CHERYL CRAWFORD — Influential theater producer and director; befriended Marilyn in 1955
LEE STRASBERG — Creative director of the Actors Studio and Marilyn’s mentor
LEO LYONS — New York journalist; befriended Marilyn in 1955
EARL WILSON — New York journalist and a friend of Marilyn’s
ROBERT STEIN — Journalist; spent time with Marilyn in March 1955
ED FEINGERSH — Photographer; spent time with Marilyn in March 1955
EDWARD R. MURROW — Prizewinning journalist and television personality; interviewed Marilyn in March 1955
ELLEN BURSTYN — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
DELOS SMITH — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
MARLON BRANDO — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s friend and classmate in 1955
JACK GARFEIN — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
CARROLL BAKER — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
MAUREEN STAPLETON — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
LOUIS GOSSETT JR. — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
KIM STANLEY — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
JACK LORD — Member of the Actors Studio; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
MARGARET HOHENBERG — Marilyn’s psychoanalyst in 1955
PAULA STRASBERG — Former stage actress; married to Lee Strasberg; Marilyn’s surrogate mother and confidante
SUSAN STRASBERG — American actress; daughter of Lee Strasberg and a friend of Marilyn’s
JOHNNY STRASBERG — Lee and Paula Strasberg’s son
SAM SHAW — New York photographer and a friend of Marilyn’s; they met in 1954 while filming The Seven Year Itch
NORMAN ROSTEN — New York poet; friend of Arthur Miller’s; befriended Marilyn in 1955
HEDDA ROSTEN — Norman’s wife; befriended Marilyn in 1955
MAURICE ZOLOTOW — Journalist; interviewed Marilyn in spring and summer 1955
JIMMY HASPIEL — Teenage fan who befriended Marilyn in 1955
THE MONROE SIX — Six teenage fans who befriended Marilyn in 1955
ARTHUR MILLER — American playwright; Marilyn’s lover in 1955 and her husband from 1956 to 1961
ELIA KAZAN — Stage and film director; Marilyn’s friend and former lover
JOHN GILMORE — Actors Studio member; Marilyn’s classmate in 1955
JOSHUA LOGAN — American stage and film director; directed Marilyn in the film adaptation of Bus Stop
JAYNE MANSFIELD — American actress and Marilyn’s supposed blonde rival
TERENCE RATTIGAN — British dramatist, writer of The Sleeping Prince; met Marilyn in January 1956
LAURENCE OLIVIER — British actor; Marilyn’s director and costar in The Prince and the Showgirl
CECIL BEATON — British fashion and portrait photographer; photographed Marilyn in February 1956
DON MURRAY — American actor; Marilyn’s costar in Bus Stop
Preface
“In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy.”
JENNY HOLZER
In late November 1954, a woman who identified herself as Zelda Zonk drove quietly to the LAX airport and boarded the evening’s last plane to New York. Accompanied by a young photographer named Milton Greene, the woman wore no makeup, a man’s oxford shirt, and Jax cigarette pants under a full-length black mink. She wore a black wig cut in a blunt pageboy and, though it was nearly midnight, black Wayfarers. She lit cigarettes and bit her nails like any other jittery twenty-eight-year-old about to jettison marriage, home, and career in the course of one midnight flight. Soothed by the revving engine, she slipped off the wig, revealing a tangle of fluffy blonde curls.
She was Marilyn Monroe.
As the plane took off, Marilyn watched LA’s glitter diminish beneath her and thought about all she had abandoned: Joe DiMaggio and their broken fairy-tale marriage; her contract with Twentieth Century Fox; her agent, Charlie Feldman; her acting coach, Natasha Lytess; her Hollywood apartment and its closets crammed with gabardine skirts and merry widows from Juel Park. As the city shrank to a bright speck, Marilyn began to relax. Milton poured her a drink, and they discussed their exciting new project—an independent film company to be named Marilyn Monroe Productions.
By the time they landed at Idlewild Airport, flush with scotch and excitement, Zelda Zonk’s true identity had been leaked. Fans and photographers swarmed and screamed, though the temperature had dropped below freezing. Milton’s wife, Amy Greene, was waiting. She wrapped Marilyn in a blanket and rushed her into the trunk of a black Cadillac. Lying on her side in the frozen dark, Marilyn listened to the screams fade as Amy began the two-hour drive past miles of forested rocky bluffs to her country house in Connecticut.
The sun rose as Marilyn sank into the violet sheets and plummy pillows of the Greenes’ guest bedroom. She drifted to sleep, dreaming of her future. She’s safe now. She’s with friends. She’s in New York.
* * *
Marilyn’s year in New York was a magical time of artistic discipline and self-discovery. It was about looking inward, taking her power back, and determining the course of her own career. It meant being a student again and learning the Method at the Actors Studio. It was also where she educated herself and developed her tastes in literature, music, and art. She formed friendships with writers and intellectuals such as Carson McCullers and Truman Capote. And it was where she began her relationship with Arthur Miller.
Unlike the usual portrayals of childhood abuse and downward spirals, this Marilyn isn’t a victim. Nor is this the Hollywood Marilyn we know so well—dripping in diamonds and swathed in mink. This is a furtive, fuzzier, happier Marilyn—clad in dark Wayfarers, a bandeau scarf, and a boyish black polo coat.
This book lifts that veil to show the real, flesh and blood Marilyn—a strong, savvy woman who took control of her life. The New York Marilyn jogged undisturbed in Central Park and popped into Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Spa for a leg wax. She admired Rodin’s Hand of God at the Met. She mewed and stretched on the floor, pretending to be a kitten in acting class. She dined at Gino’s with Frank Sinatra, then swilled cheap scotch at the Subway Inn down the street. She stretched out in her bathrobe on the floor of the Waldorf-Astoria, scrawling poems on crisp hotel stationery.
New York centered Marilyn. It revitalized her and provided a stimulating haven for reinvention and self-inquiry. For the first time, Marilyn was living by herself, for herself. Each day was an adventure in reading, walking, seeing some new little thing. New York meant freedom to her—freedom from straitjackets such as “starlet” and “sex symbol” and “slut.” This is Marilyn in Manhattan—a sensitive woman, the city she loved, and how she learned to love herself.
One
