Three

Blonde on (Subdued) Blonde

“I’m for the individual as opposed to the corporation. The way it is, the individual is the underdog, and with all the things a corporation has going for them an individual comes out banged on the head. The artist is nothing. It’s really tragic.”

MARILYN MONROE

On the evening of January 7, Marilyn’s attorney, Frank Delaney, flung open his doors on East 64th Street to flocks of photographers. Tonight, Marilyn would unveil herself to the public and announce the formation of Marilyn Monroe Productions. As usual, she was late. Reporters and cameramen blocked the sidewalk. Inside the press had been humming since five, sipping cocktails with Marlene Dietrich and Tony Curtis, checking their watches and craning their necks for a glimpse of the “new Monroe.”

It was 7 p.m. before Marilyn blew in like some skittish snowflake. She wore a tight white sheath with loose spaghetti straps, white satin slingbacks, white stockings (Milton had to run out to a nurse-uniform store), a fluffy white ermine, and diamond chandelier earrings on loan from Van Cleef & Arpels.

Flanked by Delaney and Greene, Marilyn sat down for the press. “I have formed my own corporation so I can play the kinds of roles I want,” she declared. “I’m tired of sex roles. People have scope, you know.… And I have a dream of sometime playing in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.”

Then came personal questions and their obligatory responses: “We are very good friends, Joe and I. We always will be.…” Some pert journalist shouted about Marilyn’s being under contract with Fox, but Delaney shot back that she was “a free agent.”

By midnight a crowd still milled around the door, with Milton trying to round up Amy and Marilyn. “Sinatra was playing at the Copa,” remembers Amy Greene. “I had a crush on him, and I really wanted to go. But I knew there was no way anyone could get in. As we were getting in the limo to go home, Marilyn said, ‘Do you really want to go to the Copa?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘Follow me.’”

Marilyn—who felt like a nuisance most of the time—loved when she could actually be helpful. She led them through a clattery kitchen (the Copacabana’s VIP entrance) into a smoky room where Sinatra was playing to a full house. Sinatra, annoyed at being interrupted mid-song, stopped the orchestra—only to look up and see his friend Marilyn swathed in white mink like some polar angel. “It was like a scene out of a movie,” Amy recalls. “A table and three chairs materialized down front, right under Sinatra’s nose. We sat down and Marilyn said, ‘Is there any other problem you’d like me to take care of?’”

After the show, Sinatra invited the group to his dressing room. “It seemed to me most of the audience decided to go along,” remembered Amy, who panicked at the thought of being crushed by a stampede. “The passageway wasn’t built for mass movement. At the steps there was a terrible jam.” Marilyn happily took charge, pushing her friend toward a bouncer and instructing her to wrap her arms around his thick neck. The bouncer carried Amy to safety as she swung from his neck like a pendant. “It was the most amazing thing. In all that pushing and shoving Marilyn kept on smiling and talking to people. She wasn’t scared a bit. When we’re in a crowd, it was me she worried about.” Meanwhile, Milton fought back the stragglers and handled Marilyn.

After a late-night dinner with Sinatra at the 21 Club, they piled into the limo for a nightcap at Marlene Dietrich’s on Park Avenue. It was well past three by the time Marilyn stumbled in, lightly drunk, Guerlain lipstick in Rouge Diabolique smudged on her ermine collar. Dietrich found the red smudge “maddeningly erotic” and fell asleep dreaming of this tipsy, kittenish creature—whose fluffy white fur and platinum whiskers reminded her of Jean Harlow.

The sun was rising by the time they staggered back to 480 Lex. Still wired, Marilyn asked Amy for a Seconal. (She’d given her stash to Amy and told her to act as warden.) She’d earned her right to a sound sleep—they all had.

Neither Marilyn nor Milton realized how badly it had gone. The Jean Harlow ensemble had been a miscalculation—blinding the reporters with platinum curves. To make matters worse, Marilyn had reverted to glib frippery when bombarded by the press. But who wouldn’t when asked questions of such hostile inanity?

PRESS: “Marilyn, we heard there’s something new about you? What is it?”

MARILYN: “Well, my hair is new. I used to be platinum, but I dyed it. Now I’m a subdued platinum.”

PRESS: “Do you want to play the Brothers Karamazov?”

MARILYN: “I don’t want to play the brothers. I want to play Grushenka. She’s a girl.”

