional partnership. Their lives were in crisis.

Marilyn's entrance was late. Olivier had assembled the cast of
The Prince and the Showgirl
on a stage at Pinewood Studios for several days of rehearsals before filming began. Shadowed by Black Bart, Marilyn Monroe was tardy by forty-five minutes. Olivier was extremely distressed to
see Paula Strasberg at Marilyn's side. “Paula's presence alarmed me considerably,” Olivier commented. “I had rarely thought that coaches were helpful…. Paula knew nothing. She was no actress, no director, no teacher, no adviser—except in Marilyn's eyes. For she had one talent—she could butter Marilyn up.”

On many occasions Olivier had voiced criticism of Lee Strasberg's Method, which he viewed as “deliberately anti-technical.” The Method, he felt, dictated “an all-consuming passion for reality, and if you didn't feel attuned to exactly the right images that would make you believe that you were actually
IT
and
IT
was actually going on, you might as well forget about the scene altogether.” For Olivier, acting was pretending, and after all,
The Prince and the Showgirl
was a fairy tale. Olivier was very good at pretending.

The first day of rehearsals proved to be a disaster, and from there things grew steadily worse.

Marilyn had a way of idolizing certain men—putting them on the pedestal of her high hopes until they inevitably toppled. Olivier wasted no time in shattering her illusions. Marilyn was the odd girl out. She had never worked in films beyond the perimeter of the Hollywood environment, and the London cast and crew were Olivier stalwarts—Dame Sybil Thorndike, Esmond Knight, Richard Wattis, and cameraman Jack Cardiff. They had all been Olivier's friends and associates for many years. On the first day of rehearsals, when Olivier introduced Marilyn to the assembled cast and crew, he took her hand and in the most condescending manner suggested that everyone be patient with their guest—that it might take their Hollywood visitor some time to learn “
their
method,” but how pleased they were to have “such a delightful little thing” among them. His attitude toward her was strangely patronizing, and none of his demeaning subtleties escaped Marilyn Monroe's finely tuned vibe barometer. It was a storm warning of the tempest to come.

An icy frost hung over the rehearsals, which began on July 30, and Olivier noted Paula Strasberg's critical glares and Marilyn's pronounced lack of enthusiasm. “Marilyn was not used to rehearsing and obviously had no taste for it,” he observed. “She proclaimed this by wearing very dark glasses and exhibiting an overly subdued manner which I failed miserably to find the means to enliven.”

In a daily diary kept during production, Colin Clark, the third assistant director, noted that Marilyn Monroe arrived two hours late on the first
day of filming.
^*
The call was for 6:30
A.M.
She arrived at eight-thirty for makeup and wardrobe, and subsequently arrived on the set at eleven-thirty, which is when British crews normally call lunch. Colin Clark noted:

MONDAY, 6 August

In his first days of directing the film Olivier said to her, “All you have to do is be sexy, dear Marilyn.” She was devastated. The demeaning remark indicated that he had no intention of recognizing her sensibilities as an actress and no interest in her method of making contact with her role. Her disappointment with Olivier turned to a burning resentment, and the asbestos fell between the star and the director, never to rise again. She avoided him whenever possible. Directions had to be given circuitously through Paula Strasberg; and whenever Olivier spoke to Marilyn directly, she would stare at him with indifferent eyes, suddenly turning away in midconversation and walking off to discuss the scene with Paula or to telephone Lee Strasberg in New York.

Olivier recalled, “Her manner to me got steadily ruder and more insolent; whenever I patiently labored to make her understand an indication for some reading, business or timing she would listen with ill-disguised impatience, and when I had finished would turn to Paula and petulantly demand, ‘Wassee mean?' A very short way into filming, my humiliation had reached depths I would not have believed possible.”

When she was to begin filming a scene with Dame Sybil Thorndike, one of the legendary actresses of the British theater, Marilyn arrived an hour late. Regarding it as a great discourtesy, Olivier became livid. Upon her arrival, he strode over to Marilyn, took her by the hand, led her over to
Dame Sybil like a naughty schoolgirl, and through clenched teeth demanded that the president of Marilyn Monroe Productions apologize for her tardiness. Having no comprehension that she was late, Marilyn began an abject apology. Much to Olivier's displeasure, Dame Sybil interrupted and said, “My dear, you mustn't concern yourself. A great actress like you has other things than time on her mind, doesn't she?”

Marilyn realized that she had at least one friend on the set, and she and Thorndike became quite close during the production. While watching dailies in the projection room, Thorndike turned to her old friend Olivier and said, “You did well in that scene, Larry, but with Marilyn up there nobody will be watching you. Her manner and timing are just too delicious. And don't be too hard about her tardiness, dear boy. We need her desperately. She's really the only one of us who knows how to act in front of the camera.”