Marilyn

by Lois Banner

  20. On Marilyn and fellatio, see Mickey Rooney, Life Is Too Short (New York: Villard, 1991), 233; DS, interview with Amy Greene, in Spoto—AMPAS; AS, interview with Kendis Rochlin, in AS; Lawrence J. Quirk, The Kennedys in Hollywood (New York: Cooper Square, 2004), 221. On not using condoms, see Van Doren, Playing the Field, 115.

  21. Powdermaker, Hollywood: The Dream Factory, 235.

  22. Miller, Timebends, 359; ed. Greene, Milton’s Marilyn, 28

  23. On Marilyn and Alan Young, see Alan Young, Mr. Ed and Me (New York: St. Martin’s, 1994). On Charles Chaplin, I have used AS, interview with Arthur James, in AS, and LB, interview with Arthur James, June 25, 2010. I asked James about charges that he spent time in jail and thus couldn’t be trusted. He replied that he was a real estate developer living in Malibu, then a small town, when police buddies pulled him over on a DUI charge and he spent a night in jail. He became close to Charlie Chaplin Jr. when Charlie dated his sister, Janet. See also Malcolm Boyd, “Departures and Encounters,” in Chris Freeman and James J. Berg, eds., Love, West Hollywood: Reflections of Los Angeles (New York: Alyson, 2008), 222; and Winters, Shelley II, 42.

  24. LB, interview with Dave Heiser, November 24, 2008; LB, interview with Arthur Verge, September 29, 2009; AS, interview with Tommy Zahn, in AS. Kendis Rochlin, “Surfing Is One of Favorite Southland Beach Sports,” Los Angeles Times, August 11, 1945. In creating tandem surfing, surfers copied Muscle Beach bodybuilders who lifted girls on the beach into acrobatic positions.

  25. William Burnside, “My Life with the Young Monroe,” Observer, May 11, 1975.

  26. AP, interview with Edith Head, April 1960, in SE, “Holding a Good Thought.” Eve Arnold, Marilyn Monroe, 21.

  27. Summers, Goddess, 94–95; Graham, Confessions of a Hollywood Gossip Columnist, 141; Joan Greenson, “Memoir of Marilyn,” 74, in Greenson—UCLA; Maureen Reilly, Hollywood Costume Design by Travilla (Atgen, Pa.: Schiller, 2003), 80.

  28. See, for example, Sheilah Graham, “Sex Too Far,” Photoplay, February 1953, and Robert L. Heilbroner, “Marilyn Monroe: The Fabulous Story of Hollywood’s Biggest Buildup,” Cosmopolitan, May 1953.

  29. On Marilyn’s relationship with Carroll and Ryman, I have used DS, interviews with Lucille Ryman and with Michael Korda, in Spoto—AMPAS; and Guiles, Legend, 122–24. Guiles is the only Marilyn biographer to have interviewed Harry Lipton. Ryman is incorrect in stating that Marilyn first met Carroll when she caddied for him at a charity golf tournament in late August 1947. See “Why Women Hate Marilyn Monroe,” Movieland, October 1952, on the Marilyn-Ryman link.

  30. LB, interview with Barbara Rush and Noreen Nash, November 30, 2010. See also Marjorie Hillis, “Your Hopes in Pictures,” Photoplay, October 1938. A copy of the contract, dated December 7, 1947, was auctioned at Bonhams and Butterfields, June 14, 2009. See the catalog for the auction. It guaranteed Marilyn $100 a week; only John Carroll and Marilyn signed it. See also Lipton, “Marilyn’s the Most!,” Motion Picture, May 28, 1956.

  31. Lipton, “Marilyn’s the Most,” Motion Picture, May 28, 1956. On October 8, 1947, Louella Parsons called Marilyn “John Carroll’s new chick,” in her column. On October 11, 1947, Patricia Clary referred to Marilyn’s romance with John Carroll in a UP Wire Service story. On December 11, 1947, in his syndicated column Jimmy Fidler described an altercation between Lila Leeds and Marilyn in front of a nightclub. Leeds “straight armed Monroe,” according to Fidler. These cites are from Eubank, “Holding a Good Thought.”