One of the friendlier skeptics was Billy Wilder, who loved her warmth but considered her more a calendar girl with perfect comedic timing. “I say they’re trying to elevate her to a level she can’t aspire to,” he said. “Mae West knew where she stood—but somebody talked Monroe into thinking that she’s much better, and that she has so much to give to so many people. A human being has to know his limitations. She should know her speed limit, and not attempt 180 when she can only do 60. It’s like herring à la mode,” he added. “You put the chocolate ice cream on the herring and the herring ain’t gonna taste good, and you’ll spoil the ice cream too.”

Even Elsa Maxwell sensed that Marilyn was holding back: “She reminds me, so often, of the girl who stays on and on in the powder room, fluffing her dress, combing her hair and repairing her makeup—to postpone the moment she must join the party and sink or swim.” Elsa was also thrown off by Marilyn’s outfit, and puzzled over her choice of tight white satin. “‘Why,’ I wondered irritably, ‘don’t the Milton Greenes, who are her good friends—with Milton being a fine fashion photographer—help with the clothes?’ Then I forgot she was dressed all wrong, because—curiously enough—she wasn’t vulgar in this costume. She was more like a little girl, in spite of her twenty-eight years, who was trying to appear sophisticated and grown-up. She reminds me of a fawn, without really looking like one. She radiates health and vitality. And I find something wistful in her eyes and remember her years as an orphan when she was boarded out with different families and many times treated as a little slave.”

“You’re a fool to be photographed with Monroe,” one Fox mogul warned Elsa after that disastrous first press conference. “You keep writing about her in your newspaper column too! You don’t seem to get the idea that she’s on the way out. A year off the screen and she’ll be washed up! We can find a dozen like her!”

Elsa laughed in his face. “You’ll never find a dozen like her! You may find a dozen beautiful hunks of photoplasm topped off with blonde hair. But they won’t be Marilyn Monroes. Wait and see—you’ll be glad to have Marilyn back on her own terms.”

*   *   *

When the Sunday papers arrived, Marilyn was humiliated. “Miss Monroe has a firm contract with us,” Fox stated, “and we have her exclusive services until August 8, 1958.” Headlines such as DIFFERENT? PRETTY MUCH THE SAME … were typical. “Marilyn Monroe is a stupid girl and is being fed some stupid advice,” sneered the Hollywood Reporter. Even worse, if she dares to take on “long hair, art theaterish” roles such as Grushenka, “some of her attractiveness will have been lost.”

As usual, Milton and Marilyn had overestimated the intelligence of their audience. She was always a little too smart for the press, who were too busy mocking her to ever really hear her. They had no idea who Grushenka was—if they’d actually read The Brothers Karamazov, if the book had any meaning to them other than a reference point for something brainy and Russian, they’d have known that Marilyn was perfect for the role. Instead of being taken seriously, she was dismissed—again—as a sugary joke. (Years later, she’d blame the press for ruining her chances to play Grushenka—a role she’d always been drawn to.)

From the moment of her late arrival, the press had been poised to punish her—ready to record her next blonde blunder. Still ditsy, still late, she was the “same old Marilyn,” a bimbo with delusions of grandeur. How dare this bratty bleached-out starlet leave Hollywood—and couldn’t Fox crush her as fast as they had raised her? The press didn’t get it yet. Blinded by their own jabber and squawk, they missed the magic. Like a butterfly sealed in its silk-tapered swaddle, Marilyn was still priming herself, cocooned in her tight white satin. New York was waiting.

*   *   *

After the press conference came more shaky starts. She was offered the lead in Guys and Dolls, but issues with Fox made it impossible to accept. She was out of work, out of money, and entirely dependent on Milton’s cash handouts. Doubt and insecurity gnawed at her. Maybe the Hollywood Reporter was right—maybe she was a silly starlet.

Meanwhile, Milton had begun to realize just how much he’d taken on—phones ringing off the hook, piles of telegrams, offers from columnists and magazines he’d never even heard of. The floodgates had opened, and the press was bombarding him with questions: What were their plans? Had Fox really fired Marilyn? Milton was a photographer, not a publicist, and now he was at the center of a media hurricane.

He quickly hired a press agent, two handlers, and a secretary—all of whom cost much more than they could afford. MMP was still waiting for funding, and Fox was threatening lawsuits, scaring away potential investors. Their only hope was Henry Rosenfeld—millionaire dressmaker and “Dior of the Bronx.” Henry and Marilyn had an ongoing flirtation; he’d send her love letters and cash presents. Milton begged Marilyn to dash to Rosenfeld’s Boston home and work her magic. But the thought of sashaying around, luring him for money made her queasy. It was a relapse back to those Hollywood days she had fought so hard to escape.

Her faith in Milton momentarily slipping, Marilyn turned to Joe, who was still her confidant and would be for the next six months. Joe was always there, and she still trusted him, with his wary protectiveness, sound financial advice, and his “steel magnate” suits of gray flannel. He insisted on escorting Marilyn to Boston. Joe liked Milton but didn’t trust him with business. Who knew what this Rosenfeld guy would try to pull over them both?

Joe drove Marilyn to Boston himself, stopping on the way to meet his brother Dominic for dinner. Soon the small Wellesley restaurant was mobbed with reporters. One reporter fought his way to their backroom table. “Is this a reconciliation,” he asked, shoving a microphone in Joe’s face. Joe turned to Marilyn: “Is it, honey?” Marilyn shot him down coolly. “No, let’s just call it a visit.” So Joe blocked out his hurt and focused on his current task—carrying minks, trunks, and red leather Gucci bags, shielding her from flashing cameras and nosy reporters.

The next morning Marilyn met with Rosenfeld, clad in his classic red tie and worn suit of navy blue. As charmed as he was by Marilyn, he refused to sponsor MMP. (He would, however, give Marilyn checks, love letters, the odd diamond bracelet, and free reign over his factory shop in the Bronx, which she merrily raided with friends, hauling back armfuls of dresses and suits.) Joe drove Marilyn back to New York under clouds of doubt. She’d uprooted her whole life and taken enormous risks, only to degrade herself Hollywood style—flaunting her curves and batting her eyes for wealthy men.

Despite this setback, Marilyn remained positive, energetic, and determined. Never once did she doubt her decision to team up with Milton Greene, and she was in no mood to come crawling back to Fox and Co. Two days after returning from her failed Boston trip, Marilyn rejected another flimsy script with a bold pink telegram addressed to Darryl Zanuck: “AM EXCEEDINGLY SORRY BUT I DO NOT LIKE IT. SINCERELY, MARILYN MONROE.”

Besides, money was the last thing on her mind. She’d moved East to learn, explore, and dive deep into New York’s world of art and theater. For Marilyn, theater was the ultimate challenge. Actors she admired, such as Marlon Brando and Eli Wallach, slipped gracefully between screen and stage, toughening up and expanding in the process. Last September while wrapping up The Seven Year Itch, she’d managed to catch a performance of The Teahouse of the August Moon. Backstage she met Wallach, whom she immediately christened Teacake.

“After that night’s performance,” wrote Wallach, “a press agent had ushered her into my dressing room—I remember that she looked nothing like the movie star I’d seen on screen—she wore a simple dress and had short blond hair. She was pale, shy, and wore no lipstick. The first thing she said to me was ‘How do you do a whole play?’ Though she was by now perhaps the world’s most famous movie star, she had never appeared in a play, and she seemed both awed and curious about it. I had the impression that she might not have ever seen a stage production. After we’d talked for a while, she asked if she could come see the show again and watch from backstage. I told her I was afraid that the management wouldn’t allow it, so she said she’d watch from the balcony, which she did many times after our meeting.”

Emboldened, Marilyn dropped in on more plays, at times wandering backstage by herself. There she met and impressed another Method actor, Ben Gazzara: “The time she came backstage, she wore no makeup, her hair was windblown, she was girlish and very pretty, and she was ecstatic about what she’d seen.” Marilyn found herself relaxing around these actors, smoking out the window of their dressing rooms, the chilly city air mixing with the carnation-y scent of stage makeup. She could see herself thriving in a group like this—where women had roles as expansive as men did and joined them at Sardi’s over tumblers of Chianti.

It’s not hard to imagine why stage acting appealed to her. The mid-fifties were still Broadway’s golden age, when theater was closer to high art than was film. More important, stage actors enjoyed a real creative freedom—a freedom that eluded her during all her years in Hollywood. “Movie actors are held stiffly to position,” explained director Josh Logan, who worked in theater as well as film. “Much, much more than in plays, you’re prescribed by the limitations of the camera—if you move sideways, you’ll get out of the frame, or your arm will be cut off. You have to be constantly thinking, ‘Am I on my mark; am I in my frame?’” Marilyn watched these plays with growing interest. Cut loose from the rigor of budgets and call times, she knew that she could reach unimagined heights as an actress. Who knew how much she could accomplish, how much she could do?