  32. Clarice Evans, “I Was Marilyn Monroe’s Roommate,” Los Angeles Times, This Week Magazine, November 21, 1954. Helen Hunt, chief hairdresser at Columbia, stated that Marilyn always read a Christian Science prayer book under the hairdryer. Antonio Villani, interview with Hunt, in Villani, ed., “‘Hold A Good Thought for Me’: The Screenplay That Never Was,” 9, typescript, in GS.

  33. “The Unwritten Words of Whitey Snyder,” Runnin’ Wild, January 1994; Maury Allen, interview with Angelo Delucco, manager of Westwood Memorial Cemetery and Mortuary, in Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio? The Story of America’s Last Hero (New York: Dutton, 1975), 160.

  34. Gabler, Empire of Their Own, 258.

  35. Graham, Confessions, 136; Monroe, My Story, 55; AS, interview with Marion Marshall, in AS, October 22, 2009; LB, interview with Noreen Nash, July 10, 2010; LB, interview with Gloria Romanoff, September 18, 2008; Louella Parsons, Tell It to Louella, 219; Rosten, Marilyn: An Untold Story, 16.

  36. AS, interview with Marion Marshall, in AS; LB, interview with Marion Marshall; Monroe, My Story, 76; Ralph Roberts, “Mimosa.”

  37. Sidney Skolsky, Marilyn (New York: Dell, 1954), 54; Broccoli and Zec, When the Snow Melts, 39.

  38. Monroe, My Story, 76; Roberts, “Mimosa.”

  39. Glenn Loney, Unsung Genius: The Passion of Dancer-Choreographer Jack Cole (New York: F. Watts, 1984), 211; Bernard, ed., Bernard of Hollywood’s Marilyn, 10–11; Haspiel, Young Marilyn, 43–44; Kelly DiNardo, Gilded Lili: Lili St. Cyr and the Striptease Mystique (New York: Back Stage Books, 2007).

  40. Buskin, interview with Rand Brooks, in Blonde Heat, 33.

  41. MZ, interview with Fred Karger, in Zolotow—UT; LB, interview with Terry Wasdyke, August 16, 2009; LB, interview with Bennett Daubrey, November 20, 2009. Bennett was the son of Fred Karger’s sister, Mary Short. He told me that he never saw Marilyn in bed with Fred, as has been reported, but he walked in on her once by mistake as she sat naked at the dressing table in Fred’s bedroom.

  42. Monroe, My Story, 90–93; Kazan, Elia Kazan, 405–06.

  43. LB, interview with Terry Wasdyke, August 16, 2009.

  44. Bernard, ed., Bernard of Hollywood’s Marilyn, 11. Salka Viertel, a leader of the Hollywood German-Jewish refugee community, writes about Liesl Frank and her work with refugees in The Kindness of Strangers (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969), 219, 229. Bruno Frank died in 1945. See also Cornelius Schnauber, Hollywood Haven: Homes and Haunts of the European Emigrés and Exiles in Los Angeles (Riverside, Calif.: Ariadne, 1997). The address listed there for Liesl Frank is not the same as the addresses for Natasha Lytess.

  According to Donald Wolfe, in The Assassination of Marilyn Monroe, 254, Lytess had a photo of Fritzi Massary on her wall. Agent Paul Kohner, who had ties to the European immigrant community, got Lytess her job at Columbia.

  45. Beauchamp, Focus on Fame, 142; Armand Arburo, “The Power Behind Marilyn Is Her Talented Drama Coach,” Albuquerque Journal, April 20, 1953 (syndicated column).

  46. On Lytess’s influence on Marilyn, see Jane Wilkie, interview with Natasha Lytess, in Confessions of an Ex-Hollywood Fan Magazine Writer, 172–87; Hank Fardell, “That Soul Doesn’t Belong in That Body,” Movie Fan Magazine, April 1953; Harry Evans, “What Caused Marilyn Monroe?” Family Circle, June 1953; Natasha Lytess, “The Private Life of Marilyn Monroe,” Screen World, November 1953; Jack Wade, “The Two Worlds of Marilyn,” November 1954; Natasha Lytess, “Marilyn Owes Me Everything,” Movie Mirror, May 1957; Alex Joyce, “Marilyn at the Crossroads,” Photoplay, July 1957.

  47. Cassini, In My Own Fashion, 184–85.

  48. Milton Berle, Milton Berle: An Autobiography (New York: Delacorte, 1975), 265–66. Journalist Joe Hyams verified the Berle affair in his interview with DS, in Spoto—AMPAS.

  49. James Bacon, Hollywood Is a Four Letter Town (New York: Avon, 1977), 133. Hank Messick, The Beauties and the Beasts: The Mob in Show Business (New York: McCay, 1973); Norman Zierold, The Moguls (New York: Coward-McCann, 1969); Corinne Calvet, Has Corinne Been a Good Girl? (New York: St. Martin’s, 1988–9) 8–9; LeRoy, Take One, 210; Harry Brown, Kim Novak: Reluctant Goddess (New York: St. Martin’s, 1986), 44.

  50. Lester Cowan to Brad Sears, November 5, 1948; Bill Chaikin to Lester Cowan, March 14, 1949, in Lester Cowan—AMPAS.

  51. Gavin Lambert, Natalie Wood: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 121; Doug McClelland, ed., Starspeak: Hollywood on Everything (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987), 1957.

  52. Roberts, “Mimosa.
”

  53. Philippe Halsman, “Three Encounters with a Love Goddess: How A Shy Blonde with a Helpless Look Conquered a Whole World of Maledom,” Dreamgirl, January 1955.

  54. Beauchamp, Focus on Fame, 141.

  55. Garson Kanin, Hollywood: Stars and Starlets, Tycoons and Flesh-peddlers (New York: Viking, 1974), 277; William Bruce, “Meet the New Marilyn Monroe,” Movieland, November 1954. Graham, Confessions of a Hollywood Columnist, 132–33; MZ, interview with Whitey Snyder, in Zolotow—UT.

  56. James Haspiel, Young Marilyn (London: Smith Gryphon, 1988), 41.

  57. Russell Miller, Bunny: The Real Story of Playboy (London: Corgi, 1985), 48.

  58. Adele Whiteley Fletcher, “… So That the Memory of Marilyn Will Linger on,” Wagenknecht, ed. Marilyn, 81–82.

  59. Earl Wilson, “M-m-m-my Marilyn,” Silver Screen, April 1953.

  60. Kanin, Hollywood, 319; Crivello, Fallen Angels, 248.

  61. MZ, interview with Lytess, in Zolotow—UT. See also Michelangelo Capua, Yul Brynner: A Biography (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006), 65.

  62. I follow the account of Zanuck’s intentions in Buskin, Blonde Heat.

  63. Kazan, Elia Kazan, 405–06.

  64. Devlin, Relative Intimacy.

  65. Donna Hamilton to Diana McClellan, in McClellan, The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000), 417; Skolsky, Don’t Get Me Wrong, 231; AS, interview with Steffi Skolsky Sidney, in AS. LB, interview with Steffi Skolsky Slaver, October 2005. According to Robert LaGuardia, Monty: A Biography of Montgomery Clift (New York: Arbor House, 1977), 38, Kazan didn’t like homosexuals, which might explain his dislike of Lytess.

  66. See William J. Mann, Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910–1969 (New York: Viking, 2001); McClellan, The Girls; Axel Madsen, The Sewing Circle: Hollywood’s Greatest Secret: Female Stars Who Loved Other Women (Secaucus, N.J.: Carol, 1995); and Boze Hadleigh, Hollywood Lesbians (New York: Barricade, 1994).

  67. Kevin Starr, The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s (New York: Oxford, 1997), 350; and John Baxter, The Hollywood Exiles (New York: Taplinger, 1976), 214–30.

  68. Earl Wilson, “On Again, Off Again,” New York Post, December 1954, in NYPL; Truman Capote, “A Beautiful Child,” in Capote, Music for Chameleons (New York: Random House, 1975), 226.