Meanwhile, Milton was working hard. Keeping track of Marilyn was a full-time job—constant appointments, dress fittings, and platinum touch-ups. There were always bills to be paid, prescriptions to be filled, letters to be answered. Evenings were spent gliding around on her arm at movie premieres and late-night parties. On top of all that, Milton was still maintaining his photography business—sole provider for himself, his family, Marilyn, and MMP.

“We always had a plan of attack,” Amy pointed out. “I’d mention a play and say, ‘When do you want to see it,’ and she’d say, ‘Well, let’s do it next Wednesday or Thursday.’ I had a very scheduled regime for her. I would make her go to the theater at least once a week; I would take her to movies at least once a week; I would take her to the right parties at least once a week.”

Throughout her life, Marilyn would attract people who believed in her—busy people with packed lives of their own who still supported her past the point of exhaustion—but no one as much as Milton Greene. Milton usually slept three hours a night if he was lucky. He could stay up all night working or at the Copa, but he always woke at the crack of dawn. If he and Amy had crashed at the studio, he’d wake her up and send her to the Kanters’ with a coat thrown over her pajamas. Jay—who was also responsible for Marilyn—would already be shaving in the bathroom, and Amy would crawl into bed with Judy for a few more hours of sleep.

“At that point when we went to parties and theater and stayed over, we slept in the studio,” said Amy. “He had this wonderful big studio—but she couldn’t sleep there because there was only one bed. I said to Milton, ‘We have to get her a pied-à-terre in New York. She’s a young woman with two old married people and she needs a life.’” Lured by its hot meals, helpful staff, and proximity to Milton’s studio (and Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Spa), Marilyn settled on the Gladstone Hotel.

On the morning of January 19, Joe DiMaggio was spotted hauling stacks of Louis Vuitton trunks down East 52nd Street through the Gladstone’s revolving glass doors. Gloria Swanson had lived there in the twenties, but now there were bats, creaky hallways, and small, stuffy apartments—hardly the epitome of chic. Marilyn’s suite was dark and poky, crammed with shabby Victorian furniture. But she had her own parlor and kitchenette stocked with gin, bourbon, and sherry. Carl Sandburg’s bio of Abraham Lincoln was displayed proudly on the coffee table. (Marilyn would often treat a book as a centerpiece, more weighty and worthy than a Tiffany vase.)

Photographers camped outside the revolving doors, snapping her pulling on a pair of gloves or chatting on the pay phone in the gloomy little lobby. They caught her in glimpses—slinking out in her winter mink, Garbo hat hiding half her face as if she weren’t quite ready to be seen. For now, Marilyn wanted to protect her fuzzy, fledging life—so downy and vulnerable and wonderfully different from the pageantry of Sunset Boulevard. She loved huddling round the fire sipping sherry with Milton or ducking past the cameras for a late-night walk in Central Park.

Marilyn was much more generous with her teenage fans, who skipped school to wait hours outside the Gladstone, shivering with their Kodak Brownie cameras. To give them a little thrill, she’d whirl through the door, twirling runway style and blowing a kiss.

Sometimes Joe could be seen striding through the Gladstone lobby. They may have been separated, but DiMaggio was still the man Marilyn trusted the most. Marilyn continued to join Joe on day trips to Boston, dinners out with Dominic, and drinks at the Sherry-Netherland hotel. It was not uncommon to see Joe pulling up by the Gladstone in his blue Cadillac, with Marilyn flying out the lobby door, paparazzi ready to pounce. “What’s next, Marilyn?” “Are you back on with Joe, Marilyn?” It was all on such shaky ground—Marilyn had no answers, not even for herself. Neither did Joe. He could only hope, as he sped off like a fugitive chased by the flashing pack.

*   *   *

Now that Marilyn had finally emerged, she needed a private driver, leg waxes at Elizabeth Arden, bleaching at Enrico Caruso’s, and chaperones to bring her to meetings or shows. At this point, most of her wardrobe was still stashed in Connecticut, and Milton would frantically drive back and forth from Weston, slips, minks, opera gloves, and handbags strewn in the backseat.

Marilyn still clung to Milton in those wintry early months, slipping a gloved hand through the crook of his arm as he guided her through the Astor or the Elmo. She had a few old friends in New York that winter, mostly the Rat Pack, who were friends of Milton’s, too. There was Milton Berle, a lover turned friend from her chorus-girl days. Back then she was just another blonde cutlet, but Berle sensed that “there was nothing cheap about her. She wasn’t one of those starlets around town that you put one meal into then throw in the sack.… She had respect for herself. Marilyn was a lady.”