  69. Letters in the Guido Orlando Papers—AMPAS pertain to the Lytess interview, published in European tabloids. They include: Lytess to Orlando, November 23, 1961; Lytess to Rome “Gentlemen,” December 16, 1961; David Skory to Orlando, May 23, 1962; Lytess to Orlando, May 30, 1962; Jean Neuncelle, France-Soir, to Orlando, May 30, 1962; Terence Feely, editorial director London International Press, to Orlando, July 30, 1962; and Bernard Valery to Orlando, December 26, 1961; January 8, 1962; July 15, 1962; August 20, 1962. A contract with France-Soir was signed by Lytess and Orlando as manager of Lytess. The Lytess interview in the Orlando Papers is the one published in The People, July 15, 1962. On Valery, see Obit., New York Times, June 13, 1984.

  70. Orlando published his autobiography as Confessions of a Scoundrel (Philadelphia: Winston, 1954).

  71. On the affair with Howard Hughes, see Wilson, Show Business Laid Bare, 58, and Patricia Lawford Stewart, with Ted Schwartz, The Peter Lawford Story: Life with the Kennedys, Monroe, and the Rat Pack (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1998), 153.

  72. Skolsky, Don’t Get Me Wrong, 49.

  CHAPTER 6

  1. I have reconstructed these events from Miller, Timebends, 303–07; Kazan, Elia Kazan, 409–12; and relevant biographies and memoirs.

  2. The guests are listed in Feldman’s date book in his papers at the American Film Institute. The men included Arthur Miller, Pat DiCicco, Elia Kazan, Raymond Hakim, and Jack Warner. The women, all starlets, included Mona Knox, Ruth Lewis, Cheryl Clark, and Diane Cassidy. Marilyn is referred to as “another girl.” Marion Marshall turned down an invitation.

  3. Miller, Timebends, 299.

  4. Monroe, My Story, 138.

  5. Miller, Timebends, 307.

  6. Sam Shaw, The Joy of Marilyn: In the Camera Eye (New York: Exeter, 1979), 22; AV, interview with Shaw, in Villani, “Hold a Good Thought.” DS, interview with Sam Shaw, in Spoto—DFI.

  7. Karnath, Sam Shaw, passim.

  8. Sam Shaw, “Memories,” in Brambilla, Mercurio, and Petricca, Marilyn Monroe, 249–50.

  9. LB, interview with Jack Larson, June 2, 2009; LB, interview with Diane Ladd, July 7, 2010; Shelley Winters, Shelley II, 68.

  10. As Shelley herself admits, she was vague on dates. Thus it’s doubtful that Laurence Olivier met Marilyn at her apartment. Olivier went to Hollywood for five months, from July to November 1950, to make Sister Carrie. Marilyn was then involved with Johnny Hyde, Natasha Lytess, and Joe Schenck 260–61. See Anthony Holden, Laurence Olivier (New York: Atheneum, 1988), 260–62. Dylan Thomas was also in Hollywood during the summer of 1950, not the spring of 1951. See John Malcolm Brinnen, Dylan Thomas in America: An Intimate Journey (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995).

  11. Winters, Shelley: Also Known as Shirley, 295.

  12. Quick Magazine, June 16, 1962; Winters, Shelley: Also Known as Shirley, 292–95; Lucy Freeman, Why Norma Jean Killed Marilyn Monroe (Mamaroneck, N.Y.: Hastings House, 1993), 31.

  13. She wrote a check to the regents of California on October 5, 1951; Movie Life carried a picture of her studying for her UCLA classes on the cover of its November 1952 issue. See also Robert Cahn, “The 1951 Model Blonde,” Collier’s, September 8, 1951. “Notes from a Lecture on Renaissance Art” are in Buchthal and Comment, eds., Fragments, 42–43.

  14. On Chekhov, I have used Marowitz, The Other Chekhov; Michael Chekhov, On the Technique of Acting (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), especially the introduction by Mel Gordon; and Richard Brestoff, The Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods (Lyme, N.H.: Smith and Kraus, 1995), 63–67. I have written about nineteenth-and early twentieth-century spiritualities in Finding Fran: History and Memory in the Lives of Two Women (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

  15. Stark Young, Glamour: Essays on the Art of the Theater (1925; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971). See also Eva Le Gallienne, The Mystic in the Theatre: Eleonora Duse (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1966).

  16. Mabel E. Todd, The Thinking Body (1937; Princeton: Prince ton Book Company, 1949).

  17. Roberts, “Mimosa”; Greenson, “Memoir of Marilyn,” 23–24. On Vesalius, see Jerome Tarshis, Andreas Vesalius: Father of Modern Anatomy (New York: Dial, 1969).

  18. Margot Fonteyn, Autobiography (London: Star Books, 1976), 184.

  19. Lotte Goslar, What’s So Funny? Sketches from My Life (Amsterdam: Harwood, 1998), 97, 117–18; Marianna Vogt, “Lotte Goslar: A Clown Between Borders,” Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri–Kansas City, 2007.

  20. LB, interview with Jack Larson, June 2, 2009; Roberts, “Mimosa.” Address book of Army Archerd, Daily Variety, March 29, 2010. Larson is best known for playing Jimmy Olsen in the original Superman movie and series. He was Montgomery Clift’s last companion.

  21. Monroe, My Story, 66–69. On Zsa Zsa Gabor, see “Why Women Hate Marilyn Monroe,” Movieland, October 1952.

  22. Philippe Halsman, “Three Encounters with a Love Goddess: How a Shy Blonde with a Helpless Look Conquered a Whole World of Maledom,” Dreamgirl Magazine, January 1955; Monroe, My Story, 72–73.

  23. AS, interview with Ralph Casey Shawhan, in AS; Goodman, The Fifty Year Decline, 234; Crown, interview with Walter Scott, in Crown, Marilyn at Twentieth Century–Fox, 68.

  24. Paul Weeks, “ExPress Agent Recalls Monroe’s Magic Appeal,” Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1962; Peer J. Oppenheimer, “Body and Soul,” Screen Magazine, May 1953. Aline Mosby, Los Angeles Daily News, August 23, 1952; Edward Halsey, “Strange Career of Marilyn Monroe,” Silver Screen, August 1955; LB, interview with Michael Selsman, October 25, 2009.

  25. Skolsky, Marilyn, 42. Merry Lewis, “The Row About Marilyn,” Movie Play, March 1954. Sheilah Gra
ham, Hollywood Revisited: A Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985), 114; Graham, The Rest of the Story (New York: Coward, McCann, 1964), 158.

  26. Henaghan, “My Love Affair with Marilyn Monroe,” Motion Picture, July 1955; Marilyn Monroe, “What I’ve Learned from Men,” Movieland, January 1954; Quick Magazine, June 16, 1962; DS, interview with Joe Hyams, in Spoto—AMPAS.

  27. Mike Connolly, “Farewell to Marilyn,” Screen Stories, November 1962. See also Val Holley, Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003), 6.

  28. Steffi Skolsky Slaver granted me an interview to correct what she said were mistakes by earlier biographers in their use of interviews with her. Among those mistakes, she said, was the allegation that her father had given Marilyn barbiturates and amphetamines from Schwab’s drugstore. He only recommended doctors to her and was concerned about her drug taking. LB, interview with Steffi Skolsky Slaver, September 14, 2006; Strasberg, Marilyn and Me, 11.

  29. Alfred O’Malley, “They Cover Hollywood,” no citation, 1938, in Skolsky—AMPAS.

  30. See Cahn, “The 1951 Model Blonde,” and Parsons, Tell It to Louella, 223–24; Bernard, Requiem for Marilyn, 50.

  31. Imogene Collins, “I Want to Be Loved,” Modern Screen, November 1952, has salary figures.

  32. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (New York: Wadsworth, 2010), 160; LB, interview with Joshua Greene, January 3, 2011.

  33. See “Another Big Answer to TV,” People Today, September 12, 1951.

  34. Sam Shaw, “Memories,” in Brambilla, Mercurio, and Petricca, Marilyn Monroe, 249; Jack Lait, “Broadway and Elsewhere,” Sunday Times Signal, Zanesville, Ohio (syndicated column), September 2, 1951. Meta and Edie Shaw went on the visit to the Met, and they remember their father providing a running commentary on the art. LB, interview with Edith Shaw Marcus and Meta Shaw Stevens, April 15, 2010.

  35. Arnold, Marilyn Monroe, 9.

  36. Buchthal and Comment, eds., Fragments, 43; Marilyn Monroe, “I Live as I Please,” Motion Picture, June 1953.